Saint John history teacher, students honoured for digging up Hidden History

A class project at a Saint John high school has put unsung New Brunswick history in the spotlight and helped earn the teacher a Governor General's award.

Connie Shea was one of seven teachers from across the country honoured with a 2024 Governor General's History Award for Excellence in Teaching, for her "exceptional commitment to sharing Canadian history from a new perspective."

Shea won the award for Hidden Histories, a project that saw grades 11 and 12 students in Indigenous studies at St. Malachy's create 10 digitally interactive postcards, each featuring a little known subject from the past of the province or Wabanaki territory.

Grand Chief Membertou, for example, was a Wabanaki leader from the 1600s who led peaceful relations with French settlers. Sarah Edmonds, a farm girl from Magaguadavic, was an American Civil War soldier and spy. And Mary Huestis Pengilly, a best-selling author in the mid-1800s, lived in Saint John and Fredericton and advocated for people who were mentally ill.

"We have all these very cool and important figures and events that aren't well known," said Shea.

New Brunswick's demographics have shifted and so has the way people think about history, she said. It's important to reflect everyone's stories and have students feel seen, she added.

The idea for Hidden Histories sprang in part from an anti-racism workshop put on last year by BGC of Greater Saint John, formerly known as the Boys and Girls Club, said Shea.

Deidre Knox, a BGC educator, taught students about the history of marginalized groups in Canada and led them in reflection on its impact and ways to create an equitable future.

Students were then encouraged to follow up by doing something outside the classroom to show the community what they'd learned.

"It was very moving. You can tell that they really took in the stuff that we covered," said Knox.

Hidden Histories is what they came up with, inspired by a similar project by a Toronto artist, who gave them permission to use his model and offered a bit of advice, said Shea.

Students hit the internet looking for local stories, compiled a list of about 30 potential topics and voted on which ones to feature on postcards.

They focused on Black communities, women, First Nations and the 2SLGBTQ+ community.

One of the subjects they chose, Edward Mitchell Bannister, was a significant Black artist, born in Saint Andrews in 1828, and a conductor on the Underground Railroad.

Bannister's works are in prestigious institutions, including the Smithsonian, the Whitney Museum in New York, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem.

Students created an artistic representation of Bannister and his story for the front of a postcard, a write-up for the back that described his life, accomplishments and significance and a website to house more information, accessible via a QR code.

Mabel French was another person they featured. 

French was a significant leader in the women's suffrage movement and the first woman to graduate from law school in New Brunswick, in 1905.

"The more I read about her, she was absolutely amazing," said Shea, who — even as someone who has studied history at university and taught it for many years — had never heard of French before.

After French helped women in New Brunswick win the right to vote, she moved to British Columbia and continued similar efforts there.

"To uncover these stories of significant people that did these amazing things was very cool and very interesting for kids," said Shea.

A hidden treasure

It was like finding hidden treasure, she said, and students were also captivated by the question of why these stories hadn't been told much before.

Another thing that made the project work was that students got to choose their role, she said. They could work on the art, the research or the social media. 

"It's magic," to see students have a sense of agency in their own learning, she said. 

Even more significantly, she said, they knew it wasn't just for a mark in class.

"This project was going to go beyond the walls of the school and they felt that kind of responsibility."

They wanted to do the stories justice, said Shea, and they rose to the occasion."I'm still so amazed, immensely proud of of the work that they produced and that they're still producing today."

Teachers like Shea are helping students explore history more deeply, connect the past to the present and become citizens with a better understanding of Canada and their place in it, said Melony Ward, president and CEO of Canada's History Society, in a news release about the Governor General's award.

More than 500 Hidden History postcards were distributed in the Saint John area for people to find and they are being redistributed now, said Shea.

Meanwhile, St. Malachy's students are working on a second round of postcards, she said, which is focused on on Black history in Canada and the Maritimes. It's to be released in February, for Black History Month.