In Search of Kingdom Living

As a child, I was enrolled in a French immersion grade school. My parents chose a French immersion school because they felt I would benefit from learning another language at an early age. The grade school that I attended, Tam O’Shanter Junior Public School , consisted of mainly female teachers who were fluent in both English and French. All courses were taught in French except for English and music class. Due to the difficulty of maintaining a consistent French speaking environment, many teachers would encourage creative ways to teach a given subject matter in the French language. I am especially indebted to the teachers as they sought to create an environment that would engage my particular predisposition.

Influential Teachers

I remember two teachers in grade school that stood out primarily due to their creative teaching methods. First, there is Madame Henry in grade 2. She was a gregarious person who would laugh easily and made learning quite fun. I remember that she had a very creative way to induce the students to continually speak French. At the beginning of the school year, she gave every student an enveloped filled with monopoly money. For the duration of the year, we would play a game where if you catch a fellow student speaking in English, you can ask them for a dollar. At the end of the year, the student with the most money would be treated to a free lunch with Madame Henry. Of course I found this game to be a wonderful learning experience and actually won.

A second teacher that proved influential was my grade 6 teacher, Madame Dumas. By this grade, I had already developed an aptitude towards math and she had a creative way to teach that specific subject. As a class, we would tackle daily math problems under time constraints with the potential of simple rewards such as being the first person to leave for recess. In her classroom, originality was valued just as much as academic success. Many projects often had inventive components where students who were more artistically inclined could produce a piece of art (ie. a picture, poem, etc.) that was an integral part of many assignments. This manner of teaching proved to create a learning environment that was both safe for learning, and also demanded quality in our education.

Further on in junior high, I continued my French immersion education at John Buchan Senior Public School . In my grade 8 class, I came under the tutelage of Mr. Veilleux. He was a straight forward teacher who also brought in some inventive elements into the difficult task of teaching multiple subjects in French. One consistent teaching practice and a big project can serve as illustration for his teaching methods.

In order to more fully appreciate and practice conversational French language, Mr. Veilleux implemented a weekly improvisation activity. Essentially, all the students were split off into teams and would participate in an improv competition similar to the television show, Whose Line Is It Anyways . All students would look forward to these weekly improv competitions and we had great fun interacting while speaking French.

Another memorable learning moment involved a major reading project. The entire class read a mystery book in French and had to participate in a mock trial involving the suspects of the book. I was chosen to be one of the persecuting lawyers and had to research criminal and legal terminology in French. Again, this was another engaging way that helped me learn the French language.

Reflection on my childhood

As a child, I was very fortunate to be raised by a family and the larger community of the church who instilled me with biblical values.

I was also tremendously shaped by various arts, particularly through music and illustrations. These artistic elements would always be a fundamental part of my learning. As I reflect on my influential teachers, they all used great creativity to engage my learning sensibilities.