“I AM A CANADIAN, FREE TO SPEAK WITHOUT FEAR, FREE TO WORSHIP IN MY OWN WAY, FREE TO STAND FOR WHAT I THINK IS RIGHT, FREE TO OPPOSE WHAT I BELIEVE IS WRONG, AND FREE TO CHOOSE THOSE WHO SHALL GOVERN MY COUNTRY.”

- JOHN DIEFENBAKER

RightsResponsibilities Freedoms

Current Rights and Responsibilities

• The right to be treated with respect. • The responsibility to ask for respect, to respect others in return and to

respect yourself.

• The right to have and to express your own feeling and opinions.

• The responsibility to express these feelings and opinions as “I” statements and to take responsibility of your own feelings and opinions.

• The right to be listened to and taken seriously.• The responsibility to express yourself clearly, simply and calmly and to

take yourself seriously on serious matters.

• The right to set your own priorities.• The responsibility to take the time and put in the effort to do so.

• The right to say “no”.• The responsibility to say “no” honestly.

• The right to as for what you want, knowing that others have the right to say “no”.

• The responsibility to accepts that others are responsible to meet their needs and you meet yours.

• The right to ask for information.• The responsibility to decide if the information is helpful and you can use it.

• The right to make mistakes. • The responsibility to accept that you don’t have to be perfect and to learn

from your mistakes.

Current Freedoms • Freedom – the power to act, speak or think as one pleases,

without being under the control of another person.

• Freedom of expression – allows people to seek, receive and give information and ideas and express opinions.

• Freedom of religion – people are free to practice any religion they choose to follow, or no religion at all.

• Freedom of conscience – following the knowledge one has of right and wrong and doing what they feel is right or correct.

Do you think people have always had these rights, responsibilities and freedoms?

Looking Back In Time

• 1902• Upper class people and lower class people• Horse and carriages • Factory workers, shop workers, miners• Average life expectancy – 47• One room school houses • Kids grew up quickly • Farming

What kind of rights, freedoms and responsibilities do you think people during this time have?

One Type of Job

Coal - a black or brownish black solid substance that is formed by the partial decay of vegetable matter under the influence of moisture and often increased pressure and temperature within the earth and that is widely used as a fuel.

Coal miners - men who work long hours in a pit or tunnel from which coal is taken.

Do you think this job was easy? Would you like to have this job?Were workers treated fairly?Where their rights respected?

• Write a prediction for this story:

• Setting • Characters • Events • Possible problem • Possible solution

• 8 sentences

• Cape Breton, Nova Scotia • Coal mining family • Willie Maclean – Main character

• Pit Pony - small horses, mules, or ponies which were used to pull coal shuttle cars from underground mines.

Chapter 1 - Vocabulary• Schooner

• Wharf

• Livery stables

• Sloshing

• Thrashing

• A very large ship

• A structure built on the shore at which ships can load and unload; dock

• Where the ponies and horses were kept

• Splashing

• To strike forcefully especially with a long instrument like a whip

• Colliers

• Ceilidh

• Fractious

• Puny mite

• Coal miner

• A social gathering at which there is Scottish folk music, singing, dancing and storytelling.

• Easily irritated; bad tempered.

• A small, weak child.

Questions to think about • What do we learn about

how the characters live? – Setting

• What do we learn about Willie?

Dirt roads, water from wells, small houses, lamps, wooden washtubs, candles

He is 11 years old

He likes horses

Willie wants to be a blacksmith or live on Sable Island with the wild horses

Family: Maggie, Sarah, Nellie, John, Father – Rory, and his grandmother

After Reading • Why does Willie not want to

be a miner? – What types of conditions

do you think miners work in?

• What rights do you think miners had?

• Dress in the cold dark mornings• Work long hard days• Poisonous gases in the mines• “Bumps” in the mines• The mine owner controls the

mines and employees• Mining families don’t earn a lot• Miners were not always treated

with respect of fairly.

What culture is Willie’s family?