A Blast from the Past: English Teacher Unearths a Part of his Students’ Childhood

A Blast from the Past: English Teacher Unearths a Part of his Students’ Childhood

digitalsportsnews | December 12, 2014
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When you check your mailbox at home, what do you typically find? For most, it’s a mix of junk mail and bills. In an age where technology rules, we seldom receive a hand-written letter anymore. Imagine the surprise when students received not only a hand-written letter, but one that they had written themselves 20 years earlier! For nearly 40 years, Bruce Farrer has been keeping the thrill of a penned note alive for former English students. From 1977 until 2002, Farrer challenged his 14-year old students to sit down and write 10-page letters to their future selves. The now retired teacher says, "It's an assignment that makes them think at 14, what do I want to do and am I on the right path?" Farrer then hung on to the letters so that students wouldn't lose them or open them before 20 years had passed, and mailed them back after two decades. He tested the logistics of the assignment in 1961 while teaching at one-room schoolhouse, and from 1977 on, he has been giving the thought provoking assignment to the hundreds of students gracing his classroom. Farrer’s inspiration for this assignment was fueled early in life. At age 11 or 12, he began to keep a diary which he looked back on when he started teaching. He was fascinated by his own thoughts as a preteen. “I’ve always had a sense of history,” he said. “I thought that it would be valuable for people raising children when they get the letters to remember what it's like to be 14 years old. One student said the topics she wrote about as a teenager are the same ones her own 14-year-old daughter talks about when she gets home from school." Former student Kate Marchildon has two older sisters who received theirs in recent years and hers will be coming soon. "I remember roughly what was going on in that point, but not specifically what I wrote, so I'm pretty curious,'' she told TODAY.com. "I think it seems like it might be intimidating, but when you sat down to write it, it's kind of neat to think about what your future might be. I'm just impressed that he was still tracking us all down." Farrer does the absolute best he can to track down all of his students, using the power of social media, like Facebook, to ensure they get their letter. A few students simply cannot be found, like John Cheers from an early 1980’s class. Unfortunately, not all of his students were able to enjoy this blast from the past. Farrer has sadly discovered that some of his students have passed away. "Sometimes I've contacted parents and said I had the letter, and it becomes a little part of that person that they've lost that they're able to keep,'' Farrer said. "Recently I was very disappointed after finding out a student died last year because I thought, if I had only sent that letter a year earlier." This project has made the 72-year old from Saskatchewan, Canada more of a detective than a teacher. “It gives me a sense of satisfaction when I find them,'' he said. Farrer usually works on the letter project in March and part of April. He says he still has nearly 700 letters that will be need to be sent in the next 12 years. "I thought it would be something I could do in my leisurely retirement, but I'm still subbing 80 percent of the time,'' he joked. Because of this project, Farrer has received more friend requests than the average teenager, coming from former students looking to reconnect with the man that gave them back a piece of their youth. After the long two-decade wait, it has been a cathartic experience for some students, who have publicly shared the contents of their letters on Facebook. "I think it's been neat to see other people posting on Facebook what they thought they wrote to what actually happened,'' Marchildon said. Here is the video provided by WestJet: [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeX1H7ajOvQ[/embed]