“The gap in achievement between students from the mainstream culture and those outside of it continues to grow. In classrooms where teachers depend on practices based on and steeped in mainstream culture, students from outside that culture will be left behind. In these classrooms, already-marginalized students are further challenged and often fail, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure.”

At its best, the classroom provides equal opportunities for all students. If you recognize the decisive role that a student’s culture plays in his or her ability to succeed, you will also recognize the importance of using approaches that take into account the culture of non-mainstream students.” (Pg vii)

Using this Resource

Structure of the Book

Each chapter of the Paint the Rails book allows teachers the opportunity to open up important learnings within the classroom. Activities and lesson suggestions can easily correspond with a variety of objectives and outcomes prescribed by the current Program of Studies.

Each chapter in this resource, includes 3 areas:

Inquiring Deeper and Lesson Tool suggestions
Call to Action
Additional Tools and Resources

Cross-Cultural Communication

We all communicate with others all the time - in our homes, in our workplaces, in the groups we belong to, and in the community. No matter how well we think we understand each other, communication is hard. Just think, for example, how often we hear things like, “He doesn’t get it,” or “She didn’t really hear what I meant to say....”

Culture is often at the root of communication challenges. Our culture influences how we approach problems and how we participate in groups and in communities. When we participate in groups, we are often surprised at how differently people approach their work together.

Culture is a complex concept with many different definitions. But, simply put, “culture” refers to a group or community with which we share common experiences that shape the way we understand the world. It includes groups that we are born into, such as gender, race, ability or national origin. It also includes groups we join or become part of. For example, we can become part of a new culture by moving to a new region, by a change in our economic status, or by acquiring a disability. When we think of culture this broadly, we realize we all belong to many cultures at once.

Our histories are a critical piece of our cultures. Historical experiences - whether five years ago or ten generations ago - shape who we are. Knowledge of our history can help us understand ourselves and one another better. Exploring the ways in which various groups within our society have related to each other is key to opening channels for cross-cultural communications.

The purpose of the Paint the Rails book is to offer a tool teachers can utilize to bring different stories and ways of living and knowing to our students. By teaching and incorporating different worldviews, perspectives and cultural ways into your lessons and practices, you are making education accessible and promoting equity. Do not just teach about different cultures and knowledge, but have them engage, practice and utilize it.

General Activities that can be used throughout the book

Engage with the Knowledge in Your Community

While delving into this book with students, teachers can make it engaging and connect with community by inviting local seniors from different communities to come in and share their history of place and community. Always value people’s time and offer an honoraria or gift card to recognize their contribution.

Engage with the Historical Timeline

The historical timeline of events is one of the most important tools in the book chapters and allows students to deepen their understanding of the diverse stories that make up Canadian history and encourages dialogue on the evolution of citizenship and inclusion. There are many ways these timelines can be used in the classroom; we provide two examples of an approach below.

Note that the historical milestones in the chapters are not an exclusive list and there are some dates and events that are disputed. The intention of this activity is to get students delving into a deeper history of Canada and thinking about how this plays out in our present day.

Circle Dialogue

Print the milestones. You can add images, mount these on cardstock and create reusable milestones to come back to time and again.
Give each student a milestone to reflect on. Ask them to sit and write a reflection on “Were they aware of this history? Why is it important for us to know?”
In small groups or as a larger group, have students in a circle dialogue sharing their historical event and a brief reflection. Have them place their milestone on the wall or in the center of the circle for others to see.
After a full circle, allow discussion. Did anything surprise you from this history? What does this history tell us about where power lays in our community?

Timeline Matching

Print out the historical events from the chapter without the dates. Give students a blank timeline with the dates and have them paste where each of the events belong. Leave some space for them to write, in their own words, what each historical event was. This may be done in pairs and/or groups.

Extension: This could be used as a research assignment where each group needs to gain more knowledge about a historical event and present it to the class. The purpose of it is to understand how the past has influenced and shaped today. You can use a KWL chart to help students brainstorm:

https://www.mikmaweydebert.ca/home/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Pg_129_BLM_KWLTemplate.pdf.

Poster Making

Have students work in pairs or small groups to take a milestone from the chapter and to create a poster through researching more about the event and sharing thoughts on how this event impacted Canadian history. Have the students place their posters as a gallery around the classroom to facilitate informal conversations and learning.
Have students identify one additional historical event that has shaped the area being explored in that chapter and integrate it into the gallery.

Make a Human Museum

Assign student groups one of the historical events and have them display this event in their own way. It can be written, oral, role-play, dance, whatever the student decides. Make the timeline come to life. Then, have each group present the events. You can also encourage other classes in your school to come and view it as a human museum.

Calls to Action

The last page of each chapter includes one call to action that young people can engage with in order to stand in solidarity and practice active allyship. Engage students in these calls and consider using these calls to action as assignments in the classroom.

We invite you to download and print black and white versions of each chapter's significant timelines

Printable Timelines

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