Remembrance Day Challenge Kit 2024
Making Remembrance Day Meaningful
We are looking for the first 20 educators who want to engage students on making Remembrance Day meaningful to the school community. This is an at-your-own-pace Challenge Kit to be done between September 16th and November 11th. This Challenge Kit is for grades 5 – 11.
Why Remembrance Day?
We’re focusing on designing Remembrance Day, because the schools of 2024 are much different from those of 1919, when the first formal Armistice Day was marked in Canada; yet the way in which we commemorate it is largely unchanged. Give young people the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of what Remembrance Day can and should be. In this Challenge Kit we ask students to expand the stories they consider, deepen their understanding of war, conflict and peace and ensure historical accuracy. Students reimagine how we honour all who served and continue to serve in the Canadian Armed Forces, including the Black, Indigenous, 2SLBGTQ+ soldiers, veterans and labourers, and victims of war, often forgotten and excluded in traditional remembrance. Remembrance Day is an important opportunity to engage with student voice and action.
Why a Challenge Kit?
Young people deserve to have a say in the world around them; to engage with real-world problems that don’t have answers in the back of a textbook. Challenge Kits are the building blocks for many remarkable possibilities—there are no right answers or predicted outcomes. It’s the curiosity and creativity of students and staff like you that bring challenges to life in impactful ways.
What you’ll experience:
- Professional Learning in Real-World Problem Solving, August 20th and 21st: (Mandatory for those new to I-Think) Join the I-Think Real-World Problem Solving Institute, in person in Downtown Toronto. The Institute is taught by I-Think Mentors, educators who started their journey just like you are. Your Vice Principal or Principal is invited to join for the morning of August 20th.
- Orientation, August 22nd, 9am – 12pm: in person in Downtown Toronto. Here you will get your Challenge Kit and have time to get familiar with the materials and the experience you’ll facilitate in the classroom.
- Facilitating the Challenge Kit, September 16th – November 11th: You’ll do this at your own pace between. A Teacher Coach is here to support you throughout. You can reach out at any time.
- Spending Remembrance Day Together: Every year, the I-Think Team observes Remembrance Day at schools who have used the Remembrance Day Challenge Kit.
What’s in the Challenge Kit?
- A Letter (that you can customize) from your school leader to the students issuing the challenge
- Slides that you can customize to guide your students through the experience.
- Activity Plans with resources to engage students in expanding the stories they consider, including about the 2nd Construction Battalion, 2SLGBTQ+ Veterans and Women.
- Virtual Student Celebration on Friday, November 15th
You’re saying yes to?
- Attending the Real-World Problem Solving Institute, if you’re new to I-Think, in person
- Attending the Orientation, in person
- Using the Challenge Kit for students to design your school’s 2024 Remembrance Day
- Inviting us to your school’s Remembrance Day
- Filling out pre and post survey
This program is made possible by the generous support of Veterans Affairs Canada.
Through this support we are offering an $850 scholarship for 20 teachers, reducing the cost to $150.
The cost of the program without scholarship is $1,000.
*Application for the program and scholarship is below (same form).
We will notify applicants by June 26, 2024.