Rideau Hall, Friday, November 2, 2007

In With Open Eyes, one of my favourite authors, Marguerite Yourcenar, wrote that people who love life also must love history, because human memory preserves the past and makes it a part of our present. I am happy this morning to be among people who love life.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to Rideau Hall, this historic residence, where the past and the present intertwine.

I live and work in this house, where twenty-six governors general have done the same before me.

Countless exceptional Canadians have been honoured here, recognized for their genius, their spirit of innovation, their bravery and their altruism. Political figures have stayed here, people who greatly influenced the world they lived in.

It is with both humility and enthusiasm that I continue the work that began over a century ago, work to which I try to bring my own energy and vision.

Because you teach children and youth, you have, no doubt, been asked the question that instantly ages us by a hundred years: “What were things like in your time?” As though our time—the time in which we were born, were students ourselves, and grew to adulthood—happened in prehistoric times.

That question always makes me smile. Because it reminds me that when we are children, when we are young, the life stretched out in front of us barely extends beyond the present, a present that is lived intensely, by the minute, by the second.

In an era of instant access, when everything is captured on the spot and broadcast live—without any possibility of taking it back—it is becoming harder and harder to see things from a wider, historical perspective.

I worry about a world that too often wipes the slate clean and starts fresh. I worry about a world in which looking at things from a historic perspective and consequently reflecting on that perspective are sacrificed in favour of speed and novelty.

How can we not worry when we know that people without history—amnesic people—are doomed to repeat the errors of the past?

When we know that our memory of the past influences the way we think, the way we create, dream and act?

When we know that history is the very foundation of all identity, both individual and collective?

I firmly believe that it is essential for young people to trace what has happened in history, the same way they might trace the course of a river to find the ocean. An ocean of countless experiences, infinite knowledge, multiple questions, signs, and memories that all irrigate our lives and make them richer and more productive.

The women and men we are honouring today invite young people to take this trip back in time, a trip that is so essential to understanding who they are and where they live. To understand their place in the world and how they are responsible for changing it for the better.

From the moment we realize that we are a part of history—that we are not just witnessing it, but playing a role in it as well—we understand that each and every one of us has the power to change its course.

That is why it is so important to take an interest in history, to understand its consequences, and to continually ask questions about it.

Famous people are not the only ones who make history. Each and every one of us makes our own contribution, in our own way. We are links in one giant human chain.

And by passing on our collective and complete memory to the youth of Canada, you—as history teachers—are giving them the opportunity to add their own link to that chain, a chain that connects us all, over borders and generations.

Which only proves how important your job is.

You were chosen to receive this award because you do this work with conviction, commitment and imagination.

We cannot overestimate how much creativity—and daring—it takes to captivate a class and teach them, without the effort of learning taking away from the joy of discovery. I salute the energy and determination with which you reinvent and personalize the act of teaching history.

Take, for example, Rhonda Draper, a teacher at Glenmore School in Kelowna, British Columbia, who uses folk songs and music to teach her students about history.

At Humberside Collegiate Institute in Toronto, Rose Fine Meyer gives her students research projects like creating school archives. Her students learn the entire history of the community in the course of their research.

Susan Haynes, who teaches at Havergal College in Toronto, gives her students the opportunity to create a passport into the past. She asks them to research historical figures and to put themselves in those people’s shoes, especially by recreating period costumes.

For his part, John MacPhail, who teaches at St. Dominic’s Catholic School in Oakville, Ontario, wants his students to form their own opinions and question the ideas they are taught. He never hesitates to set up mock trials or to make the connection between the challenges of yesterday and today.

At Georges Vanier Catholic School in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Monique Martin uses the institution’s artistic vocation to showcase the past. Students in grades 7 and 8 designed posters that illustrate an event, a place, a person or a specific time in Saskatoon’s history. These posters were then displayed in bus shelters and on city buses.

In his Canadian-African class at Weston Collegiate Institute in Toronto, David Watkin asks his students to work together to define what it means to be Black in Canada. For example, after reading an article on the lack of recognized heroes in the Black community, his students created a superhero who faces problems that are specific to Black people.

Most of us owe our love of learning and discovery to teachers who shared their passion with us. Their passion for the material and their passion for life, as Marguerite Yourcenar so eloquently put it.

Thank you for sharing your passion with Canada’s youth. Thank you for inspiring them to continue down the path of history, which begins anew with each of us.

After all, what would history be without the countless experiences that make up our lives, experiences we want to share with those who are following in our footsteps, so that they can go further than we have ever gone.

Thank you for making your passion contagious! Bravo!