Wednesday, April 2, 2025
Yesterday, today and tomorrow
Monday, March 3, 2025
Home from my Prairie
Home from my Prairie
What a wonderful week!
The highlight of my tour home was being able to share my learnings with thousands of students and teachers.
I am in a position and of the age where I can be open and honest. For our world to become what it should be, our youth will have to be given the tools they need to make it so.
1. Residential schools were right there - all around me when I was a boy. Had the adults in my world had the foresight and the courage to tell me the truth about what was going on, I would have had a chance to make a difference.
Not a word about residential schools. Was it that no one knew about the hurt and abuse that was taking place in those schools? I think not. I don't believe that my parents and my teachers were anywhere near as aware as we are today, but many knew and they remained silent.
The Truth and Reconciliation Recommendations are clear in telling us that we MUST tell our children what happened. Are we? Before teachers tell the truth, they must feel that they are supported - they must trust the system they work within. This is where we are struggling. I hope that our board and administrators are leading in this effort.2. Canada's Chinese Canadian youth deserve to know the truth of how Canadians treated the Chinese after inviting them to Canada to work on our new railroad. Chinese youth deserve to know as does every other student. Why do our students not know that Chinese workers had to pay their voyage even after we invited them, needing theirhelp...that they were paid half what a white worker was paid...that they had tarps for shelter while their white counterparts were housed in shacks that provided much better protection from the elements and also that they would be responsible for all the hard and dangerous work. Should they not be informed that one Chinese worker died for every mile of railroad laid between Calgary and Vancouver?
3. Canada's North - The lives of thousands of Northern Canadians would be so much fuller and much more gentle if our youth learned the truth about how these Northerners live and why. The seal hunt was decimated by people who knew nothing about the Inuit, the Innu or the Gwich'in. A movement was started to ban the seal hunt, the traditional way of life of these proud Canadians. Brigitte Bardot started a movement. a movement that ended with the banning of seal fur. She/they spoke of small white calves being cruelly bludgeoned to death on the open ice. They had pictures of men with clubs slaughtering these small white animals. This is NOT how seals were hunted. Yet, we Canadians did not stand up for our Northern family. We let them down then and continue to do so today. I have seen them hunt. They love and respect the seal. They share the last breath of the seal as it dies. If Canadian youth were taught the truth of the hunt and of life in the North, they could make Canada a better Canada.
4. Our schools - We continue, and fueled by social media, to have our youth believe that success is defined by the clothes they wear, the cars they drive and the size of the houses they live in. Study hard. Master the curriculum and the academic world, and you are well on your way to success. We must tell students that they are being misled...that the key to success is not building their lives around ego or money but rather around the gifts that each has within. That is hard to do when our schools focus solely on the curriculum and not on the individuals under our care.
Wednesday, February 19, 2025
Saskatchewan Bound
I'm headed home
Regina, Moose Jaw, North Battleford. In preparing for my upcoming trip, a quote from my book Prairie Born:
If I had a penny for each time I spoke
Of cold, howling wind of deep drifting snow
Of darkness of winter on route to the rink
Of so many memories I smile as I think
Knowing full well that others who've never lived there
Will nod and listen but don't really care
As "morning, fine day" means nothing much more
But to me, it means....
To me it means... Come in and please shut the door
Will the kids be alright? Should I plug in the car?
If I start shovelling now will I get very far?
Will I have to start over before I am done?
Will the wind blow it back? I must weigh a ton.
Fill your cup up - let's visit...remember the time
The snow bank was up past the telephone line?
Here's me in a picture, I'm shovelling the drive
The snow line is over the roof on three sides.
Say what? You can top that - well try this for size
I'd shovelled three hours and to my surprize
That night went I came home, d'you know what I saw?
The wind blew it...."
I know that I'm rambling but all this is true
It's more than just memories of times that I knew
It answers the mystery of what lies in our souls
Where nature's the teacher for young and for old.
It shapes us from childhood through sun, dust and rain
Compels us to live for life's pleasures and pain
And the secret of me from the day of my birth
Is the nurturing seasons and our Mother the Earth.
One of the things that we prairie ex-pats do on a daily basis is watch the weather. How it happens, I don't know but I always seem to find myself in Saskatchewan and Manitoba in mid-winter. I downloaded the image on the right this morning:
I don't worry about the cold. Minus 25 or 35 or even minus 45...It's all the same. It's cold. No...I don't worry about that number. I do however worry about the condition of the roads. That and crazy storms.
The catch in our winter driving is to leave for your destination early and to drive slowly. I will be driving a rental and will select a vehicle that can cope with harsh conditions.
Monday, February 17, 2025
LitCon 2025 Columbus Ohio
LitCon 2025

Thursday, February 13, 2025
Zoom - Google Meet - Microsoft Teams
Zoom -Teams - Meet
There are many new exciting ways to meet and share...
Last week, I delivered a keynote address to LitCon, the biggest Literacy Conference in the US.
I chose my stories with the intent of helping students (and staff) learn from some of my many life experiences across the globe yet remaining focussed on those I have had in Canada - from coast to coast to coast.
Thursday, February 6, 2025
No Apologies - No excuses
A few years ago, I gave into what I had come to believe in - generic direction.
There was a time that I planned my entire life - a ten year plan...a five year plan...weekly and daily plans. As I grew, I was taught by life's greatest teacher, experience, that I needed not plan. My Grandmothers had me covered.
We all have within us (in our DNA) memories and more. Our Grandmothers live in each and every one of us whether we know it or not...whether we listen to them or not. If this blog serves nothing more than to wake you to that important and meaningful truth, it will serve us both well.Once you come to realize that she (perhaps a collective of Grandmothers?) lives there, within you, you might be lucky enough to come to know her name. And if you are fortunate to pinpoint the source of your guide, speak her name, as I do, Jeanne Charbonneau. This will strengthen the bond between you and sharpen your senses to her every direction.
I am not fortunate enough to have her picture (though I have been to her gravesite in Kransburt, South Dakota). I do, however, have a picture of her Granddaughter, my Great Grandmother whom I had known as a boy.
My full name is Pierre David Bouchard. I was named after my Grandfather, Pierre Mercier (showing here).
Monday, November 6, 2023
Implementing the recommendations of the TRC - A difficult challenge
Telling your students the Truth as you attempt to implement the recommendations of TRC is a very difficult assignment.
If ONE person, a parent, a trustee, an administator or...any ONE person has an issue with your efforts, it could be disastrous. It could mean your job/your livelhood.
Yet, you want to do your share. What can you do?Educate them - your students (and your community) about the values and beliefs of those to whom we know we are owing. One way to do this is for you to use my books that focus on the Sacred Teachings. These Teachings are consistent among many First Nations. To access those of the Haudenosaunee, use my book The Great Law.
For middle school - high school, the Seven Sacred Teachings is a beautifully illustrated look at the Grandfather Teachings/Teachings or the White Buffalo Calf Woman. To support the book, allo me to read it to them
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFPuRfqm9RY&t=359s
For every right there is a wrong. For each of the Sared Teachings there is a Deceiver. Again, the book and/or the video clip: