Historica Canada Education Portal

Overview

Aims

Activities

• If you were looking for Frontier College, where might you find it?
• Who attended Frontier College? What were the 3 types of workers?
• Who were the teachers?
• Why was it created?

• Students will watch the Heritage Minute “Frontier College,”and record significant information in their notebooks/logs (Where, When, Who is involved, What is happening).
• After this initial viewing, the teacher will ask what the students’ initial impressions were, and what they thought was the most important message from the Minute. The teacher will then ask what they noticed about fashion, housing, type of reading material, language, names, type of work being done, atmosphere, etc.
• The students will watch the Minute a second time to look for details they may have missed the first time.
• After the Minute is completed, have the students work in pairs to combine the information they have gathered for their notes/logs.
• Discuss with students the difficulties immigrants faced in the workforce (i.e. language, skills, literacy, etc.), and how education may have helped improve their ability to work safely and effectively.
• After this discussion, students will take on the role of a Frontier College teacher. For the remainder of the period (and possibly the next class), have students work in groups in the library researching one of the following topics (or a topic of your choice): Norman Bethune, the Evolution of Education, Immigration in the early 1900's, or Alfred Fitzpatrick.
• The students will be responsible for presenting their topic to the class, but to make it more interesting, instruct the students to ‘teach’ their topic in the style of a Frontier College teacher as seen in the Heritage Minute.
• They will use the details from the video and from information they have researched to simulate the atmosphere of a typical classroom in the early 1900s; this could include fashion, types of questions/examples, class atmosphere, lighting, writing utensils, etc.

• After the discussion of these issues is completed, give students the testimonials of Frontier College students throughout Canadian history, found on the Frontier College website. Have students take turn reading these aloud in class, discussing how the College helped improve the status of life for immigrants and Canadians at work.
• After these have been read and discussed, have students work individually or in pairs to write a reflection of their own from either the perspective of a student or teacher at Frontier College. Remind students to be specific to the time period, including the type of work being done, language barriers, and how the skills helped them improve their work.

• Instead of having students teach a lesson, they could perform a skit based on the Heritage Minute, representing a day in the life of a Frontier College Student.
• Frontier College is a national volunteer-based organization constantly looking for volunteers. Since some students have to fulfil volunteer requirement for graduation, this could provide an excellent opportunity since Frontier College has organizations in hundreds of cities throughout Canada, and they stress the idea that everyone has something they can teach to someone else; students need not have an outstanding academic record to apply.
• Depending on how often Heritage Minutes are viewed in class, the Frontier College Minute could serve as an addition to a ‘Heritage Minutes Log’ or journal in which students record their thoughts/opinions about the Heritage Minutes.
• Take a field trip to one of the Frontier College locations, e.g., a university campus or a classroom. Students can talk to one of the Regional Coordinators or volunteer teachers and collect materials, literature, and posters.
• Invite a Frontier College volunteer to the class. Divide students into groups to discuss whether they would like to become volunteer teachers. Ask each group to come to a consensus and have them present their arguments for being volunteer teachers or not.
• Ask students to imagine they have been recruited as Frontier College volunteer teachers. Ask them to volunteer for one of the following programs: Labourer-Teacher Program, Tutoring Adults, English as a Second Language, Working with Children, Working with Teens, Working with Street Youth, or Working with Inmates. 
• Form students into groups according to their choices. Have the groups discuss why they want to volunteer for that particular program, and which teaching methods they think are useful for helping the students in that program. Groups can present their rationale to the class.