The BC Adolescent Health Survey was first mentioned to me by a colleague at the BCTF. I had no idea what it was but after doing a deeper dive on Google, I was incredibly invested.

Objective: Learning how unions and collective bargaining help to raise the living standards of all workers and help reduce inequality, discrimination, and exploitation.

As teachers, you witness daily the impact of economic hardship on students. You see the child who comes to class hungry because there was no breakfast, or the teenager anxious about their family’s risk of eviction.

As a high school teacher, one of my core missions is to provide students with opportunities to learn both inside and outside of the classroom. The best lessons often happen when students are immersed in the richness of history, culture, and the connections we share with the past.

As we welcome the start of a new school year, I want to extend gratitude to each of you for the passion, care, and resilience you bring into our classrooms and schools every single day.

Anti-oppression work has been the focus of Thais Pimentel Cabral’s pedagogy for her entire career. Last year, she was awarded the Intercultural Trust Award at the BC Multicultural and Anti-Racism Awards, which aim to honour advocates who combat racism and create a more inclusive province.

As educators know, a hungry child is not set up for learning. But hunger is not just a classroom issue—it’s a structural one.

Many of us have our go-to activities for the beginning of the school year that help us get to know the new students in our classrooms and start building community. Being mindful of the way we introduce these activities to students can make a big difference in making them feel welcome and accepted.

It is never too late to learn about No. 2 Construction Battalion, also known as the Black Battalion. In the First World War, when so many brave young people enlisted to fight, there were many Black men who wanted to join, but many were denied because of racism from commanding officers.

You’ve likely seen the infamous scene of Coach Carr delivering the sexual health lesson from the film Mean Girls. The coach says, “Don’t have sex; you will get chlamydia and die.”

Last school year, six teacher-librarians from School District 68 Nanaimo Ladysmith came together to form a Teacher Inquiry Program project focused on making our libraries more welcoming, inclusive spaces for all students.

Twenty-one students sit in rows at xylophones and glockenspiels, mallets in hand, waiting to strike. While I teach them to wait for the conductor, they anticipate a count in and ready themselves to strike the bar with relative accuracy.

Nourish Cowichan has been providing students with accessible food at school for eight years. The founder, Fatima Da Silva, has led the expansion of the program to remove barriers for more students to access food at school without stigma.

After three decades as a middle-school teacher in British Columbia, primarily supporting students with diverse learning needs, I’ve experienced many educational changes and reforms.

When we first envisioned an inclusive track meet here in the Comox Valley, it was with a simple but powerful goal: to create a space where students with disabilities could feel celebrated, empowered, and—most importantly—valued.

Sustainable development is not just a catchphrase or a current fad in our world; it is a way of living that helps advance policy development to create long-lasting change for future generations.

As part of the public education system in beautiful British Columbia, we are proud of the work our colleagues do across the province. Most of us don’t choose the profession for the money, nor the ease, as any Kindergarten teacher can tell you, but for the love of learning and children.

Carole Gordon’s political journey from classroom teacher to President of the BC Teachers’ Federation began with the collective fight against the BC Liberals’ contract-stripping and an individual battle against Premier Christy Clark.