Songs of the Kyowakai

Malaika, how many blog posts are you going to write? Honestly, I don’t know, they could be endless. But having to write summative blog posts also comes with the joy of sharing my learning throughout the project, with all of you. So its worth it in the end. 

If you are new here, let’s catch you up, and if you’ve been here since the beginning, well, lets take a refresher. Let’s start off with a question. Now don’t worry, you won’t have to answer it (if you don’t want too), but I’m going to show you how I answered it, so keep it in mind to think about during the duration of the post. 

How might we use stories to understand the causes and consequences of WWII? 

Yeah yeah I know, loaded question. Obviously its a question you can’t answer in one sitting, or if you’re a genius, I don’t know maybe you can. But I definitely couldn’t, so throughout this project, entitled “In Their Own Words”, we explore how stories of people can really impact our thinking on the causes and consequences of WWII, AND tell these stories through a podcast episode, on our podcasts. Now that you’ve got the background info, let’s jump into the learning itself. 

COMPETENCY BREAK

As always we have our lovely competencies, and this time 4 of the Curricular Competencies were being assessed. Click on each competency, to learn more about it!

Global Collaboration, in my opinion, was the most important competency for this project. This podcast episode needed a ton of background evidence, research and collaborating with others, and during a global pandemic, is not necessarily ideal. Nevertheless, technology to the rescue! Email, texting, and phone calls are still a great ways to get a good, quality interview. So naturally, my podcast topic being about music in the world, I decided to just head onto google, and get some insight. 

Finding the Story:

I searched “music in World War II” and lots of websites came up. The top was a wikipedia website, so I took a peek. I got 2 out of 3 contacts from there. The first contact, well, they didn’t really work out. I left them a message, and they did get back to me…saying they could do an interview with me after New Years Eve. So, yeah, that didn’t work so well. My second choice was this wikipedia site, through which I found “The Secrets of Radar Museum” and “The Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre”, and I contacted both. Luckily they both responded, and with great answers as well. Steve Bordeau, from the Secrets of Radar Museum, responded with so much background info, as to what time period I was researching. He called it the “Big Band Era”, where many new musicians rose up to help uplift the spirits of the civilians during the war. Theresa T, from the Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre, told me about a society that formed together during World War II, and preserved their culture and society through and with music. Now this was a story, that I definitely wanted to tell on my podcast episode. 

It wasn’t until Theresa mentioned the society, that I really had a topic or story to tell on my podcast episode. And to tell a story of someone else, well, you need the details. I asked Theresa some questions, about this society. She gave me lots and lots of details about this story, so lets start there. 

The Kyowakai Society, was a society that formed together in 1943. Facing challenges like discrimination or racism, they were being threatened to be disbanded. Using drums, music, rhymes and songs, they preserved their rich Japanese-Canadian culture. Even now, the Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre (where Theresa works), was created by the Kyowakai, to tell the stories and hold documentation of the Japanese-Canadians, during the timeline of World War II. 

This fit really well with my podcast topic, but not only that it fit, it was a story I was invested in, and that I actually wanted to tell. Theresa was very helpful throughout this process, and Steve helped me understand the general information of the music industry during that time. 

World War II Itself:

If I’m talking all about The Kyowakai during World War II, that must mean I know a lot of information about World War II itself right? Well…not exactly. World War II was a world conflict between many countries in the world, and is dubbed as the bloodiest world battle in history. Losing almost 70 million people worldwide, this conflict was inflicted by someone named Adolf Hitler, who was füher (leader) of Germany, at the time. 

Now this, this is common knowledge, so that’s what we did, in our in class time. Going deeper into World War II, and understanding it, came the use of our “Responding to Text” competency. 

Reading stories, and discussing them in class, was another big part of this learning experience. For three weeks, we had to read/listen to a story each week and come prepared with a text connections sheet, to discuss with in class. 

The first week, I read the wrong story, and completed the text connections sheet for the wrong story. I read the proper story though, so I could participate in the discussion. Though I was a bit silly, and sometimes off topic, I did get through about 18 minutes of the discussion. 

The second week, I think I definitely improved, reading the right story this time, and by completing a pretty sufficient text connections sheet. I was a discussion director that week, and that (I feel) went very well.

Now the third week, oh the third week. Let’s just say, I really didn’t want to finish this part of the learning journey, like this. Though I did listen to the story, I couldn’t really engage in the discussion, because I hadn’t completed the text connections sheet. This should show you how important these sheets were. Its hard to participate, when you don’t know what everyone’s really talking about. 

This, yes, was a low for me, and I’m not happy that I didn’t complete this part. That being said, I feel strongly that I can try this again in another project, and stay on track. It all can come back to my TPol where I said I wanted to be in control, in the drivers seat, of my time and how I manage it. Hopefully, going into the next project with this mindset, I can stay on track and be consistent all throughout. 

The last thing left to complete, was the podcast episode and sending it off to all different platforms. My podcast can be found on main streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts, which is certainly very exciting. You must be very excited to hear this podcast, I’ve literally being hyping it up this entire post. Well, I’ll give in. Here ya go, just click this link and you can take a listen to the Turn it Up Trailer, Episode 1, AND Episode 2 now! 

Click here to listen!

I emailed this episode to Steve and Theresa, and Steve responded with an amazing message! 

Talk about a global collaborator, dang!! I’m so happy that my podcast episode turned out well, and excited for people to hear it. Keeping in mind the story discussions, going into the next project I’m aiming to keep on track and manage all of my time correctly and successfully! At least thats the plan… 

See you next year, with new projects, a new mindset, and lots and lots of presents.