How I got interested in history...

Trying to pin down the source of my first historical inspiration is difficult. I am very aware of the biases of my current mind-set and the failings of my own terrible memory, and I curse a lack of sources that could confirm or deny conceptions of my own personal mythology.

Though it is embarrassing to admit after taking so many courses that were based on post-colonial theory, as a child I was totally fascinated by the exotic. Influenced in large part by my very well-travelled father, I loved the art, music and utter strangeness of foreign cultures. At my very cool, fairly hippie, ultra WASPy elementary school in the Gatineau we used to have "Around the World Day" every year. Classes would spend a couple month getting prepared for it, studying one country's traditional food, culture, arts, sports, history, etc. Then on the actual day of the event each class would decorate their classroom to look like the country they studied, the students would dress up in traditional costume, serve national dishes and provide very brief overviews of their country's history. Students would take shifts alternating between presenting their class' studied culture and visiting the other rooms. Everyone got really into this. Houses were constructed out of desks, chairs and paper; I remember one older class reconstructing a Japanese teahouse where we had to kneel and respect certain cultural traditions. My class did India one year and that probably made the strongest impression on me. Wearing a sari and helping to reconstruct the Taj Mahal out of paper towel tubes and cardboard made a big impression on me and looking back it probably played no small part in inspiring my fascination with the country I eventually had the privilege of visiting. Looking back with my university training, I can see all sorts of problems with this event in terms of exoticization, but it still sticks with me as one of the earliest times I was ever asked to really study and think about the way a very different culture functions and flourishes.

Another big influence would be my Granpa Walt. He, my grandma and a bunch of my uncles lived in Edmonton, Alberta where my family and I used to go visit them most summers. Grandpa Walt had been a pharmacist before he retired and so he volunteered mot summers at Fort Edmonton historic park in their early 20th century pharmacy. My cousin and always used to like helping him concoct various "remedies" with the heavy stone mortar and pestle. Much like my fear of life sized cartoon characters at Disneyland, I was always somewhat freaked out by the overly friendly costumed folks at the heritage park, but my Grandpa's presence really helped. I remember trying to think of what it must have been like for him to live in whatever long-ago landscape I had imagined. Though the period I imagined him living in was probably some three or four decades before he was actually working, I was fascinated trying to comprehend how different this past was.

In late elementary school and early high school I had some terribly mediocre social studies teachers. They weren't awful, but they clearly had minimal passion for the subject (why always gym teachers? I had some fairly good ones, but what is with that connection?) and the subject came across as a curriculum requirement rather than an engaging and alive topic. It's funny though because in all our idealistic talk about getting primary source documents integrated into high school history I know my gifted learning high school class thoroughly rejected such moves. My class developed an immediate dislike for Mr. M and his unconventional emphasis on diary entries and non-"Big Men" individuals. Mr. M had won an award for innovative teaching methods but my classmates and I found him completely unrelatable in the classroom. He clearly had a lot of theory under his belt but his weak classroom management skills was the blood in the water that we frenzied upon. We were definitely hot-headed brats but I think it is important to remember that many high school students are and that is a reality to deal with. I am glad that we have two teachers in our own class to keep the perspective of the realities of teaching. Mr. M's class "should have" been the class that set my historical passions on fire, but it certainly did not.

As I discussed in class, it was my (optional) grade 12 international history since WWI class that really got me excited. In that class I felt like I was finally learning the background to all those casual references that my family and the media made to topics such as the Israeli/Palestinian conflicts, the Great Depression and the Cold War. It was like I was being let in on this adult secret, that I was old enough to learn about the past, and I ate it up. For me it was practical in that it helped me to understand the references I was constantly inundated with.

University was where I had my completely mind blown by a few extraordinary professors. A course on modern China introduced me to the concept of completely different worldviews and conceptions of the past. It was also the first class where I was explicitly encouraged to go beyond traditional text sources for information. The idea I could examine propaganda and art and clothing and food to tell a history was incredible. My first Indigenous history course expanded on these themes while introducing a history that couldn't be dismissed as a foreign subject. Learning how little I knew about an incredibly important part of my own country's history was shocking and the way in which it forced me to challenge my own assumptions and ingrained dichotomies made my brain physically ache.

This post getting long but it is an interesting topic and one that I don't often think about. Looking back, I guess my interest in history came in a few stages moving from exotic appeal to practical knowledge to a way of thinking. At least according to my unreliable sources that is.

Thanks for stimulating the conversation Libschoollady! (*Apologies for my initial misidentification of this blog writer*)