As a History teacher I’m a big fan of primary sources. There’s some really cool ones on the Net now including the Alberta Newspaper Collection and Manitobia’s Newspaper Collection of Manitoba journals.
Yesterday via my Twitter contacts, I came across a website of old Australian newspapers. Why, you ask, would someone who teaches Canadian history be interested in Australian papers? I have to admit, I had no good reason to be interested except that primary sources fascinate me. Then it occured to me that you might be able to measure how important an event is, in a big picture sort of way, by examening how much attention other people pay to it.
For example, was the execution of Louis Riel, so often mentioned in Western Canadian history courses, of interest to anyone else? It turns that in 1885 Australian newspapers did cover the event. The 1873 Canadian Pacific Railway Scandal rates a mention. It turns out that at least some events in Canada were of interest to people far across the world.
Primary sources from other countries can put your own countries events in perspective. They can get us out of our tiny fishbowl where our small world seems ever so important and give us a sense of scale. That is likely as important for the teacher as for the student.