My name is Breana Paulos and I’m from Ashcroft B.C. I attended Ashcroft Elementary School from Kindergarten to Grade 7, then Ashcroft Secondary School from Grade 8 to Grade 12. Throughout my years in Elementary and Secondary School, I played a variety of sports including: volleyball, basketball, soccer, and karate, as well as other extracurricular activities like piano. In addition to this, I was a very academic person.

Since Grade 5 I’ve always wanted to be a teacher, and this idea stuck with me until I graduated. I’m now in my third year of the Bachelor of Arts Program at Thompson Rivers University, and I’m continuing to pursue my dream of being a teacher.

Throughout my two and a half years at TRU, I took a variety of courses and found I had a keen interest for History and Physical Education, however, my main interest is History. Over the course of the years, I took many different courses including: a variety of courses in Canadian History, such as Pre and Post Confederation, the period between 1900 and 1950, History of British Columbia, and the History of Religion. In addition to this, I took courses that focused on the early years of European History, and American History. Next semester though, I will be taking two more History courses: History of Gender and Health, and History of Hollywood in America.

All of these courses I have taken were very interesting, however, the topics I enjoyed to learn about the most are: Confederation, the 1920s and 1930s in both Canadian and American History. In addition to this, I also like to learn about controversial issues such as, Indigenous affairs, different cultures, religions, and information about key people in different eras of History.

The main reason why I took this course is because I find History interesting and there is always more and more to learn with ever course you take, and the History of Childhood and Education seemed right up my alley as I am pursuing a career in education. This course made me think more broadly in terms of children and their childhood and education and how it was throughout Canadian History, because it is evident to see that not all children were treated equally, depending on their race, disabilities, and inabilities.

Fun fact about me…

This past summer (beginning of June to beginning of September 2017) I had a job at the Ashcroft Museum as the summer student. My duties included cleaning, reorganizing, interacting with guests, hosting tours, helping plan events and documents for the website, and one thing we tried throughout the month of August for the first time was a summer camp. The summer camp went for two hours, once a week, and kids ranging from ages 4 to 12 participated. The summer camp looked at a variety of themes that were most prominent in the history of Ashcroft, such as the tomato cannery, transportation, Indigenous peoples, and the Chinese community. We did a variety of crafts, had stories, games, and other activities. The object of this camp was to get children leaning about history in a fun and enjoyable atmosphere so they would want to keep learning and want to come back to the museum or explore other museums in the surrounding areas.

This summer camp that I helped organize and partake in combined my love for history, and my dream of being a teacher, because I was teaching kids about history and by the turn outs we had each week you could see how much kids were enjoying themselves and learning at the same time!

Tomato cannery day:                              Transportation day:

(doing a skit of a cannery worker)       (puppet show with handmade puppets)

Check out the Ashcroft Museum website for more information about the museum and Ashcroft!