Tag: covid-19

Student Museum Musings – A Student Placed at Home

By Nova S., Trent Child & Youth Studies Intern

From the beginning of my university career, I had my eyes set on a particular fourth year course in my major. Said course allowed students to try field-based learning, a chance to gain practical experience. Students could actually apply what they were learning in the classroom.

Well, so much for that.

So much for field-learning, and heck, so much for classrooms, too.

I never minded online learning. Really, I didn’t. It seems like most people would gape at me for that, but there were benefits for someone with anxiety like me. Yes, maybe it was an escape of sorts, but at times, in-person was overwhelming sensorially, with all the people and noise. So it was, honestly, sort of a nice break. Online, I didn’t have to commute. Online, I didn’t have to face the cold. Online, I could go at my own pace, and rewind my professor as many times as I needed.

It took a while for someone with anxiety like me to miss people, but wow, do I miss people. (Some people, at least. I think my fear of crowds is worse now than ever, along with everybody else’s). The benefits of being online were all still there, but the cons began to sink in.

Somehow, moving forward from there, I made a couple of friends from my university. I also made friends out of others on the Internet in general, because where else are you supposed to hang out? Okay, I think to myself, still, being online isn’t so bad.

And then it came time for my field-based learning.

Before I was a fourth-year, I took advantage of a few other opportunities to meet and interact with kids. I guess now would be a good time to mention that my major is Child & Youth Studies.

I volunteered at my family’s church for a special day of activities. My brother was, not-so-coincidentally, assigned to be my helper. We spent the day going from station to station, corralling kids only a few years younger than my brother at the time, holding hands, making crafts for them to show their parents afterwards, and encouraging participation in song and dance. We helped each other, we kept track of each other, and we made sure we all felt included.

Though I’m not in touch with that church anymore, I’m sure special days like that are no longer running – at least on such a grand scale.

I joined the Pen Pal Club at my university, in which we were paired up with a student from an elementary school nearby. The letters were fun to write, using different colours and stickers, but it was even more fun to receive. Messy and scribbled spelling mistakes, drawings you have to squint at to figure out what they’re supposed to be, excited retellings of their accomplishments in school, and eagerness to meet you! Yes, we would meet two or three times a year at the university and have a few stations we would rotate through, where stories would be told, colouring would be done, magic would be performed, and more. And at the end of the day, the kid paired with you would hug you goodbye and file out the door with their class.

When the pandemic started, we had already established pen pals and written to them once. It was a couple of weeks before the kids were supposed to come in person to visit when the whole thing was cancelled.

Lastly, I had a part-time job at an indoor playground, mainly rented out for children’s birthday parties. Usually, supervision was the job of the host parents – whoever’s kid’s birthday it was. But, rather frequently, we helped kids down from parts of the playground they’d climbed up and then realized too late that they were scared. We served food and got thank yous. Once, even, this adorable girl asked me to help her wipe her face and hands.

My boss texted us not too long into the pandemic that we were closed until further notice. And so, I waited. And waited. It wasn’t until I tried applying for other jobs and needed them for a reference that I texted my boss and discovered that, actually, the place had closed permanently. I guess it was a smaller business that was one of the many to, unfortunately, not survive this pandemic.

And now, here I am. I have a placement, yet I am not out in the field with kids, but at home. And I finally realize that I miss the kids more than I miss adult people, probably. (Sorry).

It’s nobody’s fault, after all. We all have to continue being safe or this will really never end.

Still, it’s not all that bad. I was fortunate enough to be able to go in-person once for a brief initiation, and my supervisors, both at the museum and at the university, are determined to make sure I benefit as much as possible from it.

I was, as I’m sure many people are, never focused on history. Sure, it was fascinating, and I was fortunate enough to have a pretty good history teacher in high school. But like many others, I moved on from it after graduating with my own interests in mind.

My first duty after being accepted by Oshawa Museum was to familiarize myself with their programs, exhibitions, values, and blog. I didn’t expect to get so sucked into it. Everything looked so fascinating. I fell into a rabbit hole of sorts, clicking link after link, reading letters, viewing photographs, learning, and being fascinated.

Here at the Oshawa Museum (from my home), my main task is to improve on and build programs. Children’s programs, flexibly built for online or in-person, that are mindful and expressive of the diversity within ourselves and within others.

I’m determined to help make kids fascinated in history, because our present and our futures have roots in the past. As I have had the fortunate opportunities to see, kids are full of excitement, wonder, and curiosity. But it’s not about what those kids will be in the future – it’s about what they are now. They are fully capable of forming their own opinions and being participatory citizens, and I hope I can play a part in inspiring them to realize that they can do plenty in diversity and equality activism just as they are now. It all starts with that fascination.

Student Museum Musings – The Two Year Elegy

By Thomas P., Co-op Student

“So you mean to tell me it’s not March 2020?”

I feel like I’ve definitely heard that sentence in an ironic sense a couple times these past two years. Time seems to pass very strangely in a time where the basic concept of social normality is changing. Ok, big words, I know. I’m not necessarily wrong though. Normal has changed. Though many people, including myself, do wish the old normal could return, the hard truth is that it won’t. The dice have already been cast.

Eventually, social distancing will fade out. Masks will be worn far less, yet I’d guess perhaps more than before the pandemic. The damage will have already been done. No, not damage. Change. This change has already begun. Many people feel just that little bit more uncomfortable around those with a cough nowadays. It seems that a lot of people have developed a COVID-19 hypochondria. The anxiety of having, or receiving, an illness. According to Healthing.ca, “the root of treatment lies in accepting that nothing in life is certain — which, as anyone with illness anxiety will tell you, is much easier said than done.” With this anxiety, whether one is a hypochondriac or not, comes a more heightened awareness of sickness around you. Hopefully, this will be for the best in terms of social safety in the long run. Greater general hygiene is never a bad thing, especially with a world that finds itself more and more connected by the day, even in a pandemic. Hygiene aside, the long lasting effects of an often mind-numbing pandemic, will likely leave a social mark on the generations most affected by it as of today.

It seems as well that yet another thing the pandemic has caused an awareness of is what we’re missing. During the worst of the lockdown, it felt as if the only thing to do was re-watch Tiger King and Bo Burnham’s Inside, two Netflix hits which, mind you, were released nearly a year apart. No matter how long a life you’ve lived, a year is still a long time. For even more of a time warp, the first recorded cases of COVID-19 were on December 19, 2019 – nearly 750 days ago. That’s 24 months. According to Kidshealth.org, a child born from that time, by now, would be able to speak more than 50 words, kick a ball, and be understood at least half the time. Although with the continuous stale cycle of the state of things in our political and social world as is today, that last part may or may not be too surprising.

For me, my first day of true lockdown was on my birthday. Happy Birthday! As a student who was highly involved within my school community, in extra curriculars such as D&D, AGSA, and theatre club, I very quickly went from being an outgoing and extroverted junior high school student to a very mellowed out high school senior. Different people age with different circumstances. I have no problem with the fact that I had to grow up fast with the pandemic, and I’m surely not alone in this sentiment among the approximately 630,000 other high school students in Ontario. I finished my grade nine year on a stage, still during a pre-covid time. My grade ten year on a bike ride, during the first lockdown. My grade eleven year with the closing of my laptop, after a long and mentally demanding period of online learning. As for my grade twelve year, I’ve still got a little ways to go before the path becomes clear. Even still, I think I’ve got a pretty good idea where I’m headed. If anywhere, it’ll simply be up north to attend University. 

Just before the lockdown, I’d just started working at the 2020 Purple Woods Maple Syrup Festival, which closed only a few days into my time there. Now, as 2022 comes to a start, my time at the Oshawa Museum as a co-op student has nearly come to an end. Even through multiple lockdowns and a global pandemic, one simply has to keep moving. It’s sometimes hard to accept how fast time has gone and simultaneously how painfully slow it goes. At the end of the day though, that seems to be one of the many ultimatums of the human experience.

There is a quote I’ve scribbled into an old notepad which sits in some forgotten cupboard in my closet. Even with my efforts to find its author, I have no idea who said it. According to the note, “Everybody has a start date, one day that start date will be followed by a dash and an end date, so it’s what makes up that dash that matters the most.” 

I’d say it’s quite accurate. For its benefits and faults, the pandemic has sparked a piece of human history that will be written about in some history textbook one hundred years from now. Our history. Millions and billions of stories. That’s a very sonderous feeling, the knowledge that everyone everywhere has been affected in some form by the history that’s sparked around us these past two years. Yet every experience is different, even if it’s in some slight fraction of a way. This sickness has caused a million butterfly effects, whether we know of them or not, and we’ll be seeing the ripple effect of this point in time carry on through the generations for decades to come. 

Citations

https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/checkup-2yrs.html

https://www.who.int/news/item/27-04-2020-who-timeline—covid-19 

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/educationfacts.html 

https://www.healthing.ca/diseases-and-conditions/coronavirus/hypochondria-in-the-age-of-covid-19/

A University Student’s Entry on the Pandemic

By Jessica R., Summer Student

As I am writing this post, I have been working at the Oshawa Museum for almost a month. Unsurprisingly, I have yet to enter the museum. The reason that this is unsurprising pertains to the issue of COVID-19. Its newfound changes have caused me and the rest of the world to continuously adapt to its decisions. Since this blog aids in archiving and documenting local Oshawa history, I believe adding my perspective on how a university student lives within a pandemic could potentially be useful for documenting the experiences for future historians. I won’t be stressing statistical data since that is heavily documented and shared by our government and media.

March 2020 was the last time I entered a school. Since then, I have been attending school virtually. COVID-19’s continuous variation and ability to spread has stopped most in-person experiences and businesses from opening. As someone who enjoys being around others, stopping suddenly and staying home was a learning curve. I’m lucky to say that my quarantine periods were spent quite uneventfully since many experiences by others can vary in levels of stress and negative moments. Finishing high school felt rushed, confusing, and bittersweet, but I still carried optimism for recovery.

Once I finished high school in June 2020, I was on my way to experience all of my first year of university online. The self-teaching moments of self-discipline and independence gave me an overwhelming wave of stress that I, and many other first-year university students, endured in our first semester. Never going on campus while having the difficulty of not participating in clubs, making friends, and maintaining a daily schedule continues to make me feel a detachment from my university after my first year. It took many months for me to learn how to follow a virtual way of studying instead of the 12 years of in-person studying I had been accustomed to. By trying dozens of different methods just to study, I can say that I have achieved a level of stability that kept me afloat during online schooling.

In the second semester, I was feeling my efforts finally being rewarded and had seen my livelihood and marks improve. As the weather started to warm up and vaccinations started to increase, Ontario’s government promised a brighter future by the end of 2021. As the year continues with these changes, as may be expected, I had to continue to keep up with its pace. The tiredness I once felt when I was in lockdown was fading and I began to see opportunities of being productive again. By the end of June 2021, I decided that I was going to find a job again.

I honestly had no expectations of gaining a job with major career experience or one that fit my interests so soon. I give credit to my mom for being able to see a job application for my current position at the Oshawa Museum. If I’m being frank, this was one of the highlights of my whole year. I am an individual greatly swayed by my passions. So, being able to learn and communicate with people who share the same energy and passion encourages me to work hard and aid in exploring my community in depth. The people I had the pleasure of meeting at the Oshawa Museum have already exceeded my expectations and gave me hope for my future. Although I have only met them online, I’m becoming accustomed to the familiarity of seeing them on Zoom (another part of my life that has become somewhat normalized for someone my age). It sounds cheesy but I consider it a landmark for helping me feel capable of achieving the long-term goals I thought were out of reach during COVID-19.

One thing that the pandemic taught me is that stability in daily schedules is not as promised as we wish them to be. Being someone who values stability in my life, specifically in work and in school, COVID-19 completely shifted my perspective on change. I did a lot of self-reflection and endured times of emotional stress and hard times. However, I can also say that it did teach me more about how I view life, while also helping me realize the priorities I value most. Hopefully this post aids in painting the picture of the experiences I had in COVID-19. No two people’s experiences are the same, but collectively as a community, we have grown stronger together. I hope all the stories from our community, from the good to the bad, continue to be documented as we move forward to help us to reminisce and reflect.

Museum Resiliency

By Melissa Cole, Curator

As I write this month’s blog post, staff from the Oshawa Museum continue to work from home.  I reflect back to the date of March 13, 2020, the date when museums in our city, and across the province, shut their doors as a public health precaution due to COVID-19.  This measure resulted in a loss of self-generated revenue.

Throughout the last year I have seen and heard the impact that COVID-19 has had on museums throughout the province at Regional Museum Network virtual meetings, held with the Ontario Museum Association (OMA).  During the pandemic, museums were affected directly; for instance, there are museums where staff worked remotely and were able to re-open for a short period of time in the summer/fall of 2020, while other sites remain closed, and some museums faced staff redeployment.

Recently, the Ontario Museum Association invited museum networks across the province to meet with local Members of Provincial Parliament.  I was fortunate to represent the York-Durham Association of Museums and Archives at one of these meetings hosted by the OMA.  On March 11, the OMA and YDAMA, including colleagues from Markham and Oshawa, met with MPP Billy Pang (Markham—Unionville) in his roles as MPP and Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries and Dr. Michael Bonner to discuss the impacts of the pandemic and the recommendations put forth by the OMA for support to assist museums to participate in the province’s recovery. Museum representatives from the Oshawa Museum, Markham Museum and Canadian Automotive Museum spoke to our museums’ challenges, potential, and resiliency. 

Museums thought of unique ways to assist their communities to both survive and thrive in this new world of uncertainty and physical isolation.  Museums, that had the means to do so, in the YDAMA network continued to engage the public virtually, providing a safe space away from the pandemic, through the creation of digital content.  For some sites this was the first time producing digital programs and virtual activities.  I thought I would highlight a few examples of the unique programing offered by museums across York and Durham:

When students returned to school in the fall of 2020, once again museums adapted their curriculum school-based programs for virtual delivery.  At the Oshawa Museum, staff created three new virtual programs utilizing our collections and resources. 

The pandemic has shown that museums have an important role to play as integral members of their communities, as places for well-being and connection.  As each of the examples above demonstrates, in their own way, museums can serve their communities by providing a supportive and engaging space, even when our physical spaces are closed.

Spanish Flu in 1918 and COVID-19 in 2020

By Melissa Cole, Curator

Just over 100 years ago, the Province of Ontario, including the Town of Oshawa experienced a public health crisis that resembles today’s COVID-19.  From 1918 – 1920 the Spanish Influenza swept the world and killed 50 million people world wide, taking the lives of young and otherwise healthy adults.  The Spanish Influenza started in February 1918 while the First World War was ongoing and approaching its end, creating the ideal environment for the flu to infect, multiply, and spread rapidly across the globe.  It reached the United States in March 1918, and it reached Canada through troop, hospital and civilian ships sailing from England to Grosse Île.  The Ports of Montreal and Halifax were the main routes of infection into Canada; by late June and early July, it spread across the country via the railway.  According to public health authorities, “The failure to restrict train travel early on was one of the terrible oversights.”   It came in multiple waves. The first wave took place in the spring of 1918, then in the fall of 1918, a mutation of the influenza virus produced an extremely contagious, virulent, and deadly form of the disease. This second wave caused 90% of the deaths that occurred during the pandemic. Subsequent waves took place in the spring of 1919 and the spring of 1920.

Image from the collection of the Glenbow Museum, Calgary, Alberta

In Canada, 50,000 people died, accelerated by complications from infections such as pneumonia.  In Ontario, 300,000 cases and 8,705 deaths were recorded. But these figures likely don’t tell the whole story: medical systems were overwhelmed, meaning that many fatalities almost certainly went unreported; this is evident in the reports that were sent in from local Medical Officers of Health.  The largest percentages of deaths in Ontario from the Spanish Flu occurred in York County which represented 17.3% of the total epidemic deaths. York contained Toronto, the largest city at the time. Carleton County, which included Ottawa, accounted for 5.8% of the deaths, and Wentworth, including Hamilton, had 5.1% of the deaths. No other individual county had more than 5% of the total deaths.  Between 1918 and 1919, Oshawa had a population of approximately 10,000, and there were just over 300 deaths recorded; 84 of those deaths were infants under one year of age.  

Just like today, we tend to think of the young and the elderly as being most at risk, but most of those who died during the Spanish Flu epidemic were between the ages of 20 and 40 — the same demographic already decimated by the First World War. In Canada, the provinces of Quebec and Alberta were the most severely affected, which is one of the reasons archives like the Glenbow Archives in Alberta have a wealth of information related to public health and the Spanish Flu.  

In 1918, the Spanish Flu swept through the Maternity hospital located at Llewellyn Hall, and it was reported that 95% of the babies in the Ward passed away. Unfortunately these numbers were not accounted for or submitted to the provincial board of health as a direct relation to the Spanish Flu, but this may have been the reason why 53 infants under the age of one died that year.  

Provincial Board of Health report, 1919

The following year in 1919, it was reported by Dr. McKay, the medical officer of health for Oshawa, that the town was not greatly affected by the Spanish Flu in 1918, which is indicated by the decrease in deaths attributed to ‘the freedom of the town from the Spanish Flu epidemic.’  When the epidemic hit Oshawa, beds were placed in the armouries to treat the sick, and all churches and schools were closed to prevent spreading.  

Just like today, everyone was encouraged to stay home, however, on November 11, 1918, it was impossible to convince Ontarians to stay home. Despite continued concerns about public gatherings and pleas from politicians to wait until December, people all over the province took to the streets to celebrate the Allied victory and the end of the The Great War.  

Armistice Parade, 1918; image courtesy of the Thomas Bouckley Collection, The RMG

This was our own community celebrating in the streets of Oshawa with the Armistice Parade that took place in November 1918.   It would be the following year, in 1919, when Oshawa and the surrounding communities were hit the hardest by the Spanish Influenza.  Let’s take a lesson from history, and please stay home. 

Resources:

The Report of the Provincial Board of Health Ontario, 1920

The Report of the Provincial Board of Health Ontario, 1905 

Christopher Rutty and Sue Sullivan, This is Public Health: A Canadian History.  Canadian Public Health Association, 2010

Susan Goldenburg, Killer Flu, September 11, 2018. Canada’s History

M. Humphries, Lessons From the 1918 Pandemic: Focus on Treatment, Not Prevention, Globe and Mail, July 24, 2009.

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