A petition to teach more black history in the Kamloops-Thompson School District has more than 650 people in support of the cause.
BC Education Minister Rob Fleming says there is a lot of room for improvement and even before the events in the United States and the protest waves around the world including here in Canada happened, there was a lot of work underway with the Black History Awareness Society and other organizations.
“We do have a lot of good curriculum resources, but not every kid gets to learn that. So we’re going to work with the teaching profession, we’re going to work with advocacy organizations. I think more content around indigenization of our school system that’s going to continue. There is a lot of momentum there which is positive.”
Fleming says there are black and other people of colour communities in the historical development of our province that are under-represented right now.
“And we’re going to listen right now and see how we can work to make sure that kids are really learning about how the province of British Columbia originated, developed, the civil rights struggles that have enhanced the freedoms we all enjoy and I think that is really part of the mandate around creating the educated citizen.”
The petition was started by young black Kamloops woman Mary Falade, who is a 2018 graduate of NorKam Senior Secondary. She says education plays such an important role in who we are and who we grow up to be and believes there is a lack of black history and anti-racism education.
“I really don’t feel like I was taught much at all. In my experience, the only time we really even got close to that topic is when we read To Kill A Macking Bird in an English class. But, besides that there wasn’t really any information or any involvement of black history in the curriculum.”
Falade is encouraged by the response she has gotten so far. “Makes me feel so hopeful when I was seeing everything on the news about all the police brutality I felt very lost, but just seeing people support the petition, seeing everybody begging for change to happen just really gives me hope for the future that maybe this is a real turning point.”
SD73 Superintendent Alison Sidow responded to the petition saying “as a Black woman and the leader of SD73, it is my honour to begin a conversation about the contributions and experiences of Black lives in Canadian society…Throughout my career I have worked to ensure students see themselves reflected in their learning and to challenge the racial biases that stigmatize and marginalize children,” she said.
The petition has a goal of hitting 1,000 signatures.
