It’s Canada Day — our nation’s birthday. This year, seemingly more than other years, the desire to celebrate and mark the importance of this day is palpable. Canada turns 158 this year. In dog years that is quite old but, as a nation, we’re still very new.
Why mark this year’s birthday with gusto? Is our on-again, off-again relationship with the Trump administration fueling our passions as a nation?
Canadians talk about national pride – while the caricature of a Canadian is someone saying, “I’m sorry!” We poke fun at ourselves, and yet there is reason to view our national history apologetically.
Many of us feel shame about our colonial history, our sense of entitlement to land, resources and privileges stolen from First Nations peoples. We feel sorrow and anger about our history of residential schools, the 60’s scoop, and our slow movement forward in addressing the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Some of us also feel shame in our environmental track record. In our short life as a nation we seem to have shifted from understanding that we are in relationship with the land, water and the more-than-humans who inhabit these spaces, to seeing the natural world as ours to dominate. Have we lost the desire, or even the knack, of knowing how to live in harmony with nature?
And yet, though shame and sorrow are part of the fabric of our past and present, I must admit I do experience a sense of pride as well. I feel pride in the resilience of Canadians from all walks of life. I witness soul, creativity, talents, and intelligence expressed in music, written words, inventions, advocacy, and acts of caring. We care about those who are vulnerable. We care deeply about children.
Last week, I was asked to fill in for an early childhood educator who couldn’t be at the school that day, offering me a chance to witness the culmination of caring that had been nurtured throughout the entire academic year.
Some of the older students in the school were helping their classroom teacher dismantle bulletin boards in the hallways and were packing classroom resources into boxes so there would be less work for the classroom teacher to do alone when all the students had gone home for the summer. But in the kindergarten classroom I was in, this was not the case. The toys, loose parts, and craft materials carefully selected for children’s open-ended explorations and creativity were still ready for children’s imaginations. The child with special rights who sensed the end of this day would mark a big change in his life, stayed close to the adults in the room, wanting hugs and interactions that he could carry in his memory into his school-less summer.
But it was during the children’s lunch break that I witnessed what will stay in my memory for a very long time. The children were sitting in groups of 5 or 6 at tables, chatting with one another as they ate. From a table on the other side of the room from where I sat with a group of children, drifted quiet notes of a song. The children at my table looked at me and smiled. They knew the song. “They sing it quiet first. Then it gets loud.” they informed me. It was a Taylor Swift tune being played at the request of a child through the Educational Assistant’s phone.
It was then that the classroom teacher walked into the room. Hearing the tune, she asked the children if they’d like to hear the song through her portable bluetooth speaker. The response was unanimous and, once the sound was amplified, she picked up her guitar – a guitar she used daily in the classroom. The teacher’s guitar was not any ordinary guitar. The body had been cut from a cardboard box, painted pink with a black sound hole along with thin white strings painted from the bridge to the neck of the guitar. The neck, however, was sturdier than cardboard. It was fashioned from a meter stick solidly taped to the back of the guitar body. Her guitar strap, made from thick colourful string, was attached to the back of the guitar and allowed her to strum while she sang, and to dance, point her finger and reach her arms into the air to the emphasize the importance of certain words or phrase — lyrics and actions the children chimed in with too.
And as the children’s voices rose in volume, their faces shone with memories, joy and pride:
“Long live the walls we crashed through
I had the time of my life with you
Long, long live the walls we crashed through
How the kingdom lights shined just for me and you
And I was screaming, “Long live all the magic we made”
And bring on all the pretenders, I’m not afraid
Singing long live all the mountains we moved
I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you.”
(Excerpt from Long Live by Taylor Swift)
Perhaps pride is more than a tally of our successes and failures. Perhaps pride is most deeply rooted in knowing we belong, we are loved, that we have a unique yet collective and meaningful place in the world; that we can move mountains, fight dragons, and make magic. Together.