 The journey of OTF is the journey of all the teachers and teacher federations, I think, across Canada as we've begun to grow in our understanding of our Indigenous brothers and sisters, our neighbours and our friends. So, if I go back into kind of the beginnings of it, I would say in some around 1998, the President of Ontario Teachers Federation, Liz Barclay, was inspired through her interactions with community and with education to join with Indigenous leaders to work on what was then the Canadian Aboriginal Festival. And so we partnered with Indigenous organisations to make sure that we had a wonderful festival that for many years took place here in Toronto and then later moved to the COPS Stadium in Hamilton. And as part of that, we made sure that there were teaching resources available, that there were all kinds of books and ideas, and our wonderful, wonderful partners made sure that there were many other things that you could do in terms of entertainment or shopping or exposure to cultural and sacred items and to the stories. People from all over Ontario brought their classrooms down for the Aboriginal Festival, which was held on the solstice. And it was, I think, a real turning point on who we are and where we came from. So, you know, I gathered some materials because this is part of our history and it's part of our growth. This is one of the handouts that we gave in 2008, which teachers would pick up. So we have some lesson plans and some ideas from grade three up to grade eight with links to heritage and citizenship, to history, and to Canada and world connections in terms of looking at our Indigenous neighbors and realizing that we are all part of the same community. That was part of the journey, but it began to grow. It took a long time to grow in Canada, but it did grow. And so around 2003, shortly after the election of the Liberal government, the government determined that there was a hole in the education system, that we weren't addressing the needs in Ontario of being able to teach a real history of Indigenous people and do it with respect. And so they created at that time the Aboriginal Education Office, and OTF was the voice of teachers there. And we worked with elders and representatives of different communities, many of them chiefs, and we tried to decide among ourselves what a realistic and respectful education would look like and sound like. At one point in the journey, this particular office said, OTF, you understand how to teach. Could you go and create a resource that we could give to every teacher in Ontario? We can give it to every school that gives them the definitive how to teach for FNMI education, although we didn't call it FNMI education. Remember, we were still using Aboriginal at the time, and then over time, that office changed to be the Indigenous Education Office and then became FNMI. So we were part very early in, and we were given that task. And talking to people here at OTF, they were excited, but they're teachers. And one of the first things you understand as a teacher is don't get ahead of your students or they'll never catch up. And we felt that our classrooms and our teachers weren't ready at that time because we were still living in a place of two solitudes in this province. So there were classrooms of primarily non-Indigenous kids who had no idea what the life of Indigenous kids looked like sound like. Some of them, I mean, thought that Indigenous kids didn't exist anymore. Others were in a place in their journey where they saw them only as people of the past, not realizing that they had lives just as, you know, as daring and exciting and boring at times as they did. And so a lot of consideration was given to what would meet the needs. How do we address the beginnings? We started with our summer academy workshops. Those are three-day workshops for teachers where we were teaching Aboriginal, at that time using the word Aboriginal, perspectives, later Indigenous perspectives. And we looked at culture and art and history and sacred and non-sacred traditions. And how do you apply that in terms of linkages to the curriculum, in terms of citizenship? You know, well beyond history and social sciences, because people who are real people exist in all areas of life. So we were excited and those very first programs in, I'm going to say, man, I'm going to say probably 2009, 2000. Yeah, maybe around 2009. They started, the first ones were hugely undersubscribed by our teachers, which is so unusual because everything else is always full, full to the breaking point. So we have to stop them and say, why? The government says you want this massive, overwhelming resource. You offer a three-day course, but nobody's taking it. If they're not taking it, would they open a book? Would they do further research? What do we need to bridge the gap, to bring the two solitudes together? Somewhere around that time, the person who looks after a lot of our professional learning and our contacts with different organizations was in Israel at a very difficult time in Israel's history. And she came across a program where they brought together children in the classrooms, Israeli kids and Arab kids, and they had to bring their grandparents in and the focus was food. And they said, share with us something that you love that is a huge part of your family's tradition and cook it for us and tell the story. And through that food, and through the people, they began to create gaps so that close gaps, because when the children and their grandparents came across people who said, you know, Arabs are nothing but scum and we need to eliminate them because they're just taking. Or Israelis are nothing but scum and we need to eliminate them because they're only about taking. They would stop and they would remember their time cooking and sharing food and talking about each other's cultural traditions. And they were able to bridge through their sameness, the differences. And that was an aha moment. That teaching is often all about those aha moments. And that was the birth of something we call the books of life. So this was a really interesting project. We went back to the government and we said, instead of creating this gigantic, this big resource that teachers may not be ready to use yet, let's start with breaking down the two solitudes. So let's find some classrooms where there are predominantly Indigenous kids. And let's find some classrooms where there are not Indigenous kids. And let's have them talk about their lives. And then let's create an exchange between the two communities. And create a conversation at that time, mostly through letters that would allow them to understand each other on a more human level. And this took a lot of work from the teachers, but it also gave them, I think, a tremendous platform for building their own learning. So the government funded this. It was way less expensive than doing this big program that likely nobody would use. And so books of life brought the teachers in who were chosen. And there were 90, 90 separate classrooms at the time that were chosen. Each teacher was given a thousand dollars, which back then was a fair amount of money. They were giving training in storytelling. They were given training in how to set up sharing circles. They were given training in book binding. They were given training in how to facilitate discussions that would bring out a deeper level of information from their students. And I can tell you, I mean, some of the stuff here is just crazy. So we have boxes and boxes as the books of life. And it took on the life of its own. So this one is from the Northern Lights Secondary School in Morsony. And in 2011, 2012, these students got together and they talked about what their life looked like. This particular group was very big on collages. And yeah, like a lot of teenage kids, they're big on cars. They're big on Canada. They're big on, you know, believe. They're big on sports. So a lot of text heavy stuff, but you know, pictures of their community, things that they felt were so important to them that maybe, maybe other people in other students across Ontario wouldn't know. So, you know, this was just one community that went through and talked about all of the things that were, that this particular group liked. Other books, this is stories from the Four Directions. That's how they chose to link their stories. How do, how do we take our stories and link them to the Four Directions? What makes them important? So they talked about honesty. And they, they celebrated the craft work that they did as part of this. So this teacher brought in an elder to, to reinforce the teachings of older skills. And then the people, the children in the classroom, the youth in the classroom engaged in it, you know. And, and I, and poems here, people will hate you, rate you, shake you and break you, but how strong you stand is what makes you. And suddenly my ancestors are behind me. They still, they say, watch, listen. You are the result of the love of fountains. Because all kids messaged, messaged, they had drum-making and they recorded this journey. Each kid got a copy. It was wonderful. Wonderful. The stories were amazing. Some of the books are fantastically and professionally bound. Others come straight from the heart. But in this book, they use the pictographs of their people and they tell the stories in English and Anishinaabe. So that the two languages are together on a page because people without language are no longer people. And that was really important lesson of discovery. For not just this class, but when this book went to other classrooms, the same discussions happened. I, I, this is really so much the genesis of, of where we went afterwards. This was kind of the mother of it all. I do believe this one is expressions of residential school. I'll tell you, we weren't talking about residential schools. When this project was started, this school did, this school did their research and they decided it would be important to learn about residential schools, create art, create poetry, put together photographs, uncover the pain. It is mine. It enters as love changing me, using me. And this is wonderful, powerful stuff. And then as it goes on and we start thinking, you know, working through the book, imagine how much other children across this, this province learned from the wisdom of other classrooms. I mean, that's a deep, deep learning, deep, deep learning, wonderful stuff. And there are some that, that what's in the name in, in this classroom, primarily non-indigenous kids, they were, they were very much taken by the idea of spirit animals. And so each child had the opportunity to choose, if they could choose their spirit animal and not go through a journey where the spirit animal chose them, what would they choose and why? This one, my name is Caleb. It is a Hebrew name that means whole hearted. My mom and dad gave me this name. They named me Caleb because it's a name from the Bible, from nature, I think. I would be a fox because I can run fast and I'm strong. So this was another way of approaching it in a way that, that was respectful, finding our place in Canada. These were, these were students in Ottawa from, from a, an ELL class. And this was one of the unintended consequences. These are non-indigenous kids, but most of the kids in this school are English as a second language students and they are coming from refugee and new Canadian families who were just settling in Canada and they were trying to figure out what is Canada and what is Ontario all about? What makes this culture real? And so the study of, of the, our Indigenous communities was important to them, but then we were able to link it to where they came from and how they felt being part of the society, but not really part of the society. So there was a lot of really deep learning going on. There's one here somewhere, I wish I could find it right this second, that simply talks about the women and it talks about all the women in their lives who have been change makers, who have made them who and what they are. And then of course, there's the foods that we eat. So as I say, there were many books and they were exchanged among many, many classrooms throughout the province and for the longest time we got requests from libraries and community groups and schools to, to have the books of life sent to them. And we used that, they used that as launching off points for conversation to build that deeper connection as to who and what we are as Canadians and how do we bring together our very different histories to a place where we are all respectful of understanding and moving forward. So it was powerful. It was really powerful. So that's, that's probably a longer piece than you would like, but that was kind of the beginning from, from where we began to think, okay, where, where, where do we go from that? Well, you know, at the same time, because things tend to emerge together, starting, we were beginning at the very beginning of the Governor General's Literacy Camps. In 2005, OTF was a partner in the Governor General's Literacy Camps with Frontier College and we made sure that, that the literacy camps were well resourced and, and well looked after. And so it was mainly fly-in communities and fly-in schools where we would send a group of people to work with the children to build and enhance their literacy, but also to respect their own language and culture because our people are guests in their community and the best learning goes two ways. The best learning is that connection where the teacher teaches, but the student also teaches and that, that creates, you know, this wonderful, wonderful ball of learning. So we've been a part of that from the very, very beginning and I was really fortunate this year to be able to travel to one of the communities at E of M, a time long, and spend the whole day at the school and I was able to give out some, some prizes, some prizes, some gifts. I gave gifts to every student in the school. That school goes from pre-kindergarten to grade nine. After grade nine, children unfortunately have to fly out of their community and, and go to school in other places. Very, very difficult and so a lot of the young people are still choosing not to leave the community and simply to marry young, have families young and, and to live on the land as best they can. Choices are choices, but I always think you have more choices when you have literacy and numeracy behind you. And so if, if you don't mind, one of the things that we did was we challenged our, the group in, in E of M, that one to, to create pictures of what, what is it that you love? What gives meaning to your life? When, when you are, are away from home or you're sad or you need a lift, what is it that, that makes you feel wonderful and so we picked six of cards to create into note cards celebrating our 75th anniversary and we've been giving them as gifts celebrating the wonderful, wonderful children from that community. You know, this one says the most beautiful thing in nature is the moon. That's awesome. You know, some of them very simple, very simple. The most beautiful thing is nature and remember we're all kids so flowers and sunset and this one I loved because it just shows you mermaids are everywhere and she says mermaids make me smile because these are children. You know, we don't, we don't live with labels. We are just people. I love this one because this is the flag of my community and it makes me smile and the final one was I smile when I'm with my cousins because they were so important but that was, that was important to us, our, our link with frontier college and, and the governor general's literacy camps. That was an and has been and continues to be an amazing experience so that's been since 2005. In 2016 we, we joined forces with Inspire, amazing, amazing group who and, and we have been supporters of their national gathering of for indigenous education and it's held in different parts of the country every year and so we, we give money to sponsor workshops and it is, I went this year and it is probably one of the best conferences I have ever attended in 37 years. The energy in that room was palpable. Not only did you learn so much in the individual workshops but it was the participants themselves were so enthusiastic about what they're doing, what they're learning, what they're thinking, all their connections and the sharing is amazing. Now they do set aside rooms for people who just want to gather together and, and share ideas. I found they were, most people didn't use them because we shared in coffee breaks, we shared in, in hallways, we shared in between on the way to sessions. That's, those were natural connections that people made and it worked, it worked really, really well. On our website, otf.on.ca, we've cashed a lot of our, our learning materials and our learning materials go from really kindergarten to grade, to grade 12 and each, each of the learning materials are identified as to what grade they belong to and what subject areas they connect to within the Ontario curriculum and that gives you lesson plans but also background notes and guidance. So we have, we have something called Survive and Thrive which is for new teachers and occasional teachers and on that right now is a feature on, on Indigenous education to get people who are new to teaching more comfortable with, with understanding that first off this must be taught. You cannot wait till you're an expert. These are important conversations that cannot wait. So get on there and look, begin the conversation, begin the exploration and if you need to learn along with your class that's an okay journey. That can be a very rich journey too and, and that's part of what we teach. We have our OTF Connects webinars and we have put so many different webinars on there specifically dealing with the teaching of FNMI issues and if I can just remind myself. So in the FNMI issues that, that were there I'm always amazed. So there's a two-part series on implementing Indigenous education and social studies and histories that's for, that's divided between grades four and six, links into the curriculum pieces there, but it also links into grades seven, eight and ten and it's all inquiry-based learning and resources are provided. We can't, not only do we do these in lifetime but then we cache them so that if you go on our website and you look for OTF Connects, anyone, any teacher or interested person can access these resources and, and take a good look at them. So in the first part we're looking at understanding Indigenous worldviews and protocols and we look at the importance of local relationships and developing an understanding of how this affects how we approach social studies and history. You know, so it's about respectful conversations and building those. In part two we look at how do we embed FNMI histories and traditions in history and social studies classes because it's part of the specific curriculum of those grades but there are also ideas of how to do it in other curriculums. We have another one called Making Things Right and the first part is the title in Anishinaabe I believe and it talks about how do we support teachers in terms of the implementation of the revised social studies curriculum. You know how do we fulfill the calls to actions particularly 62 and 63 that ask us to embed in our teaching history and culture from a respectful and truthful relationship. So you know we talk about how colonialism has and continues to impact Indigenous peoples today. What are some strategies and resources that will support your professional practice as you move on in your teaching and how can you create a healthy and inclusive learning environment that supports equity and well-being during the course of your teaching? Those are all good things and and we were really proud to host that webinar. Supporting Indigenous education leads was something we've also done. A number of the school boards have Indigenous education leads but they they're a few and far apart they're all over the province and they just didn't have a way to connect with each other and so OTF offered to host on on our platform and we have called it's Blackboard Collaboration Platform. We offered to host them and so through through our platform now all these Indigenous educations are able to connect with each other, share ideas, share resources, share best practices and talk about some of the wonderful experiences that they have had. It's rich. It's really rich. Even on we have a section it's probably the best in North America in my opinion. We have a section called Inspire Financial Learning. We have one section in there that's called conceptualization, creation and construction of the Mohawk Village Memorial Park. And this is actually a way the vehicle by which to explore financial literacy with your class. It had two Indigenous educators from the Six Nations of the Grand River developed a two-part lesson. It uses authentic Indigenous teachings and voice and it couples it that this with financial literacy concepts. It's worth an explore because it's not something that you might think of on your own and yet what a launching spot for multitude of math lessons and environmental lessons and ways to look at your community and maybe ways you haven't thought So as you can tell I'm really proud of what we do here. So much of what we do is learning that is for teachers by teachers. So we find teachers who are doing really exciting things in their classroom and we bring them forward and we give them the opportunity to teach other teachers whether it's through a workshop, a summer institute, a webinar. Our TLC, our teacher learning co-op project allows teams of teachers to get together to research and and and then pursue a project that they they can follow up to other teachers and integration of Indigenous content through experiential learning in our existing curriculum is one of the pieces here and I'll link for you because this is worth a read. This is pretty exciting stuff and then another one that they did was infusing Indigenous perspectives and Indigenous ways of knowing into mathematics. Again I think I think a lot of teachers and I think our students too are are really desirous. They're hungry for this kind of embedded learning so that you're not learning mathematics. You're learning a worldview. You're learning a respectful cultural kind of social justice lens in some ways but but the learning is deep. It's not it's not the usual surface learning. You have to go down and dig and work and and it's good. It builds creativity. We have in the past we have brought together the Ontario Association of Deans of Education and we have brought them in and worked with them as a conference on creating circles of hope in Indigenous education where we work together to talk to the deans of education who direct the learning of our future teachers because how can you in your programs approach this and embed this as part of teacher education study in a way that's meaningful and respectful? We we we also worked really hard with something called the curriculum forums so teachers teachers love to get together to talk about their subject. That's no surprise so you know it's no surprise that all the science teachers would naturally begin to form a science teacher association because they all get together and we can all kind of nerd out real happily on the thing that we're passionate about whether it's art or geography or drama or or math or you know literature whatever it is we're crazy about our subject but we we hold a subject association conference. We bring people in and one of one of the ones that was so successful was based on the teaching and the embedding of Indigenous ways of knowing within all our subject areas and and that was a rich rich rich conference very expertly lived by by one of our people who works so hard so you may recall that when I started I said we started with a summer institute on Indigenous Aboriginal education at that time and it wasn't full the teachers didn't count. The last two years it's full the first day it opens and the waiting list is so long teachers are hungry for this they are they are understanding that we are indeed all of us treated people and that we need to move forward towards reconciliation but we can only do it through understanding the truth first. So that's our journey at OTF and probably didn't answer all the questions you wanted but man it it has been so exciting and it has been so wonderful. Ontario Teachers Federation is the voice of all the teachers in Ontario so whether you are a French teachers be teaching in a French language school or you're an elementary school teacher or you're a high school teacher in the public system or you're in the Catholic system we represent all of those teachers a hundred meters thousand but we also have as associate members all of the students of the faculties of education and we have committees that work with all of the faculties of education to make sure that the learning that is that is proffered to our future teachers is meaningful and relevant and exciting and challenging because that's what education is it's exciting and challenging at the same time. So we we that's why we bring in the deans of education because of our relationship with the student teachers we focus primarily on teacher land learning as as the vehicle because that's that's just our role we don't we don't look after principals and vice-principals however I have to say for years my director in in upper Canada used to say can you find a way for me to get some of my principals into that course. I don't think there's a you know even a little bit of room there's no way because there's too many teachers so when I think about the different ways that we use to evaluate whether our program is working or not whether it's touching all of the all of the places that we thought were important to touch I guess I think of a couple of things first off we never would hold a conference a workshop a summer institute a conference without providing people a feedback form in older days we would do this as a paper form that people dropped off as kind of their ticket out the door which you know people who work in classrooms are very familiar that that's what we do it's a ticket out the door you drop it and you are out the door you're fine. Nowadays we tend to do it as a as part of a thank you email for attending and it's a quick link and people fill in for serving online but one thing about engaging a really engaging workshop conference or learning opportunity is that it was not it was okay it was it it was fun I learned a lot you know it's not people are so into it that they write they let they write a great deal they put their heart and their passion because what the conference or the seminar or or this or the summer institute did was it allowed them to make connections between the classrooms that they teach in and the work and and they're making these connections all the time and they're telling us about it so that's that's an important feedback form and that helps us to to to continually make our work better or based on the suggestions of participants to plan the next series so that it touches on something that's important and needful within within our teacher's classrooms I think the best way though to decide whether or not you're hitting the right marks is whether or not you have good news in your program so when I see that the webinars are being passed often by word of mouth teacher to teacher you need to sit down with a cup of tea in your jammies and watch this it will change everything about how you deliver mathematics in the classroom you need to sit down and watch this because I saw a demonstration of how to get reluctant kids to engage in drama that I would never have thought of in my own so it's that word of mouth and there's nothing part of the teacher community is is teachers talking to teachers and you hear that buzz all the time everywhere I go people talk about OTF connects webinars I recently had somebody who was a principal say oh my gosh I lost the link for and I'm not sure how to get back on because I really need to review that webinar it was so good and so I walked her through how do you how do you find the cached webinar so that you can find it easily and that tells me that we're on the right path and we're doing the right things it also tells me that that that we're listening so when we did those first summer institutes and nobody I won't say nobody came but it was really under subscribed that makes you sit down and say what is the barrier it's a really good program it is exactly what is needed in the classrooms today where is the missing link why is the learning not taking place you know that's kind of teacher thinking that that that maybe people on the outside don't realize goes on but teachers reflect pretty much every day at the end of every day over what worked and what didn't and and you try to analyze all right what was the component or the two components that made this lesson stellar and really click with this set of kids or why did this lesson not work for this set of kids and you learn as much from from your failures as you do your successes because it it it forces you to to go back and either reteach or approach the subject from a very different angle and we did the same thing with with with the the summer institutes when we realized that the teachers were connecting to the subject area because they didn't see how it related to them and their classrooms we thought that's what we need that's the aha and that's when we moved to books of life and books of life became the launching point so that now all of them whether it's webinars or or survive and thrive or workshops or or institutes oh my gosh the teachers can't get enough so that tells me if our teachers are talking about it and our teachers are on waiting lifts hoping to get in there you know the first thing I do in a faculty of education presentation is you know when I go through I I actually have them take out their smartphones and and register for the for our Twitter feed for for for the OTF PD because I say when these things open you have to strike like a ninja so if you have the Twitter feed or you have the email that's coming to your phone you're just going to hit the hot link and you're in and you know sadly I wish there was enough money that we didn't have to do a first come but that's the world we live in right now so I would say our most tech savvy people are probably taking a lot of advantage we try to spread it around but but we do measurement we do a lot of conversation we do a lot of deconstruction with our teachers so less than the formal evaluation some of the surveys that we will do with teachers we will talk directly about our programs and we will have them we will have them tell us whether they know of it or have used it or connected with it they'll tell us you know maybe a broader use space so we we do measure these things but the biggest measurement is the fact that that really we've got lines ahead of the door and we'll never be able to accommodate them all so when I think about indigenous education a quote springs to mind from from justice Sinclair I admire him very much and I've listened to him a lot over the years he has some wisdom and he does say that reconciliation is is like climbing a mill and there are going to be times when you get bogged down and it's hard and it's not fun and you'll want to give up but the view from the top is so spectacular it is worth every step of that journey and I think that's an image that teachers connect to I think the other thing that they connect to is is the fact that that within the calls for action within truth and reconciliation it is absolutely true that you must you must explore and and understand deeply understand the truth before you can move towards reconciliation before you can move together as as one group united in in understanding and caring and moving forward as a society that that much of our past has kept us in two solitudes but we will never we will never grow as an Asian and become all that we need to be unless we come together and forge a way forward that is uniquely Canada and respectful of of all our cultures our traditions and I must say languages his language is important it's the fundamental beliefs of all people are are invested in their language and so you to translate that just doesn't convey the same things respectful conversations mean that people learn other people's languages because they're important cultural pieces and and teachers are primarily good to this for for all of this because we are by nature I think very optimistic people people who believe in a better world people who are very fond of social justice issues where we we do not single people out but try to figure how can you be part of the wonderful quilt that is my classroom you know that and and and so the one big fear that I hear from teachers over and over again is that what if I get it wrong what if I'm inappropriate what if I don't teach it the right way and I think that's an important conversation too but the real piece I think is that it is better to start than not start that if you need to walk the journey of truth with your students and you learn it at the same time then you need to do that there are lots of people within Canada and our first nations certainly our chief among women where we know very little about their history sometimes I think we know more about their far history than we know about their near history and and and so part of truth is making sure that all those voices are heard and all those places in history are taken and all the cultural icons that mean something to many people are are explored and understood and and and known how to treat with respect these are all things that resonate so I think most of our teachers are willing to climb the mountain and they are looking for resources and so is why I'm very thankful for for this particular video series and cache of resources this will be another place where our teachers can go when they're wondering what can what do I need to know about this before I teach it so when I when I think about about where we are in education now and what I dream for in the future Indigenous education is so much a part of it because our first nations Inuit and Métis people have had they have been the backbone of this country but but while they provided so much that allowed this country to be built there was also so much taken it has not been a fair exchange I would love to see a classroom where there are open conversations in in every literature class that discusses well from an Aboriginal perspective this is considered really okay or from an Aboriginal or Indigenous perspective this is problematic so you do that in the literature classroom it's not just history and social studies people people are in all walks of life so you know being informed in your in your technical drawing class of the types of structures that are part of our traditional first nations Inuit Métis buildings and and and ways of moving around through space I think can inform folks I'm I'm so glad that we are moving beyond time I have to back in back in I know it seems a long long time ago but back in 1983 I was teaching history to a class of Indigenous students and we wound up basically turning the textbook in and I sent it to the storage room we never used it again because the very first page talked about civilization and their definition was of a civilization would be was when people gathered together in towns and cities and created a non-nomadic life well the students I was teaching some of the smartest people I'll ever teach and I'm still in contact with many of them today they lived a nomadic lifestyle they they had their winter camp they had their spring camp they had their summer camp and families moved sometimes different sections of the mill families moved together but they didn't settle in towns they went to town to shop but they chose not to live in town does that mean they're not civilized the word has had a connotation that that's moved far beyond its Latin roots which mean a town it's something quite different and and the students in my class were found it very offensive so we shut the history book and we had some real learning go on and and from from those conversations we made a determination that we would keep a couple of books in there along with other books pre-internet folks and we would use them as resource materials but that we would remember that resources are stuck in the time in which they're written and that became a learning experience for my students too because that was the beginning of their understanding that there's an old quote that says truth belongs to the conqueror well I would really like to see truth belong to everyone and and I hope that our education future allows that truth to be released and free and that those full call well conversations can occur and citizens can grow and develop