TFS - Canada's International School

Sean D., student Like his teacher Mme Perrin, acquiring knowledge of history is important to Sean D., a Level II student. "I want to know about our own and other cultures, and how they shaped themselves, before I am out in the world," he says. In class they examined the roles of men and women in Canada and the impact World War I had RQWKRVHUROHV´,KDGQRLGHDWKDWPHQ were conscripted and that, as a result, women had to take over the jobs of men, which changed Canadian society," he says. Sean is also fascinated by the societal effects that one action or incident can have. Take the catalyst for World War I, when a Bosnian Serb activist assassinated an Austrian archduke. Or the 1917 Halifax explosion, which he researched IRUKLV5HPHPEUDQFH'D\SURMHFW´,QRQH day, one minute, everything can change; if not for that, history would have been so different, so many people's lives would have been different." Martine Perrin, teacher "History helps us understand and answer questions about democracy, such as, why LVLWVRGLIÀFXOWIRUFLYLOL]DWLRQVWRDFKLHYH" Why do we often make the same mistakes?" says Martine Perrin, a history teacher at the Senior School. One of the courses Mme Perrin teaches is Level II history, which deals with Canada from the First World War to current day. This breadth allows her students to make important connections, both personal and as citizens. "They can relate their learning to family stories about relatives who served in the World Wars. They can now be part of those stories because of their understanding," says Mme Perrin. "They can also see the echoes of history in our own time, even if the context is different, from the Armenian genocide to the Rohingya crisis today, 100 years later," she adds. Mme Perrin likes how teaching the course in French gives students a range of resources when it comes to research. "It goes beyond language; they can discover different points of view on a subject, whether it is the Canadian, Australian, British and French points of view, or more," she says. An advocate for the idea that the more they know, the more they'll grow, Mme Perrin relishes seeing her students develop through NQRZOHGJHDQGFULWLFDOWKLQNLQJ´7KHJUHDWHU their knowledge, the more conscious they are that they have a choice in our world, that they can forge their own opinions and clearly articulate them. They can evaluate others' opinions as well and consider 'maybe I didn't think about that before,' " she says. History 14 TFS ENTRE NOUS 2018

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