Below are excerpts from Catherine Oikawa’s journal reflecting on her experiences in Canada’s Internment Era: A Field School. This field school is a two-week intensive experience open to Japanese and non-Japanese Canadian teachers...

For the past several years, I have taught a cross-curricular Coast Salish art unit with my Grades 3–4 classes, and this year I adapted it for a Grades 2–3 class.

The sounds that greet the start of the school day have changed dramatically over the 15 years I’ve been teaching. The morning start used to be filled with students chatting or doing dances and silly things.

There are heart-stopping events in life that cause us to become more philosophical. A cancer diagnosis; the death of a loved one. In my mid-40s, 20 years into my teaching career, I experienced these events simultaneously.