Today marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day. This annual date serves not only as an official commemoration of the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust, and the millions of other victims of Nazism, but to promote Holocaust education throughout the world.
For more than a decade, UVic has played a leading role in Holocaust studies. Home to the I-witness Holocaust Field School (the first of its kind for undergraduate students at a Canadian university when it launched in 2010), the Faculty of Humanities also offers a master’s stream in Holocaust studies (the only one of its kind in Canada).
In the ongoing SSHRC-funded work led by UVic Professor of Germanic and Slavic Studies Charlotte Schallié, our Head of Advanced Research Services, Matt Huculak, is part of an international team of researchers for the Narrative Art & Visual Storytelling in Holocaust and Human Rights Education interdisciplinary project. As stated on their website, their mission is a “multiperspectival, participatory, arts-and-human-rights-based collaboration among academics, educators, Holocaust survivors, and artists for teaching & learning about the Holocaust in diverse, international public contexts.”
As part of this mission, they offer free and accessible visual storytelling resources in order to engage in dialogue-based teaching & learning processes for newer generations, including a podcast series. The latest conversation about Pedagogy and Narrative Art in Human Rights and Education is now available here. Relatedly, our University Archives is home to the Holocaust and World War II Memory Collection and we also have a Holocaust LibGuide.
These resources reflect the focus of both UVic and UVic Libraries’ commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, specifically UN SDG Goal 16 on peace and justice, as the UVic community continues to tackle contemporary issues of hatred, racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, ethnic conflict and genocide.
(on behalf of the Communications, Events, and Community Engagement Operational Group (CECE-OG): Christine Walde, Emily Garry, Inba Kehoe, Jennifer Wells, Lara Wilson, and Lisa Abram)
This book provides a comprehensive overview of navigating the on-going systemic challenges, hardships, and problems facing many indigenous teacher education programs today, helping to foster a commitment to developing quality indigenous teacher education programs that are sustainable, distinctive and excellent. However, despite a growing cadre of indigenous peoples working in teacher education, there is still a noticeable gap between the uptake of what is being taught in conventional teacher education programs, and how this translates to what we see student teachers doing in the classroom. The often tricky and complex nature of indigenous teacher education programming also means that there are multiple realities, approaches and pathways that require greater communication, collaboration, and cooperation. The very nature of this complexity, the book suggests, requires a strength-based and future-focused approach built on trust, integrity, courage and respect for indigeneity, as well as an understanding of what it means to be indigenous. The examples and experiences presented identify a number of promising practices that work well in current indigenous teacher education programs and beyond. By promoting a greater appreciation for the inclusion of culturally relevant practices in teacher education, the book aims to breathe new life into the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of indigenous teacher education programs moving forward.
Knowing Home attempts to describe the creative vision of Indigenous scientific knowledge and technology that is derived from an ecology of a home place. The traditional wisdom component of Indigenous Science—the values and ways of decision-making—assists humans in their relationship with each other, the land and water, and all of creation. Knowing Home weaves Indigenous perspectives, worldviews, and wisdom practices into the science curriculum. It provides a window into the scientific knowledge and technological innovations of the Indigenous peoples of Northwestern North America, providing numerous examples and cases for developing science lessons and curricula. Knowing Home shows how Indigenous perspectives have the potential to give insight and guidance as we attempt to solve the complex environmental problems of the 21st century.
Dr. Gloria Snively is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria where she taught science methods, environmental/marine education, and culture courses. She was Director of the Graduate Program in Environmental Education. For 12 years, she was involved with the Asia Pacific Network whose purpose is to strengthen links between the research community and school-based environmental education in the Asia-Pacific region. Her work with Indigenous education spans 4 decades and has always been inspired by Indigenous leaders. She enjoyed giving natural history talks and walks to students, teachers, park interpreters, First Nations and community groups for 50 years; she prefers to explore forest, ponds and seashores first-hand.
Dr. Wanosts’a7 Lorna Williams OBC walking in peace is Lil’wat of the St’at’yem’c First Nation. Her life has been devoted to promoting and restoring Indigenous culture and language. She worked as an Indigenous educator and language specialist for more than 50 years in diverse settings, including Indigenous communities, public schools, and adult education settings. Dr. Williams recently retired from the University of Victoria as Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Knowledge and Learning (co-appointment with Faculty of Education and Department of Linguistics) and an associate professor, where she developed and delivered an innovative series of courses on learning and teaching in an Indigenous world.
When stage director Will Weigler analyzed nearly 100 stories from people about their most unforgettable experiences at the theatre, he realized that even though the plays were very different, they all had one thing in common. After discovering just what it was that made them so astonishing, he turned the results of his research into a vocabulary of staging strategies that anyone can access to powerfully express the stories they want to tell through theatre. Combining theory with application, “The Alchemy of Astonishment” is a useful resource for scholars, educators, students, theatregoers, and theatre artists of every kind. For those who facilitate devised theatre with communities, this book and its supplementary deck of teaching cards offer professional artists and the people with whom they work a shared language that will allow them to meet as equitable partners in the creative co-authorship and staging of dynamic and compelling plays.