Merci beaucoup Madame Henderson

You most likely, don't remember me. Indeed, I only just barely remember you. Nonetheless, your influence on my life has been immense. I am one of your many Whitehorse Elementary French Immersion students. As a wide eyed pupil in your grade three class I started my journey learning how to learn to speak a new language. It is a journey that has taken me to many languages and lands, to moments of life rich and deep, experiences dazzling and wonderful. It has helped me accomplish amazing things across the barriers of culture and language. For all this I am so grateful.

I was one of your slowest students.

I struggled to learn French and often I had to stay after school to catch up. I remember being the last student in the classroom on cold dark Yukon evenings. You would stay extra hours to help students like me who were struggling or who had fallen behind. I remember running magnetic picture cards through a white machine to hear the corresponding French word. You then had me speak the word, repeating over and over, until I got it right. You would be working at your desk, yet every once and a while you would catch my mispronunciation, and encourage me to try once again.

Decades later, I realize that what I learned those evenings wasn’t just French, but something far more important: how to speak my words right. Speaking a word, getting it wrong, repeating it a little better, failing, repeating, over and over again, until I got it right, is a technique that has stayed with me all my life. It's the simplest of skills-- an ethic of attention, focus and perseverance. It is also a key that has opened doors for me every where I have gone.

When my family moved from Whitehorse to Ottawa, I was enrolled again in French immersion. My parents and teachers were astonished to discover that my Yukon French was not only better than my middle-school Ontarian peers, it seemed that I was able to retain my French lessons better. I went from remedial to gifted in a year. Even in high school, when I was no longer academically obliged, I kept up learning and speaking French. I continued all the way through university.

But not only have I learned to speak, there has always been something about my pronunciation and accent that people love. People can understand me. I have been told many times it has to do with the clarity and clearness of my speech-- a lack of an accent. Not even French Canadians can guess where I am from: “What is that accent?” they ask. It's too difficult to explain, so it remains my little secret: it is my Whitehorse Elementary, Yukon accent!

I have learned that the effort and energy one invests in speaking clearly the words of others is a way to honor the people and culture of a place. Being able to show my respect this way, has led to the most spectacular intercultural connections and experiences.

I have heard firsthand the soul chilling stories of veterans from the Second World War-- in German as well as French. I've worked and lived with Icelandic farmers, sipping coffee and telling jokes on the side of the field. I’ve learned a spaghetti recipe direct from an Italian grandmother. On the floor of a humble home in Gaza, I’ve heard the stories of a Palestinian family that will never make CNN. I made my home amongst the Igorot people of the Northern Philippines. In learning their language, I was able to unlock kernels of ancestral wisdom hidden in their linguistics that have great import for our modern age. Stranded in a snow storm, I was taken in by monks in a Belgian monastery and over a decade have kept up my friendship with a 90 year old Monk who speaks only French. And now, in Indonesia, I can conduct interviews on the radio and national TV on ecologically critical topics, quietly engaging literally millions of people to action.

People often think that I have some "special talent for languages". Really, I was the slowest in your whole class! The truth is, learning languages, reaching across cultures and connecting, simply comes down to perseverance and pronunciation-- speaking ones words clear and correct.

It is something that I learned from my French Immersion teacher in grade three at Whitehorse Elementary.

Merci beaucoup Madame Henderson.