Delving Into GNS Archives

January 17, 2020

Academics

GNS

The Grade 9 IB Individuals and Societies classes are starting a new unit, and are using local school resources to help with their learning. Students had a chance to speak with Mr. Brambley as he spoke about the archives at GNS and gave a tour of the space.

“We are embarking on a unit called ‘Building Canada,'” explained Mrs. Nielson. “Throughout this unit, we are going to work with pieces of historical evidence, and we wanted to give the students some exposure to historical evidence in our school. Using archival information and working with Mr. Brambley gives them a chance to tap into some of our school’s history and connect with our school.”

Mr. Brambley talked about primary and secondary evidence to the students, including showing older photos and artifacts such as a bell, megaphone and a cricket bat.

Getting to know the archives available at the school is used as a jumping-off point for the new unit and will help when they are working with other pieces of historical evidence such as telegrams, maps, journal extracts and more. All of the information the students are learning will go towards the creation of a historian’s toolbox.

“We don’t want them to just memorize a whole bunch of useless facts,” said Mrs. Nielson. “We want them to work with pieces of evidence and use critical thinking and collaboration skills to come up with ideas, solutions and narrative … Our focus is on skills and one of the historian toolbox skills is working with sources.”

Students were curious about the artifacts they were shown and had many questions when they went down to the archives to look around.

“I did not realize we had archives at the school,” said Emilia Giommi ’23, adding she wasn’t aware of the broader history of the school that went back before amalgamation in 1986.

“The archives displays things from both schools and there are specific artifacts and notes,” added Lizzie Emslie ’23.

One of the items that jumped out to the students was a photo from Norfolk House School where students were lined up doing drills with books on their heads.

Mrs. Nielson said she hopes the students are getting excited about the history and the work that historians do when using pieces of historical evidence to tell a story.

“Sometimes it seems like you read it in a book and it doesn’t come alive for you, but when you see the megaphone you’re like ‘yeah I can picture that,'” said Mrs. Nielson. “But, it also helps to connect you to your past and it helps to connect you to your parents or your grandparents. It gives you an appreciation of how things were different. So, I like the idea of connecting real-life people and stories. I think whenever there’s a personal story attached to anything it creates meaning for students and they can relate.”