User:Baggerfive

I come from Nova Scotia, born in Windsor in the Annapolis Valley and grew up in the north end of Halifax. I attended Queen Elizabeth High School before studying at the University of King’s College also in Halifax, followed by Memorial University of Newfoundland in St John’s, NL.

Nearly all my summers were spent in Avonport, near Hansport, NS at our summer cottage on the Minas Basin, part of the Bay of Fundy. It was probably the most idyllic period I can remember. The warm sun, sand and tides, boats and books in a hammock.

From 1998 until 2005 I worked as a Naval officer in the Canadian Navy in Halifax. During that period I was contracted as a Naval Reserve Officer to the intelligence Unit in Halifax and to Operation Apollo in the Persian Gulf serving in two Arab countries and at sea on USS Constellation.

Before joining the Navy I was a teacher in Zambia (Chikanakata Secondary School) for three years and the United Kingdom (Preston Manor High School) for five years returning to Canada in 1995 to study at Université Laval.

I am currently a seminarian for the diocese of Antigonish studying at the Grand Séminaire de Montréal. I recently completed my doctoral studies in Education (History of Education) at the University of South Africa in Pretoria. My thesis, entitled For A Space To Teach: Acadian Teachers in Public Schools in Eastern Nova Scotia, 1811-1864, focuses on the first Acadian public school teachers and French language education in the Acadian villages of what is now the Diocese of Antigonish.

My previous research at Université Laval for my Maîtrise ès Arts en Histoire, concentrated on the educational work in the same villages by early French speaking priests from 1792 to 1853 many of whom taught the first Acadian teachers mentioned in my doctoral thesis.