Saskatchewan teacher mailing back students’ letters to their future selves, 20 years later

Retired Saskatchewan teacher Bruce Farrer has been diligently mailing out former students' letters to their future selves, 20 years after they were written. Photo: WestJet/YouTube

A retired English teacher in Saskatchewan is still on the minds of many of his former students for an assignment from 20 years ago, in which he asked the teenagers to write messages to their future selves.

Each year for over three decades, Bruce Farrer instructed his grade 9 classes at Bert Fox Community High School in Fort Qu’Appelle to compose 10-page letters about their lives and their hopes for the future. Though he retired from teaching in 2002, Bruce Farrer is still going through the letters, tracking down the adults who penned them, and reconnecting them with their younger selves.

The CBC covered Farrer earlier this year, and a new WestJet video is bringing even more attention to his quest to keep a promise to his students.

The six-minute video posted online this month shows Farrer mailing back the letters after doing the “detective work” of tracking everyone down, as well as the reactions of his former pupils when they receive their letters, sometimes having forgotten all about the assignment.

Farrer says the last box of letters is dated for 2026, when he’ll be in his 80s.

“It shows how dedicated of a teacher he was,” one former student interviewed by the film crew says.

“He does this year after year, diligently,” marvels another. “To think somebody has that much commitment to keep the momentum of this going for decades, that’s a pretty unique person right there.”

As for Farrer, he says he doesn’t think of himself as an outstanding educator.

“I’m just a regular teacher who happened to assign a rather different assignment,” he said.