One of my favourite aspects of my job is that I teach mostly to non-historians. The International Foundation Program is aimed at international students who performed just below the minimum IELTS/TOEFL score required for direct admission into U of T. Instead of being denied admission, these students get a chance to take a transitional year in which they improve their language skills by taking an academic course and extra classes in academic skills, writing, and speaking. I teach the academic course – a first year world history course that I run pretty much as I would if I were teaching it in the history department. The main difference is that my students did not choose to take my course. Many of them are going into the sciences or commerce and are not particularly fond of history. They confess to me that they actually hate history.
Instead of seeing that as a hurdle, I see it as an opportunity. I can relate to how they feel. I too came from an educational system in which history was boring, based on rote-learning, had absolutely no meaning. A system in which you were discouraged from asking questions because that would be the same as telling your professor that he did not explain the lesson well. You needed to show respect and the way you did it was repeating his or hers exact words in the exam. Although I loved reading historical novels, I found academic history very painful. That was until I came to Canada and took history at university and realized that it didn’t have to be that way. It changed my life. If I can share some of that feeling with my students, I would consider my job done.
My students are the elites in their countries. They come to Toronto to become doctors, scientists, businessmen and women. I don’t want them to become historians instead. There are enough historians in the world. But perhaps they can become doctors, lawyers, businesswomen who think more critically, question more, consider the historical implications of what happens around them.
In the last day of class this term, I asked my students to write in a small card what was the main thing they learned this year or what they enjoyed most. Many commented that the course changed their views of what history is and that it is much more interesting than they believed. It also changed the way they think in general. Last night a group of students organized a party for me and their academic skills and writing instructors and each student present (about 15-20 students) spoke for a couple minutes about how much they appreciated the year. I’ll miss this bunch. I love my job.
