Juhl: This Montreal teacher wants to make student apathy history

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When it comes to teaching history, Philip Rossi isn’t afraid to be a little dramatic.

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“I’m telling a story,” he says. “It’s like I’m putting on a theater piece to entertain the students. Sometimes it gets a little over the top and awkward, but you gotta roll the dice.”

Rossi has been teaching social science at Marymount Academy in Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce for the past two years, while students have had to endure a fragmented high-school experience. He says his Secondary 5 group has some ground to make up because of that, and he wants them to fall back in love with learning, “even though I know that’s a cliché.”

“It helps that I’m a little closer to them in age. I’m 31, so we have a good rapport because of that, and I share a lot of interests with them, whether it’s TV shows or video games.”

This rapport means kids feel they can use Rossi as a sounding board. If they want to talk about their pronouns, for instance, he’ll give them the tools to communicate with their other teachers. If they need to talk about something that happened at home, he’ll sit and listen. If necessary, he’ll refer them to the vice-principal or school counsellor.

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“I’m trying to teach them how to flip the switch between personal and professional.”

A conversation with Rossi suggests he has a PhD in flipping the switch. One minute he’s all academia, saying he treats his Sec. 5 students like they’re in a junior-level college class, with plenty of lectures and assignments based on readings. If they don’t meet their deadlines, there will be consequences, just like in real life, and those consequences could be dire.

Then suddenly there’s a mischievous glint in his eyes as he talks about the Nintendo Super Smash Bros. club he set up with a colleague because there weren’t enough extracurricular activities for “the students who are a little nerdier, as I was in high school .” And again when he talks about taking the students to a local green space for class, where instead of taking notes they listen to Rossi give a half-hour theatrical lecture before he sends them home.

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“Students will skip class, but I don’t want them to have an experience like I did, where I was dragging my feet and my parents were forcing me to go to school.”

He says he takes a college-based approach to teaching because he believes the majority of his students will go to CEGEP. But he also creates space for the children who struggle academically to help them understand there’s a great need for them in trades and vocational school, and that all workers are important to the community. He’ll write recommendations for them if they ask.

“I’m your ally regardless of who you are and where you’re from,” he says. “As teachers, we’re here for the kids, but not only academically.

“I want them, when they see their schedule, not to say, ‘Damn, I have history.’ I want them to say, ‘Hey, let’s go to history.’ If they can say it’s not the end of the world, that’s a victory for me.”

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