ANDRE BEGIN

I don’t know how most people felt about their history classes in primary and middle school, but several decades later, I look back and think that they were a missed opportunity… for me, at least. To my teachers, I extend my heartfelt apologies. It wasn’t you, it was me.

To the younger version of me, history was all about names, dates and places. So I memorized for as long as I needed and then dumped the information from my brain as soon as we completed our tests. Yet strangely, I have no problem remembering the lyrics to most of the Billboard Top 100 pop songs from 1983 to 1992. Selective memory? Probably.

The truth is, on a deeper level, I didn’t really connect with the material. I certainly don’t fault our well-intentioned teachers. I think that they did the best that they could with the curriculum that they were provided.

In the defense of the curriculum writers, I assume that they had to pick and choose the material to try to reach the widest audience of students possible. However, when the recurring themes were war, conflict, battle and struggle, as much as I truly felt appreciation for those who fought for the freedoms we enjoy today, given my strong aversion to conflict, I couldn’t quite relate or connect.

As a pre-teen, I was aware that my ancestors had been on this continent since the 1600s, but their names never showed up in the history books. More recent research confirmed that they weren’t notable explorers or nobility; they were just the working-class folks of their time, braving harsh conditions in search of a better life and possibly a parcel of land. Nonetheless, their untold day-to-day contributions were also an integral part of the foundation upon which our country was built. I wish that more of those stories had been shared with us.

As an adult, performing research into my family tree was a definitive game-changer. It filled some of the gaps left behind with stories of not just my ancestors but of their neighbours and fellow settlers. In turn, these stories renewed my interest in knowing more about our country’s origins.

If someone had pointed me in the direction of church records, maps of land-owners in the new world, or information on the evolution of language, art, food and cultural norms, I might have been more interested in what I was memorizing.

Discovering how my own “working class” ancestors fit into the picture of the founding of the country contributed to my interest in wanting to know more. On a recent trip to Quebec City, I was delighted to track locations for which I have seen documentary evidence of where my ancestors were known to have lived, worked or traded.

I realize that they couldn’t customize the history class to better appeal to me, personally. I just think that if a self-guided component existed for more personal research, I might have developed a natural curiosity in wanting to know more.

I don’t think it’s an accident that when we watch historical documentaries today, I cling to every word as they fill in the blanks with context, perspective and specifics that make so much more sense to me now. Just the same, I appreciate the effort our teachers made to try to make the topic appealing for students like me who didn’t quite make the connection yet as to history’s importance and relevance today.

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Sincere thanks for reading!
Have a great day,
André