If we had the choice to go back in time, many of us would go back and change plenty of things. But Mr. Robillard thinks otherwise.
Mr. Robillard is an English teacher here at St. Joseph’s High School. He was born and raised in Northern Ontario and went to high school in Sault Ste. Marie. “I went to high school at Lakeway Collegiate. We were the mighty, mighty Trojans!” Robillard has always had a love for literature. Since the age of 14, he would read and write his own poetry. It was his ideal and something he saw himself pursuing in the future. Many people around him also encouraged him to study literature when he’s older. “My guidance counselor even suggested I go into teaching,” he explained. He continued his literature journey by studying English Literature at the University of Northern Ontario. He enjoyed it and a couple years later, went into teaching.
But before teaching, he worked many jobs. He delivered pizzas and even tried his hand at tourism too. But the job that he loved most was being a journalist. “I was a journalist for a few years,” he said. “I went to journalism school in Ottawa. So I was probably a journalist for three or four years.” During his time as a journalist, he interviewed many people from hockey players to politicians. His bilingualism would also give him different opportunities to interview certain people in the French language.
As Mr. Robillard was getting older, he knew that the societal pressure to get an “actual” job was going to start creeping up on him. He was 29 years old at the time when he was seeing many of his friends start to settle into their careers. It’s not like Mr. Robillard didn’t have any choices for his final career, he could either continue being a journalist or start teaching. At this point he had to ask himself which career path it was going to be, journalism or teaching?
Denis Robillard officially became addressed as Mr. Robillard when he started teaching in 1995. He’s been teaching for 27 years now and enjoys it plenty. Although there are some struggles here and there with new technology, he still loves teaching.
As of now, Mr. Robillard has written 340 poems in Canada, the USA, and Europe. He has had quite an impact on many of his student’s lives, some even deciding to pursue journalism after high school too.
When Mr. Robillard was asked if he would go back in time and change anything, he responded with, “You’re going to make a rookie mistake, you probably want to try to think about doing things differently next time around. But those opportunities are there for learning and growth, right?” He thinks that although it would be nice, you only have one life and have to make it count as you go.
Some advice Mr. Robillard advises students that don’t know what to do as they get older or before they graduate, to go with what their heart says. “We’re all given opportunities to have talent, but you’re gonna build on that talent,” he says. He also said that, “Based on what you read, what you’ve seen, who you interact with, those are all reasons why we’re all here today.”