Foreword
BY DANIEL COLEMAN (August 28, 2020)
It was coffee break on our first day of the class Voicing Hamilton: History, Art, Expression in September 2012. I was teaching this unique class for the McMaster Discovery Program for the second year in a row. A petite woman came up to me as I was just about to shut off the PowerPoint projector. Her eyes flashed in a face that shone with energy and enthusiasm.
“I didn’t expect that in a university class we would debate the definition supplied by the professor!” she said. “I thought you’d give us the definition, and we’d just set about memorizing it. Any time I’ve been in school before, that’s what we did! Hi, I’m Peggyanne Mansfield! I’m so excited to be in this class!”
After the usual introductions, where we went around the room of twenty-five students, the four-person student support team from McMaster’s Arts and Science program, Jeannette the Program Coordinator, and me, introducing ourselves and talking through the course outline, I had put a simple dictionary definition of the word “history” on the screen and asked the students to pick a word or phrase that jumped out at them for comment.
“It says that history consists of the significant moments in the development of a nation or society,” said one student. “But who decides which moments are significant and which are not?”
“Yes,” Peggyanne had said. “Is it always men, or white people, or officials who decide which moments are significant?”
