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Social Studies

Gaining some perspective
The students in the Social Studies Department at Shawnigan got to experience something a little bit different in their classrooms. They got to feel what it was like to hear the warning rattle as it screamed across the trenches sounding the alarm as chlorine and mustard gas descended on the troops during the First World War. They felt what it was like to desperately position the gas mask on their face before they took a breath that might be their last. They examined the beauty that can be created from a shell casing, and they experienced the scratch of the wool jacket the soldiers of Canada would have worn in the Great War of 1914-1918.  They examined papers of loss and love between soldiers and their parents and their wives. The horrors of war played out in paper and pencil on censored attestation papers.
 
Thanks to the generous offering of the Canadian War Museum, the students at Shawnigan got to interact with actual relics and primary sources from the First World War and, in doing so, continued to build on their understanding of historical significance and historical perspectives. The reality that the war continues to live on and, in many cases, even be fought even here in the 21st Century, was driven home as tangible connections between the past and the present literally sat in the palms of our student’s hands. History, the story of all of us, remains critical in the education of all citizens of Canada both young and old so that we might use what we have learned to build a better Canada and thus a better world.
 
Social Studies is about exploring our place in the world and how it is we arrived at this moment in History. This knowledge will better aid us in navigating an uncertain and often frightening future, but we can do it now with a little bit more perspective on how yesterday can inform tomorrow.

– Tom Lupton
 
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We acknowledge with respect the Coast Salish Peoples on whose traditional lands and waterways we live, learn and play. We are grateful for the opportunity to share in this beautiful region, and we aspire to healthy and respectful relationships with those who have lived on and cared for these lands for millennia.