North Van Student Honored at History Forum

This weekend Canada's History magazine is sponsoring its History Forum in Ottawa, an annual get-together that celebrates Canadian history and honors some of its leading practitioners and students.

On Sunday there will be an all-day session called "How Should the Great War be Remembered" and as part of the agenda six youngsters from across the country will be screening short videos on historical themes that they made for their local heritage fairs. BC is represented by North Vancouver's 12-year-old Kristen Schulz whose video features the history of her own home. You can view the video here. It was chosen from among 200 submitted by students across the country.

I was lucky enough to attend the Forum a couple of years ago, along with dozens of history students and their teachers from every part of the country. One often hears complaints about the kind of history that is being taught in our schools, or that not enough of it is being taught at all. There may be some truth to these complaints in some provinces or in some schools, but the experience of attending the Forum convinced me that Canadian history is still being taught with flair and enthusiasm by many dedicated teachers and learned by many imaginative students. Like Kristen Schulz.