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Building Understanding for Diversity and Inclusion in Our Community
These projects were funded by the BCTF Ed May Social Responsibility Fund and Local Social Justice Grants. Visit the BCTF website for information on how to apply for one of these grants.
By Shelby Calman, 2nd Vice-President of the Vancouver Secondary Teachers’ Association and Local Social Justice Grant recipient
On April 29, 2019, the Vancouver Secondary Teachers’ Association (VSTA) co-hosted a professional development day with the Vancouver Elementary School Teachers’ Association’s (VESTA) Social Justice and International Solidarity Committees and the Vancouver School Board’s (VSB) Diversity and Indigenous Education Teams. VSTA contributed the entirety of their funds from a BCTF Local Social Justice Grant alongside a contribution from the VSB’s budget. The event was called Building Understanding for Diversity and Inclusion in our Community. It was an opportunity to provide Kindergarten to Grade 12 teachers with tools to discuss issues surrounding social and environmental justice, diversity, and inclusion in their classrooms, schools, and communities.
In the morning, the participants heard from keynote speaker Cicely Blain, who presented on diversity and inclusion. The participants then had the opportunity to either attend a living library or the screening of the documentary The Radicals.
During the living library, teachers, academics, and various members of the community acted as “human books” that were on loan for short conversations with participants. Participants could choose which human book to speak to and rotated on to a new book when the time was complete. It was a good networking opportunity for teachers to be able to learn about community and curriculum resources that they may not have been aware of before the session. The human books came from a variety of backgrounds and included advocates for climate justice, members of various social justice organizations, and representatives from non-profit organizations that address equity and inclusion in schools and the community. The Radicals was created by a nonprofit environmental organization called Beyond Boarding. The film highlights the damage that offshore fish farms are causing to the environment and to Indigenous ways of life on the coastal territories. Tamiko Suzuki, the mother of one of the filmmakers and daughter of David Suzuki, spoke after the screening. More information about ordering the documentary for a screening is available on the Beyond Boarding website.
In the afternoon, participants could sign up for two different workshops from a variety of offerings. These included Unlearning Anti-Blackness, Indigenous Allyship and Reconciliation, Out Loud: Bringing Curriculum Out of the Closet, Women and Leadership: Intersectional Feminism, How to Be an Ally in Your Classroom to First Nations’ Peoples, Out in Schools: Indigenous Perspectives on Gender and Sexuality, Cultural Diversity Awareness/ Antiracism Education, and Our Stories Project.
Without this BCTF Local Social Justice Grant, we would not have been able to pull off such a comprehensive, large-scale event. On behalf of the VSTA’s Social and Environmental Justice Committee and Vancouver public school teachers, we are thankful to the BCTF for this opportunity, and we are looking forward to putting on more social justice professional development days in the future.
