**TEACHING PEOPLE TO TOUCH THE PAST:**

**ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE TORONTO SCHOOL SYSTEM**

Karolyn E. Smardz

**Introduction**

When we speak of history, archaeology and other heritage-oriented
disciplines, what image appears in the mind of the average North
American? Hollywood adventure films, museum displays, and dry tomes full
of dates and \"facts\" are probably high on the list. Better-informed
members of the public may have a clearer picture of what archaeologists
do - research, excavation, analysis, and so on - but the key image even
here is of activities which are mainly the province of the academic
community. Heritage is something done by heritage professionals, and
sometimes ordinary people get to look at the results of their labors,
but usually through a glass case in a museum.

For children, exposure to heritage data may range from schoolroom
lessons in \"what Indians did before white men came\" through more
productive visits to living history sites, where they actually get to
card wool, bake bread, and perhaps dip candles. The impact of the latter
is infinitely superior to \"book learning\" in interesting the young in
the remnants of past cultures. They experience history rather than
simply hearing and reading about it.

Yet even in experiential teaching situations, the young participants are
well aware that the objects they are handling are usually reproductions,
that the activities in which they engage are ones where they \"can\'t do
any harm\" and that the entire exercise is established as a \"learning
experience\", as opposed to an actual pursuit, with defined goals. It
isn\'t real.

With archaeology, educators have a unique opportunity to involve
ordinary people and even school children in the actual process of
scientific and cultural research. Students can not only see the various
methods of discovery in operation, but they can reach out and touch
artifacts, hearths, layers, and postmolds. Participants can experience
their texture, their scent, color and weight for themselves. They can be
the first humans to handle an object since it was left behind in the
earth, a hundred or a thousand years ago. They can actually touch the
past.

A few years ago in Toronto, a group of archaeologists and educators
explored the possibilities of their respective disciplines and came up
with a combined research and teaching package whereby children of the
public schools as well as large numbers of city residents could take
part in archaeological research. The systems which sprung from this most
profitable partnership encompass both the various concerns inherent in
cultural resource management and the putting-into-practice of modern
educational theory.

**Cultural Resource Management:**

**The Role of Education**

The very term \"cultural resource management\" subsumes a public and
political role in preserving the past. It coordinates the efforts of a
plethora of heritage and related professions, special interest groups,
consultants and both public and private sector institutions in the
pursuit of a common goal - the discovery and conservation of man-made
heritage resources.

By definition, cultural resource management assumes the commitment of
both tax dollars and private monies in the achievement of its
objectives. Further, it requires official support from the immense
variety of governmental organizations and establishments upon which its
activities must impact. Planners, developers, commercial interests, and
ordinary landowners, as well as the vocational and avocational cultural
communities, are all thrown into the pot together, to interrelate in
ways that range from the direct and sometimes violent to the highly
subtle. Yet cooperation between all such groups and individuals is
necessary, for they have a crucial role to play in saving our
nations\' - and I use the plural advisedly - inheritance from the past.

Efforts in cultural resource management perforce compete with the
compelling needs of modern societies and governments. Loss of heritage
resources seems a small price to pay for progress, especially at a time
when the public purse is strained to its limits from demands for
housing, hospitals, medical care, and other indisputable priorities. Yet
the cultural wealth that heritage resources represent is irreplaceable;
and our generation is not its sole proprietors. It is also our legacy to
the future.

In trying to ensure that some remnants of earlier human cultures will be
preserved for later generations, those professions which have assumed
responsibility for research and conservation of such resources must take
a leading role. It is to ourselves that the public looks for guidance in
respect to the very disciplines we have chosen as our own. In pursuit of
our higher research goals, it is perhaps as well to remember to whom the
sites, heritage buildings and artifacts belong - the public - , and who
has been paying, directly or indirectly, for the research so far - the
public.

Reflection upon the objectives of cultural research and their more
tangible benefits predicates a demonstration by heritage professional to
the public of just what these benefits are. From a humanities viewpoint,
the goals are clear. But when a municipal government must defend itself
to a voting population clamoring for affordable housing, reasons for
leaving large tracts with archaeological \"potential\" undeveloped are
perhaps less than self-evident. After all, the sites relate to people
long dead and the concern of the modern elected officials is with the
living.

What role, then, do cultural resources serve in the modern world?
\"Quality of life\" is the immediate and rather pat response we tend to
make. Yes, but . . . how does the salvaging of historical buildings, the
excavation of sites, the conservation of bits of ceramic and glass used
centuries ago, translate into a *direct* benefit to the modern
community? The answer is, all too often, that it doesn\'t. Small wonder,
then, that heritage conservation receives ever-diminishing support from
public sources.

Clearly, what is needed are answers to queries regarding the importance
of cultural resource management, now and for the future, queries made by
the people whose heritage it is and who are being asked to pay for the
work. The solutions lie in either demonstrating - or actually creating -
a relevance beyond the usual institutional purview of \"higher
learning\".

**The Archaeological Resource Centre:**

**Archaeology in Education**

In Toronto, an unusual experiment has taken place over the past several
years. It was undertaken for a very specific purpose - to give the
city\'s urban archaeology a direct bearing on the everyday lives of the
townsfolk, of every age and at every income level. In formulating the
methodology for so doing, a group of archaeologists and educators turned
the goals of \"public\" archaeology around; instead of doing education
for the sake of publicizing the importance of archaeology, it is doing
archaeology for the sake of education. Thus, archaeology becomes an
important and permanent part of the city infrastructure because it does
not serve only the needs of research and cultural resource
preservation - it becomes a vehicle in and of itself for teaching the
public to enjoy its past.

In 1985, the Toronto Board of Education was granted nearly a
quarter-of-a-million dollars by the provincial government. The monies
were earmarked for the design and implementation of a new type of
educational facility - the Archaeological Resource Centre (ARC). Serving
a tri-partite mandate of education, heritage research and conservation,
the Centre is fully supported as a permanent part of the public school
system. It is, to date, the only such facility in the world.

The philosophy of the ARC is that ordinary people, including school
children, have a stake in the conservation of their area\'s heritage
resources. By providing them with opportunities to reach out and \"touch
the past\", heritage professionals can encourage a sense of ownership of
and pride in their own city\'s cultural wealth. With

this sense of ownership comes protectiveness for a valued possession.
The public therefore becomes the driving force behind efforts to
conserve its heritage.

On the other hand, students of our schools have long been taught
information which is - or should be - archaeologically-derived. This is
especially true of the teaching of North American prehistory, but also
is so of the history of early European immigration into our continent.
Yet only rarely are students exposed to how this information is
acquired. Involvement of school children in archaeological excavation,
recording and interpretation of data serves as a highly effective tool
in the more general realm of public education. They learn scientific
process rather than \"facts\", and develop skills that are applicable to
a wide variety of other subject areas.

The ARC operates an annual calendar of excavation, curriculum
development and implementation, and publicity aimed at involving as many
people as possible in heritage programs. A major objective was and is to
create entire generations of Torontonians for whom urban archaeological
projects are a normal, familiar, comprehensible, and highly valuable
part of their cityscape.

It should also be noted, however, that in developing a facility for the
teaching of archaeology, we also created a system, with full public
sector commitment, for doing urban archaeology on a permanent basis.
This provides a superb opportunity to implement long-range research
goals, develop a local artifact reference collection, and hone both
methods and interpretations to a fine edge. This ongoing work affords to
both the archaeological community and the educational system an
ever-growing corpus of information about Toronto\'s nineteenth and early
twentieth century heritage.

**Education in Archaeology**

Intrinsic to the ARC\'s development was an assessment of archaeology\'s
potential in light of modern educational theory and practice. Skills and
abilities borrowed from such diverse areas as marketing, media
relations, environmental assessment, and community service were mixed
into the formula. The initial phases of creation seemed at times more
like the conduct of a political or military campaign than the familiar
and comfortably private research in which archaeologists expect to
involve themselves. High profile programs were initiated, efforts were
made to create a market for archaeology in a highly diverse milieu, and
the archaeological framework itself was examined to allow for
modifications required by this new conceptual approach to the
discipline.

The result was the creation of a comprehensive and cohesive system of
education and archaeology, whereby ordinary members of the public, and
especially school-aged children, actually conduct some of the research.
New approaches to field and laboratory methodology had to be devised to
provide for the meeting of research goals and the proper execution of
scientific analysis processes in such a situation. Basic criteria for
the type of sites to be approached, the goals of research to be
conducted, and the kinds of programs which could be safely and
effectively offered in both the outdoor, on-site context and in the
schoolroom had to be established. In addition the archaeologists had to
learn a great deal about how teachers teach. They had to immerse
themselves in the needs, methods and mandate of the institution of which
they were becoming a part, but which had as yet no mechanisms for
dealing with the requirements and practices of an archaeological unit -
the Toronto Board of Education.

Archaeology actually suits modern educational theory extremely well. It
is by its very nature multidisciplinary in approach and thus can serve
as a focus for education in a great many subject areas. In addition,
archaeology\'s process of preliminary formulation of research goals,
subsequent implementation of research projects, analysis of acquired
data, and final interpretation is directly relevant to today\'s
educational concept of learner-centered education within a realistic
learning environment. Problem-solving is a major focus of current
educational theory, and the application of acquired skills for implicit
and specific purposes is common to both teaching and archaeological
practice.

**Teaching the Past: Means and Method**

Since the concept of teaching archaeology at the pre- or
extra-university level is a relatively recent phenomenon, little in the
way of printed documentation on the subject is extant. Teaching methods,
instructional media materials and field excavation and recording systems
for use in public projects are all in the process of development in
various places around the world. In many cases, individual teachers and
archaeologists are operating in isolation and thus \"reinventing the
wheel\" when it comes to just how to go about educating people in
archaeology. However, there are some bright lights on the horizon.

A great many groups are currently exploring the possibilities of
education and archaeology as a means for increasing public support for
cultural resource conservation (see McNutt, Hawkins, and Rogge this
volume). The various professional organizations on this continent - the
Society for American Archaeology, the American Anthropological
Association, the Society for Historical Archaeology, and the Canadian
Archaeological Association to name only a few - have taken great strides
forward in recent years in this regard. In Britain, English Heritage has
long taken a leading role in this endeavor. Where once the argument for
whether public archaeology ought to be done at all dominated discussion,
we now find entire sessions at conferences, and even whole symposia (for
example, the University of Minnesota\'s Presenting the Past to the
Public series of meetings) are devoted to, not the \"whys\", but the
\"hows\" of teaching people about the need to conserve the past (see
Wells this volume for a discussion of the \"Presenting the Past\"
conference series).

Newsletters have sprung up - \"Teaching Anthropology Newsletter\" out of
St. Mary\'s University in Halifax, the SAA\'s \"Archaeology and Public
Education\", and \"Archaeology and Education\" produced between
individuals in Britain, America and Canada - to provide an information
exchange between teachers, archaeologists, museologists, and other
heritage professionals engaged in meeting these common goals. At least
one book has been published on the subject. The latter was produced as
part of the \"One World Archaeology Series\" published by Unwin Hyman in
1990, and is entitled [The Excluded Past: Archaeology in
Education]{.underline} edited by Peter Stone and Robert MacKenzie as a
result of the World Archaeology Congress efforts to provide an
international perspective on the subject.

**Taking Archaeology to the Public - The \"Hows\"**

The concept of taking archaeology to the public is neither new nor
unique to Toronto. But the means by which this is being conducted in
that city is highly unusually, and bears closer scrutiny.

The Archaeological Resource Centre has a staff of seven professional
archaeologists, each with experience on a wide variety of sites and with
expertise in a specific area of archaeological research. In addition,
these individuals have a deep and abiding commitment to the importance
of teaching people of all ages about the need for conserving their
common heritage as human beings. In forming this team, nearly as much
emphasis was placed upon each person\'s educational and public service
experience as there was on academic credentials.

Through this group\'s remarkable initiative, the role of archaeology in
Toronto has taken on a completely new thrust. Archaeology is done in a
formal context with full-developed scientific research goals, but with
an institutional commitment provided by public government for a purpose
contiguous with, but different from, the traditional academic one. Here,
annual urban projects are operated for the purposes of education,
education on a broad and highly relevant scale - teaching school
children and interested adults about their city\'s past through
participating in the recovery of its heritage remains. Thus archaeology
takes on a new form and a new function. Rather than the public being a
necessary and politically-desirable adjunct to research programs
conducted by professional archaeologists, professional archaeologists
run digs that have as a main objective the meeting of curriculum goals
set by professional educators.

The heritage professionals on the Archaeological Resource Centre staff
have always been more than aware of the potential pitfalls inherent in
doing archaeology where the majority of the finds are made by people
under the age of l6. But the argument for teaching the public the
reasons for cultural resource conservation through encouraging ordinary
people to help do it was indisputable. The first task was the
development of systems where research and education - hands-on education
on real archaeological sites - could be carried out safely, profitably,
and efficiently.

The success of both the educational programs and the seven excavations
which have been conducted by the Centre to date bear out the
effectiveness of the comprehensive system of teaching, excavation,
recording, analysis and reporting which has been created for use in
Toronto schools. Anyone wondering whether \"teachers will go for it\"
should note that all programs are booking one year in advance, and we
have not advertised since l986.

To provide for both educational and research needs, an operational
structure was formulated for public education projects in archaeology.
Paramount from the professional point of view was a research design
whose goals were realistic, and which could be met within this new and
rather overwhelming context. This research design was, of necessity,
dictated by the types of sites which could safely be excavated with
large groups of the uninitiated making up part of the crew. But it was
also developed with a strong sense of the educational objectives of
running archaeological projects with an educational bent. The purposes
of the dig and the physical framework of the educational experience had
to be both archaeologically relevant, and effective as a learning
environment.

Toronto has a strong multicultural population. As freshly-styled
educators, the archaeologists sought research goals which also would
best serve the needs of the children who were to be the audience. Since
many classes are made up of new Canadians, the archaeological research
undertook the exploration of Toronto\'s nineteenth century immigrant
heritage. The choice was made to dig domestic and commercial sites once
occupied by ordinary people, people just like the families of the
children who were to take part in their excavation. Clearly defined
stratigraphy, substantial sub-surface structural remains, and a high
artifact count ensure that there are sufficient familiar and
understandable elements to the site to excite both the imagination and
the intellect of even very young participants.

In most cases, students dig in areas where demolition debris ensures
secondary deposition. When sensitive levels are reached, the
professional staff and experienced volunteers take over and student
groups are moved to another area of the site. Approximately twice the
area is opened that could reasonably expect to be completed within a six
month period. Students receive the same experience as if they were
digging [in situ]{.underline} remains; yet the site\'s research
potential is protected.

An exploration of the urban milieu at the lower-to-middle income level
had not to date been undertaken in Toronto, so the research design
serves a real and appreciable purpose in increasing archaeological
knowledge of the city\'s development. Furthermore, these sites usually
would not be considered \"delicate\" from an archaeological standpoint,
nor would they be the first choice of most researchers working in the
area.

The next step in the Centre\'s development was the establishment of an
annual calendar to allow the maximum number of students in both site and
classroom programs, while permitting sufficient man-hours for the
execution of those aspects of archaeological research which must remain
the purview of the professional staff.

A public archaeology project spans the period from May through November
each year. This permits the operation of half-day class field trips in
the spring and fall terms, as well as the administration of two six-week
credit courses - Field Schools in the every sense of the term - for
secondary students in the summer months. Further, it takes place at the
time when most city residents seek recreational/educational activities
in which to take part - the summer months. The projects of the
Archaeological Resource Centre are as \"public\" as we can make them.
Throughout the digging season, literally anyone can come to the site,
book-in for an introductory program in the method and theory of
historical archaeology, and then volunteer on the dig as often as they
wish. All programs are offered free of charge, and most are available in
either English or French. A surprising number of Torontonians and
tourists avail themselves of the opportunity.

Modification of modern excavation and recording methods has produced a
highly detailed yet comprehensible system where even school children can
make a significant contribution. Recording forms are written in simple
English, but are just as detailed as the more technical ones ordinarily
used on research projects. Sites are laid out so groups can be
effectively supervised, while areas of higher sensitivity can be left
for the professional and experienced volunteer to investigate.

All artifacts are mapped in place; this teaches both mathematical and
archaeological skills, while ensuring that slow, careful work is
conducted by even the most junior (age 9) of participants. An unexpected
byproduct of this highly structured hands-on system is the benefits it
brings in teaching mathematical, cartographic, and dexterity skills to
students in Special Education, Learning Disabled and
English-As-A-Second-Language classes. Small group learning and
problem-solving are inherent in the normal functioning of an
archaeological project, as are the development of integrated learning
skills drawn from different disciplines. All in all, even a three hour
program on a site can provide an excellent learning experience for
Toronto school children.

Prior to taking part in the dig, an introduction to archaeological
method and theory is offered in a nearby classroom. Students are
cautioned to maintain proper methodology \"because you have the
privilege today of taking part in a real archaeological dig, and we are
trusting you. If you make a mistake, we can\'t fix it, and that part of
your history will be lost forever\". The more skeptical readers may be
surprised at how well this works. Of more than 50,000 participants to
date, only a handful have been removed from the site for carelessness.
We all respond well to being trusted to do something \"very, very
important\", and small children are no exception to this rule.

At the end of each program, a site button and brochure is distributed to
each student. This not only increases the educational impact, but
broadens the lesson in heritage conservation to parents and siblings
when the child returns home. Before they leave, students are thanked for
their \"help in saving Toronto\'s heritage\" through their work on the
site.

During the winter months, seven half-day programs per week are offered
at the Centre\'s classrooms for children and adults. Subjects range from
Prehistoric Art through The Archaeology of Early Toronto. All programs
emphasize problem-solving in a group learning context and the handling
of real (if less than unique) heritage artifacts is a component. Coming
to understand the use of primary source materials for documentary
interpretation ensures that students gain an understanding of how
archaeologists find and interpret urban sites.

In addition to class field trips, the Centre offers Night School courses
for adults, cooperative education programs (where individual secondary
students help in data and artifact processing over an entire school
year), seniors classes at community centers and homes throughout the
city, elementary school outreach programs (small people love bones), and
volunteer workshops. During the winter, participation by volunteers and
students in artifact processing greatly aids in achieving the annual
reporting goals of the Centre. Reports are, of course, produced by the
archaeologists on staff. The carefully-constructed calendar sets time
aside for meeting research and analysis goals.

Yet even the site reports, normally extremely technical in content and
of, ahem, limited appeal to the average reader, serve an educational
purpose. Information contained in the report does not rest on a shelf,
gathering dust. Every discovery, every interpretation, every new
perspective on Toronto\'s urban heritage is fed back into the school
system in some way. Booklets for use in schools are produced, new
curricula for day programs are developed and slide sets are loaned out
to teachers to encourage the use of archaeologically-derived information
in schools throughout the system. Thus, the archaeological programs also
provide a self-generating corpus of new teaching data each year.

Because there are few curricula, and very little in the way of
instructional media materials or even books designed for the teaching of
archaeology at a pre-university level, all teaching materials - quizzes,
games, educational kits and the like - must be produced in-house, at the
Archaeological Resource Centre. These are prepared for use throughout
the school system by consultants, teachers, and students.

The Toronto Board of Education has taken archaeology to heart, and in a
big way. The Board has more than 200,000 students and adults in its
programs; at some point in their education, the majority of these will
be impacted by archaeology and education programs.

In addition, the Archaeological Resource Centre operates an intensive
year-round public information program. Displays, special events,
published articles, and public talks ensure that a far wider audience is
reached than will ever visit a site or take part in an archaeological
excavation. Media attention has been consistent and enthusiastic, making
the efforts of the Board in the realm of heritage conservation and
education widely known. Apparently the concept of school children
digging up their own city\'s past is one which has an extremely broad
popular appeal.

**Conclusion:**

**Teaching People to Touch the Past**

This brings us to what is perhaps the most important impact of the
Archaeological Resource Centre on the preservation of Toronto\'s
cultural resources. Because urban archaeology is being conducted by the
Board of Education, more people know about and care about saving
heritage sites and structures. These resources are thus valued not only
as a significant part of the city\'s past; but as a focus for the future
through their role in education.

By doing archaeology for the purposes of education, instead of education
for the purposes of archaeology, the Archaeological Resource Centre in
Toronto has, in a large metropolitan area, achieved a climate of popular
and political support for heritage conservation that showing people what
archaeologists do through lectures, slides, newspaper articles or
impassioned exhortations on the part of heritage professionals could not
have achieved.

In developing the Archaeological Resource Centre, both educators and
archaeologists have created an entirely new vehicle for transmitting and
interpreting the urgency of cultural resource conservation to the
general public. An entire generation of school children is learning how
archaeology can help them take part in saving their own past, not for
themselves alone, but for their children and their children\'s children.
The Centre continues to develop new systems of education, new
instructional media materials for use in the classroom and beyond, and
more effective and comprehensive methods for conducting quality research
projects within a completely public setting. The process is far from
finished.

The people who take part in Toronto public archaeology projects know
that they are not just learning something and having fun. They are
helping to discover and preserve Toronto\'s heritage, their heritage, no
matter how long they have been here or where their original homeland
was. By taking part in digs, the people and the school children of the
City of Toronto learn that they have an important stake in saving what
is now their own past, as Torontonians, for the future.