Another project done, this time about apologies and memorials. The ology of apology project wrap up means another blog post! Over the course of this project we learned about some Canadian tragedies and how memorials were made for them, made a smart brevity note, and created a physical memorial to commemorate a past Canadian event. The projects driver was led by the book Obasan, by Joy Kogawa. Obasan explores the Japanese-Canadian experience, focusing on the internment of Japanese Canadians during World War II through the story of Naomi.
My memorial was very conveniently about Japanese Canadian internment. My group designed and built a tree like sculpture. It was a metal tree with glass fishing floats and barbed wire attached to it. My group consisted of Me, Adam, and Finn. We worked great as a team, all contributing and making quick work and having useful discussions. I think groups of three is the perfect number of people, not too many that someone isn’t working, but enough that different viewpoints can be considered all at once. Below is a photo of our memorial and an explainer to go with it. 
I also made a smart brevity note about the same topic of Japanese internment. The smart brevity note actually helped me with rest of the project, looking back to it when needing reminders about the big idea or specific dates.
The driving question for this project was how can we keep an apology alive so the wrongs of the past are remembered and not repeated today? The answer that the seems to be what the teachers want me to say is by creating memorials. I honestly think creating a memorial doesn’t really do anything, in the least disrespectful way possible how does a metal statue help anything? Any counter argument I can think of still isn’t as good as just educating about past mistakes. Schools have more control over people than almost anything else, so instead of making memorials just use our education system to teach apologies.
Thanks for tuning in yet again, I hope you learned something about my project!
Leave a comment