Teaching the history of the book as an object for rethinking history education

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by: Education Librarian Pia Russell (UVic), Professor Graham McDonough (UVic), Emerging Indigenous Scholar Chaa’winisaks (RRU), and Assistant Teaching Professor Lyndze Harvey (UVic)

Special Collections and University Archives holds a unique collection of textbooks used in British Columbia’s public schools since the province joined the Confederation of Canada in 1871.  Curated by Education Librarian, Pia Russell, the British Columbia Historical Textbooks collection is a well-used and growing corpus of school books that records the remarkable and often challenging history of BC.  The collection is enhanced by additional critical and interpretive components such as lesson plans and international collaborations made possible through funding by the University Librarian’s Office, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), University College London, the Georg Eckert Institute, UVic’s Centre for Youth and Society, Bibliothek and Information International, and the Kalman Award for International Heritage Studies.  Through community engaged partnerships and meaningful student talent mentorship, BCHT has developed into a thriving public history project at UVic.

During the 2023-24 and 2024-25 academic years, BCHT was included as a feature element in four for-credit courses offered in the Department of History (HSTR 329A) and the Faculty of Education (EDCI 303, EDCI 432, and EDCI 404).  During these courses, students spent multiple class visits in the SCUA classroom analysing print and digital copies of the BCHT collection.  Through robust object-based learning, students completed rigorous assignment objectives to critique representations of topics such as settler colonialism, imperialism, racism, sexism, and classism. 

Students in these courses are fascinated by the textual and visual rhetoric of the textbooks but also by the many found objects and marginalia.  It is common to find pressed flowers, elaborate children’s doodles, and even old drivers’ licenses!  Exploring this collection and completing assignments that thoughtfully analyse these objects is a deeply memorable reflection from many history and education students. 

Student feedback is consistently transformative and appreciative: “The textbook assignment was unlike any assignment I had done in the past.”  And, “[t]hese are amazing!  I haven’t stopped talking about my selected book and the historical textbooks!”

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As a result of student time exploring the BCHT collection, future historians and teachers participated in the important task of acknowledging how history was taught in the past, proposing how historical consciousness can be more inclusive today, and asking how future generations will perceive the relationship between political power and knowledge in today’s curriculum. 

Photo captions: students of ‘EDCI 303: Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Canadian Education’ using the BCHT collection in the Special Collections and University Archives classroom. March 17, 2025.  Photo credit: Pia Russell.