For the past few days in Canada, the news has been dominated by the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge and the re-dedication of the Vimy Memorial. I've enjoyed reading online about how it was one of the major offensives in World War I, the very large role the Canadians played in the battle and, seeing as to how Canada never had a war for independence, World War I and Vimy Ridge are the closest we have in our history.
Too bad I learned none of this in high school.
I've written several times in the past of the horror that was Seba Beach, the school where I spent grades 10 thru 12. Seba Beach had some of the nicest, kindest, and best teachers in the school division. But the students - my classmates - had given up a long time ago. Having given up on a future, but drilled into their heads that they needed a high school diploma, they were kind of running out the clock until graduation.
About a year or so ago, I ran into my old English teacher, who told me that I was the last one. "Mark, you were the last one at Seba with the glimmer in his eye, that desire to learn, who wanted to make something of himself. You were the one who made teaching at Seba worthwhile."
Too bad my Social 10 teacher didn't feel the same way.
It's Social Studies 10 where the brunt of Canadian history is taught, and I had the worst case scenario for learning history. My teacher was fat old Mrs. Pierce. She wasn't even a real teacher. She was the guidance councillor, drafted into being a teacher because the school was shorthanded. She didn't want to be in the class, therefore none of us wanted to be in the class.
All she did was stand at the front of the class and recite an endless list of names and dates. And she'd say everything three times, so we'd have enough time to write down.
I didn't learn of the sacrafice of the soldiers at Vimy Ridge, or what it meant in Canada's assertion of independence. All I learned was:
Vimy Ridge. April 9, 1917.
Vimy Ridge. April 9, 1917.
Vimy Ridge. April 9, 1917.
I didn't learn anything about what Vimy Ridge actually meant until around this time last year when, after talking with a friend who felt similarily screwed, he recommended the book Canadian History for Dummies. I checked it out at the library, and was enthralled. Got a little ribbing from my mother, too. "You're no dummy!" she said. I replied that I was just simply working my way up to Pierre Berton.
A lot of Mrs. Pierce's information was out-of-date, too. the last thing she taught us was that Canada needed two things to fully become independent:
Patriation of the Constitution.
Patriation of the Constitution.
Patriation of the Constitution.
Establish a charter of rights and freedoms
Establish a charter of rights and freedoms
Establish a charter of rights and freedoms
It wasn't until university and Professor Bateman's course in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that I learned that all that had happened in 1982.
So I still have this repressed anger that I got screwed out of a proper education on Canadian history.
I kind of hope I can make it to France someday. It would be neat to see Vimy Ridge, and just try to further my own education.
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