{"id":372,"date":"2016-09-27T13:30:13","date_gmt":"2016-09-27T13:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/garthnichols\/?p=372"},"modified":"2016-09-27T13:30:13","modified_gmt":"2016-09-27T13:30:13","slug":"experiencing-360-degrees-of-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/garthnichols\/classroom\/experiencing-360-degrees-of-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"Experiencing 360 Degrees of Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, 8 Havergal students and some 4 faculty took part in the 6 Degrees Toronto Conference. This conference was put together by the Institute for Canadian Citizenship<\/a>\u00a0to answer the challenge put forth by Rt. Hon. Adrienne Clarkson:\u00a0\"screen-shot-2016-09-27-at-8-27-03-am\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This was a three-day experience to explore the greatest social and political issues of our time: climate change, inclusion, immigration and prosperity. Our students who attended are going to be the curators of this conversation for Havergal.<\/p>\n

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\"\"On Monday, we heard Naomi Klein give the LaFontaine-Baldwin lecture and were stunned by her force of language and message. She spoke about our national narrative and how this narrative is a challenge for environmental progress, and an obstacle for improving the relationship with indigenous people. In her follow up commentary for the Globe and Mail entitled “Canada’s Founding Myths Hold Us Back from Addressing Climate Change<\/a>“, she writes:<\/p>\n

“And the push for new pipelines \u2013 often sold as \u201cnation building\u201d \u2013 continues to tear us apart.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is significant for our Havergal students to hear. Last week I wrote about my message to Havergal students,<\/a> and my big message was to be curious about others, to build understanding of different narratives so that we might know our own, and craft our own. This is what Naomi Klein is asking of our country: to recognise that the stories that we tell are more than just stories – they are messages, values…they are political.<\/p>\n

The students big take away was the honoring of our indigenous heritage in song and in the address. With the TDSB now acknowledging our mutual history, perhaps we are beginning a generation with a new narrative that will support “environmental justice”. Naomi Klein writes:<\/p>\n

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Today, we have federal and provincial governments that talk a lot about reconciliation. But this will remain a cruel joke if non-Indigenous Canadians do not confront the why<\/em> behind those human-rights abuses. And the why, as the Truth and Reconciliation report states, is simple enough: \u201cThe Canadian government pursued this policy of cultural genocide because it wished to divest itself of its legal and financial obligations to Aboriginal people and gain control over their land and resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

The goal, in other words, was to remove all barriers to unrestrained resource extraction. This is not ancient history. Across the country, Indigenous land rights remain the single greatest barrier to planet-destabilizing resource extraction, from pipelines to clear-cut logging.<\/p>\n

And there can be no reconciliation while the crime is still in progress.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Powerful words of a new narrative that we must continue here at Havergal in our Grade 9 Georgraphy, Grade 10 Can. History, Environmental Science and throughout English curricula.<\/p>\n

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On Monday and Tuesday, students took part in the 360 conversations.<\/p>\n

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\"6degrees-students\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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\u00a0These disrupted the usual set up of a panel of experts by experimenting with “Exchanges” described as “…closer to lively conversations over dinner than panel discussions…” and that is accurate. The only differentiator is that you’re chatting with the likes of:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n