Page BC Jun 29.11 Rev 2 - Draft_BCTELA Update Template

BC Teachers Federationwww.bctf.ca

Summer 2011www.pagebc.ca

Illustration by:Teodora Zamfirescu

British Columbia Teachers forPeace and Global Education

Provincial Specialist Association

Summer 2011 WWW.PAGEBC.CA ii

REGULAR FEATURES1 Editorial: On Bullshit

Patrik Parkes2 President’s Message:

Teaching Through The Lens Of Global Education

Susan Ruzic3 Cover Image

Teodora Zamfirescu4 What Would Gandhi Do? Revolutionizing the

Three R’s: Respect, Restoration and ReverencePummy Kaur

PAGE BC

5 PAGE Summary of Activity7 Get Involved!8 PAGE Financials

Ending November 30, 2010

9 The Gandhi Youth Award:a Brief History

The 2011 PAGE PSA Annual Conference

10 PAGE Workshop: A Season of Non Violence

11 PAGE PSA Annual Conference Oct. 21, 2011

13 Honouring BC Teachers...Adam Ward, of Rhizome Theatre

15 The 2011 PAGE Conference Workshops

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Table of Contents

BCTF

17 PAGE Resolutions to the 2012 BCTFAnnual General Meeting

IDEAS AND DISPATCHES18 Are schools teaching critical thinking skills?

Christopher A. Shaw

20 Electoral Reform and Social JusticeAdriane Carr

22 Canadian Mining Companies and Investors Making a KillingGrahame Russell

24 Aspiring Martyrs Do Not Make Good NeighboursCarl Grigoruk

27 International Women’s Day 100th AnniversaryPummy Kaur

29 Teaching for Social JusticeDeirdre M. Kelly

32 Canadian Labour Congress InsightsPummy kaur

RESOURCES AND REVIEWS33 A Review Of Jason Brennan’s The Ethics of Voting

Kelly McQuillan35 The Woman Who Could Not Forget: Iris Chang

Before And Beyond The Rape of NankingLouise Gonsalvez

37 Pummy Kaur’s Summer Reading Recommendations Pummy Kaur

LESSON PLANS38 Assessing Responsibility and the Holocaust

Scott Parker41 Quilts: Elementary Activities to Promote a Culture of Peace

Roz Johns and Susan Ruzic44 Globalingo: a Mixer

Pummy Kaur

SATIRE45 Could This Be Real?

Submissions to The Global Educator

The Global Educator, journal of B.C. Peaceand Global Educators (PAGE), is publishedtwice yearly, and welcomes unsolicited arti-cles and graphics by December 15 (for thewinter issue) and June 15 (for the summerissue). Writers are highly encouraged toread the submission guidelines athttp://pagebc.ca/The-Global-Educator.phpor by clicking The Global Educator tab onthe main PAGE site.

Editor: Editorial Board: Patrik Parkes Pummy Kaur([email protected]) Lisa Kjernisted

Shanee Prasad

iii the Journal of the B.C. Teachers for Peace and Global Education

Susan Ruzic, PresidentWork: 604-936-0478Email: [email protected]

Donald Wilson, Past PresidentWork: [email protected]

Greg Van Vugt, Vice-PresidentWork: 604-582-9231Email: [email protected]

Scott Parker, TreasurerEmail: [email protected]

Kim Meredith, SecretaryWork: 604-561-0149Email: [email protected]

Patrik Parkes, EditorHome: 778-240-2680Email: [email protected]

Roz Johns, Conference CoordinatorEmail: [email protected]

Betty Gilgoff, Web AdministratorEmail: [email protected]

Beata Hittrich: Membership

“Global Education is education that opens people’s eyes and minds to the reali-ties of the world, and awakens them to bring about a world of greater justice,

equity and human rights for all.

Global Education is understood to encompass Development Education,Human Rights Education, Education for Sustainability, Education for Peace

and Conflict Prevention and Inter-cultural Education; being the global dimen-sions of Education for Citizenship.”

The Maastricht Global Education Declaration, 2002

For more information about PAGE, visit our website: www.pagebc.ca

British Columbia Teachers forPeace and Global Education

Provincial Specialist Association

PageBC Executive 2011 - 2012PAG

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Summer 2011 WWW.PAGEBC.CA Regular Features - 1

Patrik Parkes

This time, a prose poem:

In the fog of a May Day hangover,Stephen Harper, our leader. A stablemajority! Greet the Canucks. Averagesalary: $1.9 million. Greet them at theairport as they drive away in mostlyblack Mercedes SUVs. We are allCanucks. In good faith. Corporatocracyis Good. Socialism is stupid. Give up.

Iwas thinking I’d deposit that hereinstead of my usually less crypticeditorial. I was going to leave itto you to figure out – but perhapssome explanation is in order. To

start with, I’m tired. It’s the end of theschool year and I’m marking and plan-ning final projects for seven courses, anddoing the PAGE journal, and doing myunion local stuff. So there isn’t muchtime to write. And I’ve been reading abook. Well, several, actually. But theone I’m thinking about here is calledYour Call Is Important to Us: the Truthabout Bullshit. It’s by Laura Penny,published in 2005, so not exactly cur-rent. Certainly, for or those of us raisedon Chomsky and Bagdikian andAdbusters it’s nothing new. But stillgood, and makes a nice gift for moti-vated students and friends and relationswho smell something but don’t yetknow what it is. Although for most ofus, I think it’s apparent we’re bathingin it.

In my ‘poem’, the word “corporatoc-racy” is from Micah White, writing inthe May/June 2011 issue of Adbusters.In the same issue, I learned, from anarticle by Tzvetan Todorov, that the USgovernment justifies torture as not-tor-ture if it’s done in “good faith”. Thisbullshit term comes up again in our cur-rent round of bargaining with theprovincial government. They tell usthey’re bargaining in “good faith”.Which reminds me, incidentally, of amovie called I Come in Peace, in whichan extraterrestrial alien goes aroundslaughtering people, all the while telling

them, “I come in peace”. The “social-ism is stupid, give up” idea is a riff on“Christianity Is Stupid” by Negativeland.As for the Canucks, well, that should beobvious. Or maybe not. I’m remindedthat, during our PAGE Anything ButConservative campaign, someone on thee-list asked, “Doesn’t this assume thatas a member of PAGE I couldn’t want

a conservative [sic] government?”Answer: “No, it assumes you noticedthe word “Peace” in “Peace and GlobalEducators”. Not that there’s nothinggood, perhaps, about a Conservativemajority government: the sooner we dis-mantle any rights we have as workers,the sooner we’ll all realize what kind ofbullshit corporatocracy we live in andrise up. Socialism is stupid. Give up.

I’d end my editorial there, but havea few more things to say – possiblyhopeful. The first is that, as publicschool teachers in BC, we’re in deep,deep trouble if we don’t start standingup for ourselves, and our profession.Toward this, it will help us to have amore global sense of our world, and ourrole as teachers in it. If you’ve beenpaying attention to bargaining, youknow that we have a massive struggleahead. I hope we’ll be united andstrong. And if we gain anything, or justhold our own, I hope we’ll start criti-cally investigating our complicity – ornon-complicity – in a system that does-n’t serve our interests at all. And to takeus there, we’ll need brave leaders whoaren’t afraid to ask big and uncomfort-able questions. And these leaders willneed advocacy groups like PAGE toencourage them.

I believe that PAGE has had a pos-

itive impact on BCTF policy, and we’retaken seriously because we have thenumbers (that is, members) to supportus. So please don’t let your member-ship lapse. And better yet, get involved.We’re on a campaign to build capacityby bringing new activists, and freshideas, to our PAGE executive. Towardthis end, PAGE executive positions now

have term limits. For example, my termas editor will end with the summer 2012issue of The Global Educator. In themeantime, we’ve created an editorialboard (currently comprised of PummyKaur, Lisa Kjernisted, and ShaneePrasad) to give other PAGE members ataste of what it’s like to edit the journal.If you’d like to join the editorial board,or check out a PAGE executive meet-ing, please contact me or any of theother PAGE executive members. OurAnnual General Meeting will take placeduring our fall conference, and I hopeto see you there.

This editorial, which makes refer-ence to hockey, was written before theStanley Cup Riot on June 15. To readmy comments on that, please visit:http://tinyurl.com/3spzc35

LINKS:

My personal blog (new):http://politicalsensei.wordpress.com/

I Come in Peace trailer:http://tinyurl.com/yrskjg

Negativeland: “Christianity Is Stupid”:http://tinyurl.com/69v4dw

Editorial: On BullshitPAG

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If we gain anything, or just hold our own, Ihope we’ll start critically investigating our

complicity – or non-complicity – in a systemthat doesn’t serve our interests at all.

2 - Regular Features the Journal of the B.C. Teachers for Peace and Global Education

Susan Ruzic

Ihope that you had a wonderfulend to your school year. The lastfew weeks of June can feel like awhirlwind. It is bittersweet to

savour the summer freedom at long last.Last summer, I travelled to Rwanda,

on a genocide tour with a group ofteachers and a few students. We wereinvited by the Genocide Department ofthe Rwandan government. We sawmany genocide sites across the country,spoke to survivors, visited prisons andschools. We visited different markets,ate local fare and enjoyed dancing andvisited various cultural sites. We wenton a safari and I was lucky enough toclimb up Mt Virunga with seven of mycolleagues to see the Mountain Goril-las that Dian Fossey was studying beforeshe was brutally murdered. It was anexperience of a lifetime! During thistime, I discovered books and resourceson the Rwandan genocide that are suit-able for K-12 students. Therefore, Icould pass this information on to mystudents.

This summer, I am travelling toanother holocaust site with anothergroup of teachers. I am travelling toChina and Korea with the ALPHA(Association for Learning & Preservingthe History of WW11 in Asia) group.All participants have been preparing forthe trip by learning about the 1937Rape of Nanking which occurred inChina. We have read Iris Chang’s wellknown and well researched story aboutthis time period. The book entitled, theRape of Nanking is a suitable novel forhigh school students. I am currentlyworking in an elementary school and Ihave been preparing a novel unit for theelementary level on this topic. I willmake this available upon my returnfrom the trip in an upcoming edition ofthe Global Educator. Also, in the fall,at our annual PAGE conference, we willhave a representative from ALPHA togive a workshop on teaching materialsavailable for high school.

Students studying in Europe havelearned a great deal more about theHolocaust, as there are more booksavailable for all levels of school. Tragi-cally, there have been more genocidesall over the world and I feel that it isimportant to include some of theseatrocities in units on history and war,especially as one may have studentswho have witnessed or immigrated fromregions of the world were genocideshave taken place. Teaching through thelens of global education means lookingoutward to genocides that haveoccurred globally and looking inward

to local genocides that have happenedright here in Canada, with the FirstNation’s people.

Our PAGE conference this year iscalled, Education not Indoctrination: APractical Approach to Teaching andLearning in the 21st Century. Duringthe morning session, we will be guidedthrough an open space technique thatwill be facilitated in a Theatre of theLiving: Rainbow Desire, Communitybased-dialogue. The goal is to providean opportunity for participants todescribe what 21st Century Teachingand Learning means. PAGE believesthat teachers know best what 21st Cen-tury teaching and learning looks likeand is offering a hands on approachwith techniques that you can use in yourclassrooms to prepare students for theirfuture. In the afternoon, we haveimportant thought provoking work-shops planned. All of the details are

online as registration is now open atwww.pagebc.ca. As well, there is infor-mation available in this journal and Ihope that I will see many familiar facesagain this fall, on PSA day, Friday Octo-ber 21st.

As this is a bargaining year for teach-ers, there is no doubt that we will havean interesting fall. We will need to con-tinue to defend public education andour professional autonomy and see toit that Bills 27 and 28 are upheld by thisgovernment. I wish everyone lots of rest,relaxation and rejuvenation this sum-mer so that you will be ready to con-

tinue on in the fall with all of theamazing work that you do.

I am enough of an artist to drawfreely upon my imagination. Imagina-tion is more important than knowledge.Knowledge is limited. Imaginationencircles the world.

– Albert Einstein, Physicist & Nobel Laureate

President’s Message: Teaching Through The Lens Of Global Education

Teaching through the lens of globaleducation means looking outward to

genocides that have occurred globallyand looking inward to local genocides thathave happened right here in Canada, with

the First Nation’s people.

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Teodora Zamfirescu

Cover Image

24 Series: The Recent Past

! 2005 - 2006! 24 ball point pen and pen-and-

ink drawings on white paper,numbered in reverse chronologi-cal order

! 42 x 42cm

Imade this series of 24 drawingsbetween 2005 and 2006, duringlong and intensive sessions,locked up in my house with the

TV and radio turned on. I would starta drawing and work on it until it wasfinished. The title of the drawings rep-resents the day it was made, and actsas archival information for world

events on that specific date, or ratherthe world events that were communi-cated by Swiss media. Rarely did I goback to a drawing on a different day,but it did occasionally happen, inwhich case the drawing title containsboth dates. The inclusion of these 24drawings refers to the standardizednumber of hours in a day. The squareformat of the paper and the ball pointpen medium allude to institutionalismand standardization, as well as precar-iousness.

Artist Website:http://www.teodoraz.net/

The corporate state has nothing tooffer the left or the right but fear. Ituses fear to turn the population intopassive accomplices. And as longas we remain afraid, or believe that

the formal mechanisms of powercan actually bring us real reform,

nothing will change.

– Chris Hedges (in the July/August 2011

issue of Adbusters)

4 - Regular Features the Journal of the B.C. Teachers for Peace and Global Education

Pummy Kaur

Mohandas KaramchandGandhi has left morepractical messages forhumanity than anyother person in

recorded human history. Much of whathe said, practiced, modeled, and hopedfor is as applicable today, as it was whenhe led the Indian sub-continent to oustthe barbarian invaders.

One of Gandhi’s central messageswas that one should be well versed in

multiple points of view before formingopinions. He believed that one shouldbase subsequent decisions on strongmoral principles of compassion, non-violence and seva (service). He educatedhimself about various cultures and reli-

gions, and included people of all walksof life in his circle. By learning aboutand understanding others he was ableto see the humanity in all, and then seeknon- violent paths of resistance.

This is a perspective we teachersneed to adopt in order to become edu-cators that can help the children in ourcare evolve from students to learners,who are educated, responsible globalcitizens. Our current educational insti-tutions are not conducive to cultivating

global citizens, though there are manyfine global educators swimming againstthe tide of merely schooling!

Schooling currently is about the out-dated Three Rs (Repetition, Regurgita-tion, and Rote learning). This creates a

cheap labour force for corporations, andan apathetic citizenry. Education isabout “... the new Three Rs (Respect,Restoration, and Reverence for all ofLife)”. Education is “... the balanceddevelopment of the emotional, physical,intellectual, and spiritual interdepen-dent parts of being human.” Adoptingthe new Three Rs can cultivate childrenwho are “... reared to acquire skillsneeded to be human, skills that make aperson literate in Life: such as the pro-curement of food, shelter, safety, belong-ing, meaning, and wellbeing within acommunity, without placing excessivestrains on the natural systems.”

By acting on this message to becomeeducated and not just schooled, we canthen be far more effective in cultivatingthe child described previously. It hasbeen said that children have alwaysfailed to do what they are told to do, andnever failed to do what they see us do.

What Would Gandhi Do? Revolutionizing the Three R’s: Respect, Restoration and Reverence

Our current educational institutions are notconducive to cultivating global citizens, thoughthere are many fine global educators swimming

against the tide of merely schooling.

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To become a PAGEmember

Fill out an application at

www.pagebc.ca.

Our website also features informa-

tion about upcoming events,

lessons plans, resources, etc.

Moved?

Update your contact information with theBCTF via email. Complete the forms at:

www.bctf.ca/About/membership/ChangeOfAddressForm.html

Summer 2011 WWW.PAGEBC.CA PAGE BC - 5

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In the Summer 2010 issue of TheGlobal Educator, PAGE sug-gested two resolutions, for the2011 BCTF Annual GeneralMeeting, promoting the develop-

ment of a Voter Advice Application(VAA) and an investigation intowhether teacher-training programsencourage civically engaged candidates.To me, the importance of these resolu-tions became apparent during the fed-eral election campaign: CBC launchedits own VAA called “Vote Compass”,and callers to a talk show addressedshortcomings in civic education. On“Vote Compass” labour issues were notfeatured prominently, so I believe thePAGE proposal – that the labour move-ment develop and promote its own VAA– is still relevant. As for the teacher-training motion, its importance becameapparent to me when young voters, call-ing in to the CBC’s BC Almanac, com-plained that they were never, as highschool students, asked by their teachersto take an interest in elections.

The VAA resolution was taken onNovember 2010 BC Fed by BurnabyTeachers’ Association, which alsobrought both the VAA and teacher-training resolutions to the March 2011BCTF Annual General Meeting (as Res-olutions 133 and 146, respectively). Nei-ther case got to the floor; BC FedPresident Jim Sinclair indicated the

VAA motion would be discussed at asubsequent meeting, but he has notresponded to emails requesting updates.

In May, both Resolutions were dis-cussed at the BCTF’s spring Representa-tive Assembly (RA), where PresidentSusan Lambert urged delegates to defeatthem. Delegates voted to refer the VAAmotion to the BCTF Executive branch(where at least a few members, includingSecond Vice President Glen Hansman,have voiced their support), but theteacher-training Resolution was soundlydefeated. Susan Lambert and other del-egate’s animosity towards this motionwere quite disappointing and make nosense. A union success is dependent onan informed and motivated membership,interested in promoting civic literacyamong future voters. Even more disap-pointing is that the Resolution was merelyto investigate civic engagement in teachereducation programs. This sends a verynegative message, conveying teachers asunwilling to ask critical questions aboutthe role we play in society.

Both Resolutions might have beensubject to a more fulsome discussionhad they made it to the floor of theAGM, a body that is traditionally moreprogressive than the RA, and at whichResolutions can be debated before alarger number of delegates. Thesemotions didn’t make it to the floor ofthe AGM indicating the low priority

such motions are given by agenda com-mittees. In order to get such motionson the floor at future AGMs morePAGE members will need to present themotions for endorsement by their locals.The more locals bring the same motionto an AGM, the higher the likelihoodthe motions will be supported and givenpriority. This year, please help promotethe resolutions presented here in thesummer 2011 Global Educator.

On Saturday, January 22, PAGEheld a release party for the win-ter 2011 issue of The Global

Educator at Radha Yoga & Eatery inVancouver. The event was very wellattended – indeed, there was overflowfor the space Radha had given us, andextra tables need to be brought in.There were speeches by the BCTF’sGlen Hansman and Larry Kuehn, andwriters Brian Campbell and EiichiroOchiai, and the night was rounded offwith a lovely set by singer-songwriterRachel Davis. The event was used toraise money for both The Global Edu-cator and Wikileaks, and we’re sure tohave it again next year.

PAGE annual summary of activity

Susan Ruzic

Ethical Pensions Campaign

Patrik Parkes

Voter Advice & Teacher Education Resolutions

The Global EducatorRelease Party

Advocates wishing to see socialresponsible investments madein our Teachers’ Pension Plan

prepared diligently for the 2011 AGM.A pamphlet was created, T-shirts weremade and many pre meetings occurred

to ensure that the ethical pension’smotions being brought to the AGMwould be successful. In the last minute,the T-shirts were banned from the AGMand the pamphlet had to be re-written.In a presentation by the Pensions Com-

mittee we discovered that the twomotions passed at last year’s AGM(2010) instructing to divest from nuclearweapons manufacturer BAE and todivest from tobacco products, were not

continued on page 6

yet dealt with. As is customary, muchdebate and emotion played out on thefloor and in the end two motions infavour of ethical investing did pass atthis years AGM:

Recommendation 25 – That the BCTF,as a plan member partner, request theTeachers’ Pension Board of Trustees torequest that the British ColumbiaInvestment Management Corporation(bcIMC) develop a fund that is com-prised only of companies that:

" Do not manufacture weapons ormilitary machinery

" Do not produce tobacco

" Do not contribute to systemichuman rights violations

" Do not contribute to severe environ-mental damage

" Do not support the privatization ofwater

" Have fair labour practices

" Do not use child labour

" Have a sound corporate governanceand meet the targeted actuarialassumption (December 2008) of6.5% investment return for theinvestment of future Teachers’ Pen-sion Plan contributions

Resolution 128 – That the BCTF Exec-utive Committee request that the BCInvestment Management Corporation(bcIMC), through which BCTF teach-ers invest their pension funds: 1.Divest of its stocks in pipeline operatorEnbridge. 2. Reinvest these funds inprofitable “green” enterprises that donot pose a threat to the environmentnor disrupt the lifestyles and rights ofAboriginal peoples.

In May, members from the Commit-tee for Action on Social Justice andmembers from the Pension’s Commit-

tee met on a Saturday morning to dis-cuss ethical investing and how we canmove forward together. It was a verypositive meeting in which both commit-tees worked to see how we could moveforward together on accommodatingmembers on both sides of the pensiondebate. We discovered that we all wantto have socially responsible investmentsand to be fiscally responsible to ensurethe safety of our pension plan. Somegood advice to take into considerationfor next year is to have less ethical pen-sion motions brought forward, so thatthe ones that are presented can beworded carefully, to ensure successfullypassing. Both committees have commit-ted to meeting early in 2012, after themotions for the AGM have been sub-mitted. We agreed to work on themotions together so that they will besuccessful at the AGM.

continued from page 5


6 the Journal of the B.C. Teachers for Peace and Global Education

Roz Johns

The 2010 PAGE PSA Conference: Critical Thinking and Civic Engagement

The 2010 PAGE PSA Conferencefocused on critical thinking andcivic engagement. A feature

panel included Dr. Henry Milner, Dr.Ozlem Sensoy and Dr. Chris Shaw, whoengaged participants in a discussionabout the need to prepare students toparticipate actively and effectively in thepolitical process. Teaching about dem-ocratic processes and critical thinking

need to be infused throughout the cur-riculum in all subjects and at all gradelevels. Successful workshops includedglobal education, women and water,critical media in the classroom and crit-ical teaching strategies for issues of warand peace and examining poverty as aclassroom issue. PAGE PSA partneredwith the Surrey School District and theCity of Surrey to host the 2010 Com-

munity-Schools Partnership Conference– The Future Lives Here UnitingSchools and Community. Registrantsin the PAGE PSA panel and workshopsindicated an appreciation for the qual-ity and expertise of the presentationsand opportunity to critically examinepertinent issues and to have practicalmaterials for use in their classroomteaching.

Kim Meredith

War Toys to Peace Art

PAGE and Promoting a Culture ofPeace for Children continues todevelop and share the War Toys

to Peace Art project, in which youth sur-render their war toys and transformthem into works of art promoting

peace. The project was featured in theOlympic Truce educator’s guide at theVancouver 2010 Olympics. As part ofmy doctoral studies in education, I havebeen working on theorizing the projectwithin the multi-literacy framework to

show how it can support a transforma-tive pedagogical approach. This workwas presented at the 2010 PAGE con-ference in Surrey.

www.wartoystopeaceart.comcontinued on page 7



Summer 2011 WWW.PAGEBC.CA 7

Scott Parker

Teaching for Peace

Greg Van Vugt

PAGE Surrey Report 2010-2011

The website, www.teachingfor-peace.org , is a link to the globalpeace/social justice movement in

today’s world. The website developedby PAGE has recently been updatedwith dozens of new lesson plans and100’s of links to the global peace move-ment. Educators can link to the peace

movements in Israel and Palestine,North America or to peace movementsin Europe. The sidebar allows teachersand students an “instant” and currentaccess to the world of peace activist. Onthe home page there are dozens of les-sons. For example a lesson plan basedon Martin Luther King’s “I have a

Dream Speech” (what literary devicesare used…). Also, Music and CivilRights asks students to analyze BillyHoliday’s signature song, Strange Fruit,and the Jim Crow laws. (Video of hersinging included). All we are saying isgive peace a link.

P AGE Surrey had a few interest-ing meetings with the GreenTeacher group which focuses on

supporting Surrey teachers and studentsto learn and teach more about issues inour environment. We worked with Dis-trict staff to promote ways to reduce

energy use in Surrey schools. Speakerssuch as Karen Stroebel of Climate Chal-lenge, Bruce Ford of Metro VancouverEnvironmental programs, Bree Greveof Surrey Nature Centre, Selina Met-calfe of EEPSA, and Victor Elderton ofthe North Vancouver Outdoor School

spoke at various meetings. Members made presentations and

did workshops about peace and globaleducation at the Surrey district Pro-dday in May as well as other eventsthrough the year. Over all another suc-cessful year!

I T ’ S E A S I E R T H A N Y O U T H I N K !

To ensure that PAGE continuesits service to teachers and thecommunity at large, there are anumber of actions you can take:

1) Maintain your membership

Membership fees fund the journalyou are reading now, the PAGEannual conference, and more. Highmembership numbers show theBCTF that BC teachers supportPAGE, and help bring our voice tothe table.

2) Write for The Global Educator

Share your ideas with PAGE mem-bers and the general public. To findout how, visit www.pagebc.ca andclick on the tab for The Global Edu-cator.

3) Take a leading role on the Execu-tive Committee

Currently, help is urgently needed to– among other things – maintain apress contact list, write pressreleases, and get the PAGE messageout to the general public.

4) Start a PAGE Local SpecialistAssociation (LSA)

If you start a PAGE chapter in yourBCTF local, your concerns willalways be on the PAGE ExecutiveCommittee meeting agenda, andspace is reserved for you in TheGlobal Educator. What’s more,you’ll build local networks to sup-port PAGE initiatives.

Please see the PAGE Executive list forcontact information.

Get Involved!

8 - Page BC the Journal of the B.C. Teachers for Peace and Global Education

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PAGE Financials Ending May 31, 2011

Percent Current Current OriginalIncome Month YTD Budget Used

Income surplus 0,00 -3,643.42 -3,643.00 100.0Other surplus outside account 0,00 0,00 -1,537.00 0.0Membership/subscriptions fees -25.00 -11,447.24 -3,788.00 302.2BCTF grant 0,00 -4,750.00 -4,750.00 100.0Interest Income -9.08 -60.62 0.00 0.0Other -200.00 2,387.60 0.00 0.0Conference fees 0,00 0,00 -4,500.00 0.0

Total Income -234.08 -17,513.68 -18,218.00 96.1-234.08 -17,513.68 -18,218.00 71.7

ExpensesMeeting-executive 0.00 0.00 1,000.00 0.0Meeting-subcommittee 0.00 0.00 750.00 0.0Meeting-annual general meeting 0.00 0.00 750.00 0.0Publication-journal 0.00 5,782.98 6,000.00 96.4Publication-newsletter 0.00 0.00 1,000.00 0.0Operating 3,000.00 5,000.00 1,000.00 500.0Chapter support 0.00 0.00 1,000.00 0.0Affiliation fees and meetings 0.00 500.00 0.00 0.0Scholarships 0.00 0.00 500.00 0.0Miscellaneous 0.00 155.00 219.00 70.8Conference-operating 0.00 0.00 1,000.00 0.0Conference-facilities 0.00 0.00 1,000.00 0.0Conference-catering 0.00 0.00 1,000.00 0.0Conference-promotions 0.00 0.00 500.00 0.0Conference-speakers 0.00 0.00 2,000.00 0.0Conference-miscellaneous 0.00 0.00 499.00 0.0

Total Expenses 3,000.00 11,437.98 18,218.00 62.8Total 2,765,92 -6,075.70 0.00 0.0

The conservatives who say, “Let us not move so fast,” and

extremists who say, “Let us go out and whip the world,” would

tell you that they are as far apart as the poles. But there is a

striking parallel: They accomplish nothing – for they do not

reach the people who have a crying need to be free.

– Martin Luther King Jr. (Why We Can’t Wait)

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The Gandhi Youth Award wasinitiated in 2007 by PummyKaur, a Past President of theBC Peace And Global Educa-

tors. Her belief that it is more compas-sionate and effective to honour a childfor doing the rights things now than tolater punish the child for doing thewrong things was a guiding principleduring her direction of PAGE. Severalhigh profile British Colombians haveshared that belief, and have participatedin the award ceremonies. These haveincluded the Lt Governor Steven Point,Victor Chan of the Dalai Lama Centerfor Peace and Education, and Dr.Micheal Byers of the UBC Lieu Centerfor Global Studies.

The Surrey Chapter of the BC Peace

And Global Educators (PAGE) a pro-fessional association within The BCTF,receives nominations for the annualGandhi Peace Award, to be presentedto youth who are in Grades 10, 11, or12. Nominations may be submitted any-time; however, only those sent by Sep-tember 15th are considered for thecurrent year’s award. The recipient(s)are announced on October 2nd, theanniversary of the birth of MK Gandhi.This award is presented on the third Fri-day of October, at the annual PAGEconference, following the key noteaddress.

The nominees have all been youthwho sincerely model a life of non-vio-lence, compassion, seva (service to com-munity and Life), simplicity, humility,

and shows an understanding of the bigpicture (politically, socially, philosoph-ically, and spiritually). It has not beennecessary that the nominee demonstrateall of these to the same extent; however,it is desired that the nominee be sin-cerely aspiring to live up to these ideals.

The recipients, to date, of the awardrepresent a cross section of cultures andbackgrounds; but all having the abovementioned qualities in common. Thusfar recipients of the Gandhi YouthAwards have been Cameron Milligan2007, Simon Child 2008, CynthiaBhourji 2009, Farah Shah 2010. Everyone of them continues to be active intheir social justice work.

For information on nominations: www.pagebc.ca

Please print and complete the following for each nominee:

Name of nominee:________________________________________________ Date: ____________________________

School:____________________________________________________________________ Grade: _________________

School District:______________ City: ______________________________________ Province: _________________

Nominator(s): _______________________________________________________________________________________

Parent /Guardian: ___________________________________________________________________________________

Signatures of the following are required:

Nominator(s):_________________________________________________ Date: ____________________________

__________________________________________________ Date: ____________________________

Nominee: ____________________________________________________ Date: ____________________________

Parent/Guardian:_______________________________________________ Date: ____________________________

Content of nomination letter: Please give examples showing how this nominee lives by some of the Gandhian Prin-ciples. (One – two sides of 8- 1/2 x 11 paper with 10-12 size font). Include any other relevant information you wishto.

Please send a hard copy and an electronic copy to the Surrey PAGE President Greg Van Vugt([email protected]) at Fraser Heights Secondary, 16060 - 108 Avenue, Surrey, BC, V4N 1M1

The Gandhi Youth Award: a Brief History


Also from Green Teacher: Resource Books for EducatorsTeaching Green – The Elementary YearsTeaching Green – The Middle YearsTeaching Green – The High School YearsHands-on Learning in Grades K-5, 6-8, 9-12240-256 pp., $25.95 + $4.50 s&h

Each book contains over 50 of thebest teaching strategies and activitiescontributed to Green Teachermagazine — a wealth of hands-on,kid-tested ideas from educatorsacross North America.

A quarterly magazine for teachers who are working to promoteenvironmental and global awareness in Grades K to 12. Each issue offers

perspectives on the role of education in creating a sustainable future, practi-cal cross-curricular activities, and reviews of the latest teaching resources.

Subscriptions$32 print / $26 digital 1 year$55 print / $45 digital 2 yearsPAGE BC members: Take $2 offfor 1 year, or $3 off for 2 years

Discounts for PAGE BC members!

Greening School Grounds provides instructionsfor a variety of schoolyard habitat projects,practical tips on planning and fundraising, anddozens of outdoor classroom activities andcurriculum links. 144 pages, $20.95 + $3 s&h

Teaching About Climate Change offers aframework for teaching concepts of climatechange, and a variety of teaching strategies andhands-on activities for engaging K-12 students inlearning about and taking action to reducegreenhouse gas emissions. Available in English orFrench, 80 pages, $14.95 + $3 s&h

Green Teacher, 95 Robert St., Toronto, ON M5S 2K5Phone 1-888-804-1486 www.greenteacher.com

10% off books if youbuy more than one title!

$2 off any one-year and $3 off any two-year subscription

We will examine the concepts of peace and security, andsome root causes for the lack of both, as well as look intoeach of our personal complicities in the absence of both forothers, and for ourselves. This workshop will examine thelinks between personal actions one may take during thisseason to create peace in one’s own life, and to furtheringglobal peace. Other significant days during these 64 willalso be discussed briefly.

Ideas will be shared and developed on how this seasoncould / should be promoted in our classrooms and schools.There will also be a small package handout with ready touse lesson ideas.

Participants who register for the A Season of NonViolence Presentation and the PAGE PSA Conference on Fri.Oct. 21, will receive a complimentary copy of PummyKaur’s new book A Season of Non-Violence: 64 Ways for 64Days

PAGE Workshop: A Season of Non Violence

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Facilitator: Pummy Kaur3:30 – 4:00 PM Refreshments4:00 – 6:00 PM Presentation

Moody Elementary School2717 St. Johns St.,Port Moody, BCV3H 2B8


British Columbia Teachers forPeace and Global EducationProvincial Specialist Association

www.pagebc.ca

Date: Friday, October 21, 2011Location: Fraser Heights Secondary School

16060 ! 108th Avenue, Surrey, B.C.

7:45 – 8:25 AM Displays and Refreshments8:30 – 2:30 PM Program2:45 PAGE PSA AGM with Keynote Speaker: Brigette DePape

Program:

8:30 – 8:35 Opening

8:35 – 11:35 An Intergenerational Theatre for Living Workshop Exploring Practical Approaches to Teaching and Learning in the 21stCentury

Presenter: Adam Ward: Please see Adam’s article in this journal.This year’s Gandhi Award will be included in the presentation.

11:35 – 12:00 Nutritional Break

12:00 – 12:45 Continuation of Theatre of the Living Workshop: OpenEngagement

12:45 – 1:00 Nutritional Break

1:00 – 2:30 Workshops

Conference Registration: www.pagebc.ca

Contact: Roz Johns [email protected] Ruzic [email protected]

2:45 ! PAGE PSA AGM with Keynote Speaker: Brigette DePapeBrigette gained national attention earlier this year when, as aparliamentary page, she held up a "Stop Harper" sign in theCanadian Senate. She will speak on the importance of criticalengagement and civil disobedience.

Education Not Indoctrination: A Practical Approach to Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century

PAGE PSA Annual Conference


Pre – Conference Presentations:

Title: A Season of Non!Violence Workshop

Wednesday, September 28, 2011Facilitator: Pummy Kaur

Moody Elementary School Library2717 St. Johns St., Port Moody, BC

3:30 – 4:00 PM Refreshments4:00 – 6:00 PM Presentation

Please see Pummy’s article in the journal.

Participants who register for the A Season of Non Violence Presentation and thePAGE PSA Conference on Fri. Oct. 21, will receive a complimentary copy of PummyKaur’s new book A Season of Non!Violence: 64 Ways for 64 Days.

Title: Inside the Human Drama of Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century:

A Theatre for Living Skill Share Workshopfor Teachers and Community Members

Tuesday, October 4, 2011Facilitator: Adam Ward

Fraser Heights Secondary School16060 ! 108th Avenue, Surrey, BC

3:30 – 4:00 PM Refreshments4:00 – 7:00 PM Presentation

Please see Adam’s article in this issue of The Global Educator.

Participants who register for the Friday, October 21, 2011 PAGE PSA Conference andthe Tuesday, October 4, 2011 Pre – event with Adam Ward will receive a compli!mentary bag of War Toys to Peace Art Coffee and a copy of Headlines Theatre “Usand Them” Toolkit.


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By Adam Ward, of Rhizome Theatre

“Education is the ability toperceive the hidden connections

between phenomena.” ~Václav Havel, playwright and past-

president of the Czech Republic

Amidst the social, economicand ecological changesthat define this young cen-tury, teachers play a lead-ing role in helping schools

and students meet the challenges of the21st Century. Yet, the public spotlightseems to have shifted away from BCteachers; media attention seems to haveturned its bright lights toward visionsof public education articulated by gov-ernment reports, institutes and outsideexperts. As part of an ongoing effort tohonour BC teachers and foster grass-roots participation in educationalreform, Peace and Global Educators BC(PAGE BC) invited me to facilitate twoworkshops in October of 2011: work-shops designed to put attendee interac-tions (and desires) at the center of eachoccasion.

A Map of What to Expect

Whenever an event promisesattendee interaction, it seems only fairto let people know just what it is thatthey are being invited to attend. Thisseems especially important here, giventhat PAGE BC’s 21st Century Educa-tion workshops take place in the imagerich language of theatre. Here the con-ventional workshop environment standstransformed into a rehearsal for living.

Do teachers and other public schoolstakeholders really need theatre work-shops to sound alarm bells about theadvances of privatization, the deregula-tion of special needs composition,increasing class sizes and ever-mount-

ing teacher workloads? Absolutely not.That said, PAGE BC and Rhizome The-atre believe theatre has a vital role toplay: creating safe, inclusive spaces forrobust conversations about 21st Cen-tury Education; designing non-coerciveconversations in the language of theatrewhere the spotlight turns back towardteachers (and what they have to say,individually and collectively).

The method behind this approach isknown as Theatre for Living. David Dia-mond, the Artistic Director of Vancou-ver’s Headlines Theatre, and author ofTheatre for Living: the art and scienceof community-based dialogue, describesTheatre for Living as “people being theexperts in their own lives and being able

to use theatre as a means of creatingchange. The process gives a communitythe opportunity to develop emotionalintelligence by using a symbolic lan-guage to investigate alternativeapproaches to hard to-talk-about issues.This is a first step towards dealing withdifficult topics. Moving towards opencommunication and realities that livingcommunities want in an active andentertaining way is possible.

Systems theorist and physicist FritjofCapra echoes Diamond, “Theatre forLiving is about empowerment, aboutusing the language of theatre to helpcommunities become more connectedwithin themselves and thus more alive,creative and capable of bringing aboutmeaningful change”. This book [andmethod] can be inspiring to anyoneconcerned about the future of human-ity, both inside and outside the theatre.”Regarding the two PAGE BC Theatrefor Living workshops coming up this

October, here are four things attendeescan expect:

" A fun, safe, dynamic, inquiry-ori-ented environment; a place wherepeople are encouraged to participate,but never pushed to participate.

" An opportunity to connect withother open-minded people who careabout education.

" A robust community dialogue whereit is safe to see things differently; alearning environment where insightsemerge from sharing viewpointsrather than from competing view-points.

An introduction to basic Theatre forLiving skills you can use inside or out-

side a classroom, as well as handouts toTheatre for Living books, onlineresources and regional events.

Here are brief outlines of the twoOctober 2011 Theatre for Living work-shops sponsored by PAGE BC:

Tuesday, October 4th Workshop

Title: Inside the Human Drama ofTeaching and Learning in the 21stCentury: A Theatre for Living SkillShare Workshop for Teachers andCommunity Members

Venue: Fraser HeightsSecondary School

Address: 16060 108th Ave.,Surrey, BC

Social Time: 3:30 to 4:00 PM,RefreshmentsProvided

Workshop Time: 4:00 sharp to 7:00PM

Honouring BC Teachers and the Rainbow of DesiresInside British Columbia Classrooms:

PAGE PSA to Host Two The-atre for Living Presentations inOctober 2011.

continued on page 14

Friday, October 21st PSA Presentation

Title: Education Not Indoctrination: AnIntergenerational Theatre for LivingWorkshop Exploring PracticalApproaches to Teaching and Learningin the 21st Century

Venue: Fraser HeightsSecondary School

Address: 16060 108thAve., Surrey, BC

Social Time: 7:45 - 8: 25RefreshmentsProvided

Presentation Time: 8:30 AM (sharp)

Given that social issues such as edu-cation are inherently intergenerational,PAGE BC has arranged for a class ofgrade twelve students to attend and par-ticipate in the second of these work-shops:

Education Not Indoctrination. Thisintergenerational approach to 21st Cen-tury Education draws encouragementfrom educational theorists ranging fromPlato and the figure of Socrates to PauloFreire and Maxine Greene. What these

theorists and PAGE BC share is a beliefin the importance of students and teach-ers learning together.

The October 21st PAGE PSA work-shop is an opportunity for people whoshare this belief to come together, tofind each other and use the language ofthe theatre to explore their individualand collective desires.

“In a vital society,” writes JonHawkes, of Australia, in The Fourth

Pillar of Sustainability: culture’sessential role in public planning, “themeaning we make of our lives is some-thing we do together, not an activity tobe left to others, no matter how skilled,or representative, they may claim to be.”PAGE BC and Rhizome Theatre agreewith Hawkes. If you do as well, we hopeyou will consider joining us for one orboth of the above Theatre for Livingworkshops this coming October.

For more information and/or to reg-ister, please contact Roz Johns,

[email protected] or Susan Ruzic,[email protected]. Event updates to be

posted at www.pagebc.ca.

Adam Ward, of Rhizome Theatre,has facilitated more than 140 commu-

nity-based theatre events since 1998.Prior to that, Adam worked as an actoron television and in the theatre, in NewYork City. In 2005, Adam began train-ing with David Diamond, of HeadlinesTheatre, in Vancouver, Canada, an expe-rience, which led Adam to put Dia-mond’s Theatre for Living approach atthe center of his work. Recent workincludes “Between Burnout and Vital-ity”, a workshop at the Earth Matterson Stage Conference, at the Universityof Oregon, in Eugene, Oregon; Fork inthe Road: Cultivating Food and Com-munity in Lower BC, at Langara Col-lege, in Vancouver; I am Trying to LearnHere, a workshop for undergraduatesat St. John’s University, in New York;What Does Peace Look Like, a work-shop in elementary school classroomson Long Island, in New York; Inside theHidden Drama of the Grantwriter, aninteractive keynote theatre event for thePuget Sound Grantwriters AssociationConference, in Seattle, WA. In 2007,Adam was a featured speaker at TheNational Congress of Acting Teachers,at The Actors Center, in New York City.



Honouring BC Teachers and the Rainbow of Desires Inside BC Classrooms

In the context of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s project ofconverting Canada into a night watchman state, in which the

military police and prisons are expanded, while all otherbranches of government shrivel, it is vital to ask: Are Canadianscomplacent by nature, or are they repressed by a state whose

mantra of order has been internalized by its citizens?

– Stephen Henighan (in the July/August 2011 issue of Adbusters)


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Drumming Workshop: All Participants

Participants will have the opportu-nity to learn salsa rhythms using drumsand other percussion instruments. Thisaction - oriented workshop developsyour musical creativity and provides forlots of fun.

Facilitator: Pepe Danza

Born in Uruguay, South America,Pepe Danza is part of a new generationof musicians bent on breaking geo-graphical, spiritual and musical bound-aries through a deep study andunderstanding of traditional forms bothEastern and Western. Having lived,studied, and performed in South Amer-ica, USA, Europe, the Asian subconti-nent, Japan and Indonesia, Pepe has awide cross-cultural versatility and hasbeen called “the embodiment of WorldMusic”. He plays percussion, winds andstrings from his collection of more thanthree hundred instruments. He is espe-cially focused on Afro Latin drummingtraditions, as well as exploring SoundHealing. His spiritual quest encom-passes extensive experience with Sufism,Taoism, Yoga and Buddhism, includingstudies in India with the Dalai Lama.

Throughout the course of his twentyyear career in Canada he has beennominated for countless awards as aperformer, composer and producer,including winning the 2009 JessieAward for Theater MusicalComposition.

Learn Intellectual Self - Defence:All Participants

Participants will learn approachesto teaching students think for them-selves about the world history, currentevents, and politics, questioning com-monly-held assumptions, seeing con-nections between issues, analyzing biasin media, recognizing underlying themesand perspectives in media messages, andevaluating opinions. Interactive activi-ties will allow participants to share withand learn from fellow teachers and leadto practical learning that can be appliedin the classroom.

Facilitator: Clay Macleod

Clay is a long-time member of PAGEand a long-time social justice and peaceactivist. He has an 8-year-old (whosefirst peace march was 9 years ago) anda 3-year-old. He teaches Grade 4 inKelowna and has taught grades 3-8 (hehas been teaching since 2000). He usu-ally attempts to practise intellectual self-defence himself, but sometimes he’s lazyand wishes he had chosen the blue pill.

Art and Political Engagement: AllParticipants

Intending to inspire participantstowards considering political content intheir creative self-expression “How Artand Music Can Change the World”presents an adaptation of David Lester’srecently published graphic novel TheListener, a startling little-known storythat changed the course of history. InThe Listener, two stories collide: the riseof Hitler and a woman artist searchingfor meaning in the great art of Europe.The workshop includes a performanceby the literary rock duo Mecca Normal,Q&A, and a 30 minute group executionof a chapbook with theworking title “Learning in the 21st Cen-

tury” to be published post-conferenceby Get to the Point Editions.

Facilitators: Jean Smith and David Lester

Jean Smith and David Lester of theunderground literary rock duo MeccaNormal, refer to theirextraordinary twenty-five year historyin music, art and publishing to illustratethe reality of being D-I-Y artists and cul-tural activists. “Who cares if there’sunderground culture or not? Gap-Coke-Sony-Time-Warner satisfies our needs...don’t they?”

21st Century Learning and SocialJustice 12: High School

How does Social Justice 12 supportour vision for teaching and learning inthe 21st century? SJ 12 teachers andstudents will share successful examplesof their inquiry, projects and actionsthey’ve taken to be change makers.They’ll also explain how the social jus-tice lens can be used as an analyticaltool to explore issues more deeply. Prac-tical resources and ideas for teachingwill be shared with participants.

Facilitators: Baren Tsui, Jyoti Panesar,James Chamberlain and SJ 12 students.

Baren Tsui and Jyoti Panesar areexperienced SJ 12 teachers fromRichmond and Burnaby. Both teachersalso sponsor their school’s gay straightalliance clubs. James Chamberlaincoordinates the Social Justice programsfor the BCTF, which includes supportingteachers who teach Social Justice 12.

The 2011 PAGE Conference Workshops


Introducing International HumanRights Day Student SymposiumMiddle and Secondary School

The theme of the InternationalHuman Rights Day StudentSymposium (IHRDSS) is HumanRights in the Asia-Pacific 1931-1945.The motto of this student-orientedevent is “Show me, I’ll remember;Involve me, I’ll understand”. Thisrecurrent annual event is sponsored byVancouver School Board and has beenresoundingly successful with encour-aging feedbacks from participatingteachers and students (please visit:www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgUH-OAPoh8). The host school of theIHRDSS is Vancouver TechnicalSecondary.

The 2011 IHRDSS will be held onDecember 8 & 9. It is a full-day pro-gram (available on both days) and par-ticipation is FREE. Teachers of Grade11 - 12 Social Studies subjects in theLower Mainland are invited to registerto bring their classes to this engagingand inspiring learning opportunity.

Facilitator: Thekla Lit

Thekla Lit is the founder and co-chair of the Canada Association forLearning & Preserving the History ofWW II in Asia (ALPHA) and is thePresident of its BC chapter. Througheducation and public awareness initia-tives, ALPHA’s mandate is to facilitatelearning lessons of humanity from thelong forgotten history of WWII in Asia,with a mission to celebrate truth, jus-tice, humanity, peace and reconciliationas global citizens. Thekla was the cham-pion and also a writing team memberof the Teachers Guide, “Human Rightsin the Asia Pacific 1931 – 1945: SocialResponsibility and Global Citizenship”developed and published by the BCMinistry of Education in 2001. She hasalso been the initiator, organizer andcoordinator of the annual Peace & Rec-onciliation Study Tour for CanadianEducators since 2004.

Local to Global EnvironmentalChange: Beyond Disaster ReliefSuitable for Grades 6-9

In this workshop, teachers will learnabout the global education work thatCHF is doing and how it can be used intheir classrooms. Teachers will beguided through the newest unit called,Local to Global EnvironmentalChange: Beyond Disaster Relief. Thisunit contains ten lessons with hands onactivities that are matched to the BCcurriculum. Participants will be intro-duced to the curriculum and eachreceives a copy of the unit. Suitable forGrades 6-9.

Facilitator: Susan Ruzic

Susan Ruzic is an elementaryteacher-librarian and ESL teacher inCoquitlam School District. She is amember of the Committee for Actionon Social Justice (CASJ) as part of theAnti-Racism working group. She is thecurrent president of PAGE PSA.

Participatory Artistic Quilt Making forPeace Building: Supporting PeaceEducation in Schools through Class-room-based Quilt Making. Elementary

This workshop highlights the find-ings from a qualitative Master of Artsresearch study conducted at an innercity school in the Vancouver SchoolDistrict, that focused on the role of par-ticipatory artistic quilt making in sup-port of peace building among grade 4-7youth. Participants will learn about theprocess for engaging in participatoryartistic quilt making in the classroom insupport of peace education. Participantswill also engage in a condensed versionof the participatory artistic quilt mak-ing process that was used in theresearch study, to experience how par-ticipatory artistic quilt making can beused to explore diverse social issues.Lastly, participants will engage in dis-cussions about how participatory artis-tic quilt making can be integrated intotheir classrooms through research andpractice-based work, to support thedevelopment of community and to sup-port peace education.

Facilitator: Roselynn Verwoord

Roselynn Verwoord holds a Masterof Arts degree in Society, Culture, andPolitics in Education from the Univer-sity of British Columbia. A certifiedteacher with the BC College of Teach-ers, she currently works in educationaldevelopment at the UBC Centre forTeaching Learning and Technology.


The 2011 PAGE Conference Workshops


Summer 2011 WWW.PAGEBC.CA BCTF - 17

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BCTF

The PAGE Executive Committee annually recom-mends Resolutions for the 2012 BCTF AnnualGeneral Meeting. If you agree with ourResolutions, please promote them through your

BCTF local. The more locals bring forward thesemotions, the more likely they are to be given positive con-sideration.

Electoral Reform Resolution

That the BCTF ask the Canadian Labour of Congress (1)to research electoral reform and (2) propose a new elec-toral system that provides for the election of governmentsthat more accurately reflect Canadian voters’ wishes, and(3) publicize this proposal prior to the next federal elec-tion.

Supporting Statement

Under Canada’s current first-past-the-post electoral sys-tem, it is possible for a minority of voters to elect a major-ity government. (For example, only 39% of voters, and22% of eligible voters, elected the present majorityConservative government.) This results in governments

that do not accurately represent the values of Canadianvoters. Canada’s archaic electoral system results in wast-ed votes, shuts out minority voices, and promotes a two-party system in which it is harder for new ideas to emerge.This leads to voter apathy and civic disengagement. It istime for Canada to revitalize its democracy.

Ethical Investing Resolutions: Under Development

PAGE continues to be concerned about the investmentsmade through our pension. In the future, we would liketo see these investments made in a socially responsibleway. In today’s markets, research has shown that ethicalinvestments can make as much if not more money thanconventional investments. We are working together withthe BCTF Pensions Committee and the Committee forAction on Social Justice (CASJ) to ensure that this hap-pens. We are especially concerned with our shares inLockheed-Martin and HudBay, and will be working onmotions to work toward divestment of these shares. Wewill update you about our progress at www.pagebc.ca.

PAGE Resolutions to the 2012 BCTF Annual General Meeting

… the bulk of civilian deaths are the ‘car crashes’ of war, not

the ‘bus crashes’ of war that are picked up by the media. It is

the vast number slain in incremental events killing one, two

or three people which go unreported, as opposed to the

deaths of 20 or more, which are reported. The number of

‘small kills’ is huge – a family here, a kid there, someone in a

house, someone caught in a crossfire. It is the everyday

squalor of war that takes the life of most.

– Julian Assange (in The Guardian, January 30, 2011)

18 - Ideas and Dispatches the Journal of the B.C. Teachers for Peace and Global Education

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Christopher A. Shaw

In October of 2010, I presented atalk outlining my belief that criticalthinking skills are not adequately taughtin British Columbia’s schools. The pres-entation was part of a workshop enti-tled Civic Engagement and CriticalThinking. This workshop was part ofthe Provincial Specialist Association-BC’s 2010 Community-Schools Partner-ship Conference. The conference’stheme was “The Future Lives Here...Uniting Schools & Communities”. Iwas invited to speak because of my for-mer involvement in various organiza-tions opposed to the 2010 VancouverOlympic Games.

The following is a summary of mypresentation.

As noted by the Foundation for Crit-ical Thinking (and others), thinking, atleast in humans, is designed to “answerquestions, solve problems, and resolveissues”. Thinking occurs in context toan individual’s “point of view”, whichin turn arises from that individual’sexperiences and the interpretation ofevents and “facts”. Our thinking, andthe decisions that arise from it, mayhave dramatic implications for bothshort and long-term consequences forus individually and for our collectivecommunities. As defined by the Foun-dation for Critical Thinking, the follow-ing are the bedrock elements ofthinking. When we think, our thinking:“generates purposes, raises questions,uses information, utilizes concepts,makes inferences, makes assumptions,generates implications, [and] embodiesa point of view.” It is thus of crucialimportance that thinking be critical.Moreover, if we hope to provide theessential skills of citizenship to those inour fiduciary care, such skills must betaught. There are primarily two placeswhere this can be done: at home by par-ents and in the schools by teachers.

Given the above, the key questionposed during the presentation was this:Are we teaching our students to be crit-

ical thinkers? And, if not, what impactdoes a lack of critical thinking skillshave on students to become effectivelyinvolved adults in decision making intheir immediate communities, theprovince, or in the country?

My short answer to this question is“no”. This answer rests in two parts. Thefirst part is provided by recent examplesof decision making by those at everylevel of government whose own lack ofcritical thinking skills has dramatic,often negative, impacts on the lives ofevery one of us. For example, in Van-couver, various city councils had blindlybacked the Olympic bid and then con-tinued to support the preparations forthe Games without any apparent con-

sideration for the implications of doingso. Had these officials used criticalthinking skills could they not haveanticipated the numerous consequencesthat followed? Some of these conse-quences that we now acknowledge wereperfectly predictable: increased home-lessness, a fiscally disastrous Athletes’Village project, and frank violations ofthe Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Atthe provincial level, we saw persistentdenials about Olympic costs and anextremely contested HST that came intoexistence following a series of outrightlies and deceptions. Federally, wewatched Charter rights again trashed atthe G8 meeting, a “prorogued” Parlia-ment, a losing war that serves no realnational interest in Afghanistan, and anew “humanitarian” war in Libya. The

latter illustrates a case where criticalthinking by Parliament and the mediahave failed to evaluate fundamentalpremises or future consequences. Lackof transparency about government deci-sion-making is rampant across theboard.

The lack of critical thinking by politi-cians of all stripes, at all levels, and thesimilar absence of such skills amongstthose in the Fourth Estate, highlight afar more prevalent problem that largelygoes unexplored: The mantra that“peace, order and good government”actually makes for good governance ismeaningless unless critical thinking bycitizens and politicians is the norm,rather than the exception.

The failure of good governance hasa negative feedback problem as well: atall levels, fewer and fewer even botherto vote. In Vancouver, for example,only 31% turned out for the 2008 civicelection; in 2009, 50% voted provin-cially; the recent federal election putSteven Harper into a majority govern-ment with only 61% of the electorateresponding.

The second part of the answer arisesfrom a consideration of how the schoolsin British Columbia taught their stu-dents about the 2010 Olympics. Beforeconsidering this, it is important to putthis into the context provided by theSocial Justice Newsletter (Summer2010) and the following example fromthis edition:

“Judy is a busy Grade 10 teacher.

Are schools teaching critical thinking skills?

Are we teaching our students to be criticalthinkers? And, if not, what impact does a

lack of critical thinking skills have on studentsto become effectively involved adults in

decision making in their immediatecommunities, the province, or in the country?

Her school is planning to go out towatch the celebration of a major inter-national sporting event. She has con-cerns because she knows the eventincludes commercialization and adver-tising by multinational corporations, and

she has concerns about the slogan “winat all costs.” She decides to apply thesocial justice lens to assist her in mak-ing her decision about whether to par-ticipate or not.”

Did the province’s educators teachsocial justice during the Games, or didthey provide a one sided view of theOlympics? Were children taught to usecritical thinking skills to assess pro-

Olympic claims of the various levels ofgovernment and the VancouverOlympic Committee (VANOC)? Wereissues of homelessness, costs, and envi-ronmental impacts even discussed?Were “so what” questions, that is those

that lead to a consideration of implica-tions and consequences, even posed?The answer is that such discussions inthe schools seem rarely to haveoccurred. Instead, most teachers seem-ingly defaulting to “official” colouringbooks and preprogrammed happy mes-sages from VANOC. Did most teachersthemselves even bring critical thinkingskills to bear on Olympic issues?

We are left with the stark reality that,in regard to teaching our children tothink critically about the Olympics (andlikely much more), the teachers of theprovince simply failed. Sadly, readingthe Social Justice newsletter is notenough, if one doesn’t practice socialjustice. Trying to teach critical thinkingto student’s as a life skill is doomed tofailure if one does not embody it.

The prior failure to teach criticalthinking has lead to our current poorgovernance. In the same way, the cur-rent failure by the teachers and schoolsof this province leads to an inevitableconsequence: The next generation ofcitizens, now in our care, will be nomore astute or better able to engage incivic debate about the issues that willframe their future.


Are schools teaching critical thinking skills?

Summer 2011 WWW.PAGEBC.CA Ideas and Dispatches - 19

We are left with the stark reality that, in regardto teaching our children to think critically about

the Olympics (and likely much more), theteachers of the province simply failed.

Did you hear it? The clamour from western governments for

democracy in Saudi Arabia? The howls of outrage from the White

House and No 10 about this month’s shootings, suppression of

protests and the arrival of Saudi troops in Bahrain? No? Nor did

I. … Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, while

explaining why protest in the kingdom is unnecessary, recently

promised to “cut off the fingers of those who try to interfere in

our internal matters”. In other parts of the world this threat

would have been figurative; he probably meant it.

– George Monbiot (“We bow to tyrants while we crave oil”, The

Guardian Weekly, March 25, 2011)


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Adriane Carr

Our First-Past-The-Post(FPTP) voting systemwas designed over a cen-tury ago in England,when there were only

two parties—the “Tories” and the“Whigs”. It doesn’t work for a 21st cen-tury diverse, multi-party society. Keyshortcomings of FPTP include, negativeadversarial politics, discouraging voterparticipation and it has the ability to dis-tort power. FPTP elections are highlycompetitive “horse races”. Parties cam-paign negatively against each other and

fear-monger so people will vote forthem by default. Larger parties accusesmaller parties of “splitting the vote”and pressure voters to “vote strategi-cally” instead of voting for the personor party they like the best. It’s bad fordemocracy if people vote out of fear andnew parties aren’t encouraged. It’s alsobad for governance, as voters swing neg-atively from one big party to the other,and each new government rips up thework of the last government.

FPTP is unfair to voters and dis-courages voter participation. Under oursystem, if you don’t vote for the winningcandidate in your electoral district, yourvote doesn’t actually count in terms ofelecting a representative. Often it is themajority of votes that don’t counttowards electing someone. Unrepre-sented citizens tend to opt out of vot-ing. A 2003 study showed 30% ofeligible BC voters had not even regis-tered to vote, including 80% of youth.Only 70% of registered voters actuallyvoted in BC in 2001. The BC Liberalswere actually elected in 2001 by only33% of eligible voters. In the last two

federal elections, about 40% of peoplethat could vote, did not. No wonder themajority of people are displeased— theyeither didn’t vote or they voted for aparty that didn’t get fair representation.

Moreover, first past the post distortspower. Under FPTP, a party’s share ofseats isn’t equal to its overall share ofthe vote. Winning parties usually getmore seats than they deserve. In the2011 federal election, for example, theConservative party won a “false major-ity”: a majority of seats with less than40% of the vote. In the last 50 years in

BC, only one party actually won amajority of the vote (in 2001). The resthad majority power but a minority ofthe actual vote. Some were even ‘wrongwinners”. In 1996, for example, the Lib-erals won 41% of the popular vote tothe NDP’s 39%, yet the NDP won moreseats and formed a majority govern-ment. In 2001 our voting system dis-torted power in a different way. In thatelection the Liberals won a “landslidevictory” of 97% of the seats with just58% of the vote, leaving virtually noopposition despite the NDP winning22% of the vote (and two seats) and theGreen Party winning 12% of the votes.

By distorting and discounting thewill of the voter, our FPTP voting sys-tem undermines and devalues the dem-ocratic process.

We can change our voting system tomake it fairer, just as we have extendedthe franchise over time—to women, FirstNations, Asian-Canadians and youngervoters. Proportional Representation(PR) systems, used by a majority of theworld’s democracies, are usuallydesigned to produce fair results by treat-

ing all votes equally and making almostall of the votes count in electing repre-sentatives. In pure PR voting systems,the percentage of seats in the legislaturea party gets is equivalent to the overallpercentage of votes it receives in anelection. People vote for a party and theseats are filled from party lists that arepresented to voters before the election.In many countries, voters rank the can-didates on the party’s list as part of theprocess of voting. Most party lists arewell balanced for regional, gender andethnic representation, so that the partyappeals to a wider range of voters. As aresult, countries with PR voting systemshave much higher proportions of electedwomen and significantly better regionaland ethnic representation.

Some people worry that PR votingsystems deliver minority or coalitiongovernments. This is true, but it makesfor more cooperative politics and morestable legislation. In Canada, minorityfederal governments with an NDP bal-ance of power gave us universalMedicare and the Canada Pension Plan.In order to limit the proliferation andsplintering of parties, most PR countrieshave an established “threshold” — aminimum percentage of the popularvote (commonly four or five percent)that a political party must get in orderto win seats.

Mixed Member Proportional (MMP)systems, like Germany and NewZealand, combine the benefits of PRwith maintaining locally elected repre-sentatives. Voters get two votes: one fora local ML A and the other for the partyof their choice, with a party’s share ofthe party vote determining its overallshare of seats in the Legislature. TheMMP system was proposed for BC in a2002 Citizens’ Initiative for ProportionalRepresentation, with the initiative peti-tion garnering the signatures of almost100,000 BC voters. MMP was the mostpopular voting system advocated by cit-izens who gave input into the 2003-

Electoral Reform and Social Justice

No wonder the majority of peopleare displeased— they either didn’tvote or they voted for a party that

didn’t get fair representation.


2004 BC Citizens’ Assembly on Elec-toral Reform, although in the end it wasnot the voting system that the CitizensAssembly proposed for BC. The systemthey did propose—BC STV (SingleTransferable Vote)—received 58% of vot-ers’ support in a referendum vote at thetime of the BC election of 2005—notenough to become law, only because theBC government had set a 60% thresh-old for the vote to pass. In a second ref-erendum in 2009, voter supportdropped to 38% for BC-STV. Manybelieve that this drop in support bears

no relation to citizens’ desire for elec-toral reform, but rather the rejection ofthe particular STV model presented toBC voters.

The significant number of citizensthat opt out of voting or whose votesdon’t count towards representationshould concern political representativesacross Canada. Yet, despite the obviousconclusion that a decline in voter par-ticipation is not good for democracy,some political parties pursue a strategyof using “attack ads” that have actuallybeen called a “voter suppression” tac-tic in the United States. The ads “turnoff” voters to such an extent that theysimply don’t vote. So far, attempts inCanada to bring in electoral reform andmore fair and proportional voting sys-tems have been unsuccessful. Citizenshave rejected electoral reform referen-dums in BC, Prince Edward Island andOntario. Recommendations for MMPvoting systems in New Brunswick and

Quebec have stalled. These results couldbe due to the particular voting systembeing proposed, the inadequate educa-tional information provided to voters,or the lack of initiative on the part ofgovernments that are satisfied with aFPTP voting system that has deliveredthem power. Law Commission ofCanada, asked to look into electoralreform by the government, came upwith a recommendation for a MixedMember Proportional voting system forCanada in 2004. To date this recom-mendation has not been pursued.

In recent elections, citizenshave felt pressured to “vote strategically”in an attempt to achieve electoral out-comes, such as, limiting the possibilityof a majority government. In many casespeople don’t feel good about their vote,nor do they achieve the outcome theywanted. Electoral reform is a real hopefor democracy in Canada. Voters willbe less cynical and governments moreresponsive when every vote truly countsand electoral outcomes are truly equi-table and fair.

For more information please visit:

www.citizensassembly.bc.cawww.fairvotecanada.org

www.aceproject.org

Adriane Carr is Deputy Leader ofthe Green Party of Canada.

Born in Vancouver, Adriane receivedher Master’s degree in Geography fromthe University of British Columbia,taught for 12 years at Langara Collegeand worked for a decade as an execu-tive director and campaigner for West-ern Canada Wilderness Committee. Sheco-founded the BC Green Party in 1983and was elected as its leader in 2000,leading the party to 12.4% of the voteand third party status in BC. She wasappointed Deputy Leader of the GreenParty of Canada by leader ElizabethMay in 2006.


Electoral Reform and Social Justice


The significant number of citizens that optout of voting or whose votes don’t counttowards representation should concern

political representatives across Canada. Yet,despite the obvious conclusion that a

decline in voter participation is not good fordemocracy, some political parties pursue a

strategy of using “attack ads” …


PAG

EBC

Grahame Russell

On a given day, a Canadianmight read the business sec-tion of her favourite newspa-per or on-line news service,

to check the price of gold or nickel andsee how her investments are doing.

Yet, the price of metals is not onlythe profits they bring to company direc-tors, shareholders and other investors,from private equity funds to pensionfunds like the Canada Pension Plan(CPP), but also the prices that peoplepay. In terms of environmental destruc-tion, harm to personal health andhuman rights violations. In today’sglobal order, where trans-national com-panies often operate with immunityfrom prosecution and accountability,shareholder and investor profits go, alltoo often, hand in hand with environ-mental destruction, harm to personalhealth and various human rights viola-tions.

HUDBAY MINERALS & NICKELMINING IN GUATEMALA:

Violent evictions, gang rapes & thekilling of Adolfo Ich

The bcIMC has $281,061,874.50 andthe CPP $42,000,000, invested in Hud-Bay.

In January 2007, Skye Resources(bought by HudBay Minerals in 2008)participated in the violent evictions ofa number of indigenous Mayan Qeqchicommunities in the municipality of ElEstor in Eastern Guatemala).

Hundreds of huts were burned tothe ground; all personal property wasdestroyed or stolen; community mem-ber’s crops and animals were destroyedor stolen. Hundreds of families – youngand old, men and women – fled into thehills and forest for weeks, before return-ing to rebuild their huts and replanttheir subsistence crops. These are theirancestral lands long before mining com-panies arrived in the 1950s claiming“ownership”. On September 27, 2009,Adolfo Ich, a Mayan Qeqchi teacher

and community leader in El Estor, wascaptured by HudBay’s security guards,hacked with machetes and then shot.Hours later, family members found himdead in the company building where thesecurity guards had dragged him.

GOLDCORP INC & GOLD MIN-ING IN GUATEMALA:

The attempted killing of Diodora Hernandez

Since 2005, Goldcorp Inc has beenoperating a very profitable and harmfulopen-pit, cyanide leaching gold mine inthe Mayan Mam region ofwestern Guatemala; a mine stronglyopposed by much of the local popula-tion. Since 2000, they have operated asimilar mine in central Honduras, withmost of the same harms and violationsoccurring, and with the same localopposition.

At 7pm, July 7, 2010, in the ruralcommunity of Sacmuj, two men cameto the small hut of Diodora Hernándezasking for coffee. As Diodora wasbringing them cups of coffee, one manshot her in the right eye and ran off intothe night.Miraculously, Diodora sur-vived. After 3 months in the hospital,she is back in her community, with aprosthetic eye, still opposing the expan-sion of Goldcorp’s mine onto her land.Goldcorp, a Canadian-American com-pany, acknowledged the men hadworked in its mine, but deny anyresponsibility for the attempted assassi-nation.

PACIFIC RIM & GOLD MININGIN EL SALVADOR:

The killing of four community members

In July 2009, the body of MarceloRivera, a teacher and community leader,was found dumped in a well. He hadbeen ‘disappeared’ weeks before. Signsof torture were found on his body,including burn marks; he was missingtoe and finger nails.

On December 20, 2009, RamiroRivera Gomez and Felicíta Echeverríawere killed. On December 26, 2009,Dora Sorto Recinos (8 months preg-nant) was murdered in the communityof Trinidad.

These killings occurred in thedepartment of Cabañas, bordering Hon-duras, where Pacific Rim Mining Corp.,a Canadian-American company, wantsto mine for gold. Prevented from min-ing by widespread opposition, PacificRim is now using a World Bank “medi-ation” procedure to sue the governmentof El Salvador for $100 million in “lostprofits”. No one has been held account-able for the killings, neither in the WorldBank “mediation” process (where mur-der charges can’t be filed), nor in anycourt in El Salvador or Canada.

IMMUNITY

These abuses happen because it isCanadian public policy to push for theexpansion of our mining and investorinterests around the world, while oppos-ing attempts to enact enforceable civiland criminal law standards that couldbe used to hold our companies andinvestors accountable.

North American mining companiesbenefit from immunity from prosecu-tion in many countries where they oper-ate mines – like Guatemala, Hondurasand El Salvador.

In the sphere of international law,they operate with immunity.

And, they operate with immunityfrom prosecution and accountabilityin Canada where the major corporateand investor decisions are made. Thereare no criminal or civil laws on thebooks to hold Canadian companies andinvestors accountable for harm or vio-lations caused directly or indirectly bytheir business operations elsewhere.

Over the past few years, there wereefforts in Canada to pass legislation -Bill C-300 – that would have provided

Canadian Mining Companies and Investors Making a Killing


an judicial framework for some govern-ment oversight and possible sanction(withdrawal of public funds a companymight be receiving) in the case of min-ing company wrong-doing. Bill C-300would not have provided for criminallaw sanctions where crimes were com-mitted; it would not have provided forcivil law sanctions, or for remedies tothe victims of mining company activi-ties if wrong doings and harms wereproven. Even at that, Bill C-300 wasdefeated in October 2010.

Recently filed civil cases in Toronto- “Choc v. HudBay Minerals” (for thekilling of Adolfo Ich) - are based oncommon law remedies and provide apossible crack in the Canadian wall ofimmunity from prosecution and legalaccountability, and will need substan-tial political and financial support.

The DOUBLE-STANDARD

This opposition to enacting criminaland civil legislation to hold our compa-nies accountable is self-serving and hyp-ocritical. I wager that the miningcompany executives, investors andpoliticians who opposed the enactmentof enforceable legislation swear by thevalues of democracy and the rule of law– just not when applied to their corpo-rate and investment activities abroad.Were these executives, investors andpoliticians victims themselves in theirhome communities of environmentaland health and human rights violationscaused by corporate activities, theywould demand nothing less than fulllegal accountability and sanctions forthe wrong doing and remedy for theharms and losses.

PUBLIC POLICY ISSUE

It is a public policy issue. Canadiangovernments, independent of whichparty is in power, support the expansionof Canadian mining and investor inter-ests across the world, claiming that min-ing is good for “development”, whileignoring or outright denying that Cana-dian companies have directly and indi-rectly caused harm and violations tocommunities around the world.

INVESTOR’S ISSUE

It is an investment issue. Investorsfrom the wealthier sectors of society,and their private investment funds,through to a majority of Canadians withdeductions paid into federal and provin-cial pension funds, benefit from theprofits that mining companies – andother resource extraction companiesand weapons producers – generatearound the world.

Yet, there is little demand frominvestors that corporate activities be reg-ulated by enforceable environmental,health and human rights standards.Assurances of “responsible investing”by pension trustees and the manage-ment of bcIMC, for example, amountto little more than ‘window dressing’ inan attempt to hide what is really hap-pening in the marketplace.

Issues in Culture and Media

With notable exceptions, our mediarelegates corporate and investor issuesto the business and financial pages anddoes not properly report on environmen-tal destruction, harm to personal healthand other human rights violations thatCanadian companies can and do cause.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT UNJUSTENRICHMENT?

Most people would not, I believe,agree with unjust enrichment - the factthat their investments (private and/orpublic pension funds) benefit from cor-porate operations that are directly orindirectly causing environmental

destruction, harm to personal health,and other human rights violations.

Until Canadian citizens hold ourinvestment funds, corporations and gov-ernment accountable to abide byenforceable environment, health and rhuman rights standards, in all businessand investment activities, at home andabroad; then the price of these metalswill remain profitable for companies,shareholders and investors, and deadly

for communities around the world. Grahame Russell is a non-practisinglawyer, an Adjunct Professor in theGeography Program at UNBC (Uni-versity of Northern British Columbia),and author since 1995. He is a co-director of Rights Action. RightsAction fundssupports communitydevelopment, environmental defense,disaster response and human rightsprojects in Guatemala and Honduras,in as well as Chiapas, ElSalvador and Haiti. To learn moreabout these issues, in Guatemala, ElSalvador and Honduras, and aboutthe education and activism going onacross Canada, contact Grahame([email protected](www.rightsaction.org).

For more information about Cana-dian mining related issues and strug-gles around the world and in Canada(www.miningwatch.ca)[email protected],www.rightsaction.org


Canadian Mining Companies and Investors Making a Killing


Until Canadian citizens hold our investment funds,corporations and government accountable to abide by

enforceable environment, health and human rightsstandards, in all business and investment activities, athome and abroad; then the price of these metals willremain profitable for companies, shareholders and

investors, and deadly for communities around the world.


PAG

EBC

Carl Grigoruk

The ongoing and volatile sit-uation in the Middle East,aside from the creation ofIsrael in 1948, which pre-sented its own set of prob-

lems, may be traced back to the 1979revolution in Iran. Prior to the revolu-tion, Iran had been ruled by a USinstalled and supported government.With its compliance, the US was ableto set up a client state and establish oilrelated business interests. The reasonfor this is due to the fact that Iran holds10% of the world’s oil reserves and isthe world’s second biggest repository ofnatural gas.

A growing disparity between rich

and poor and a rising tide of Islamicfundamentalism has plagued Iran. Bythe mid-1970’s, a grassrootssocialist rebellion arose lead by secularrevolutionaries, Muslim workers andthe poor. It gained momentum as gen-eral strikes and mass demonstrationscrippled the country. Their goal was tooverthrow the secular capitalist statethat Iran had become and they suc-ceeded. Iran’s monarchy under ShahMohammad Reza Pahlavi was over-thrown and the Shah fled to Egypt onJanuary 16, 1979.

It was not long before a power strug-gle, between rival interest groups,ensued in the newly created politicalvacuum. The Islamic Republican Partygained credibility when the exiled reli-gious leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah

Khomeini returned to Iran on February1, 1979. Riding a populist wave, theParty was able to declare the IslamicRepublic of Iran on April 1, 1979. Soonafterward, the government begannationalizing banks, businesses andindustries, including US owned ones,and this raised the ire of the US admin-istration under President Jimmy Carter.

Tensions sharpened between the USand Iran on November 4, 1979, whenthe US embassy in Tehran was overrunand 66 hostages were taken. Fourteenhostages were released immediately butthe other 52 were kept for more than ayear and finally released on January 14,1981. To this day the US has not been

able to forget this event in history. Afinal blow fell when Iran tabled anIslamic Constitution in December 1979and declared Ayatollah Khomeini itsSupreme Leader.

Meanwhile, over on the eastern bor-der of Iran, the socialist government ofAfghanistan was struggling to stay alive.The Soviet Union backed regime hadrepeatedly asked for Soviet assistance,even intervention, to help curb theunrest within its borders. A growingtribal insurgency, partly backed by theUS, and a 50% desertion rate from theAfghan army, some of whom joined therebel movement, had critically weak-ened the government. The Soviet Unionhad so far rejected the calls to assist butthe crisis in Iran, especially the UShostage drama, forced its hand. Fearing

a US invasion of a weak Afghanistan, aflanking move, which would put pres-sure on the government in Tehran fromthe east, the Soviet Union invadedAfghanistan on December 24, 1979.Despite world condemnation of thisaction, including a boycott of the1980 Olympic Summer Games inMoscow, the Soviet Union wouldremain there for almost 10 years untilFebruary 15, 1989. After the Sovietwithdrawal, the door was open for theUS to intervene in Afghanistan as itliked, by then, other events in the Mid-dle East had taken precedent andAfghanistan would be forgotten formany years. It was during this lullthat Al Qaeda, in conjunctionwith Afghanistan’s newly mintedIslamist Taliban government, set up itsterrorist training camps.

While the Iranian revolution wasgoing on, things were brewing to thewest of Iran in the oil rich country ofIraq. Saddam Hussein hadbecome President on July 16, 1979, withthe tacit support of the Carter adminis-tration. Over the next year, Saddam washeavily supplied with weapons andfinances from the US. Then Iraq, againwith US approval and wanting to usethe instability in Iran to its advantage,invaded Iran on September 22, 1980.Its pretext was that it was claiming theArab inhabited Khouzestan for itself andwas asserting its territorial rights overthe Shatt el-Arab waterway. By the sum-mer of 1982, Iran, with 3 times the pop-ulation, was able to claim a defensivesuccess in the war. With the US militarybacking of Iraq on one side andweapons support for Iran by China,North Korea, Libya, and Syria on theother, the death toll on both sides of thecampaign accumulated to almost 2 mil-lion dead. The war that began under theUS Presidency of Carter continued anddragged on through the administrationof Ronald Reagan. It finally ended onAugust 20, 1988 when Iran

Aspiring Martyrs Do Not Make Good Neighbours


Any war requires drugs; especially opiatederivatives such as morphine and codeine,

to treat injuries sustained during battle. Rightthere in Afghanistan, could be found up to

95% of the world’s opium poppy crops and,therefore, the source for those badly needed

medicines.

grudgingly accepted a UN proposedpeace settlement.

The US, although not entirelypleased with Saddam for not winningthe war outright, nevertheless contin-ued to back his regime as a counterbal-ance to Iran. For the remainder of theReagan term and that of the next Pres-ident, George W Bush, Saddam wassupplied with huge stocks of conven-tional, biological and chemical weapons.By the summer of 1990, a well armedSaddam decided to ‘go rogue’ by unilat-erally accusing Kuwait of over produc-

tion of oil, thus driving global pricesdown, and of siphoning oil from Iraq bygoing under the desert across the bor-der. On July 17, 1990 he began an airwar against Kuwait and then, on August2, he invaded it by land and the GulfWar had begun. It was short lived. AUN backed operation, Desert Storm,was established and it was able to defeatIraq and drive it out of Kuwait. The warwas over by February 27, 1991. Whatupset the US the most about Saddam’saggression, was not so much the inva-sion of Kuwait; the affront was that themilitary aid which he had been givenwas meant to be used as a deterrent toIran and not to be squandered on anunrelated side venture. For this he hadto be punished - and was.

Throughout the 1980s and ‘90s Iranbegan to support international terroristorganizations. This began in 1982 whenit started to back the anti-Israel Shi’itemilitant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.It would go on to add the Al-MahdiArmy, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade,Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Palestin-inan Hamas to its list of clients. Iran hasalso funded Shia militias in Iraq whoare fighting coalition forces on theground there. Iran even has its own ter-

rorist organization called the People’sMujahedin of Iran (Mujahadeen-e-Khalq). All of these groups have beenlinked to bombings, assassinations andother acts of terrorism, especially in theMiddle East. For example, anIran backed group was responsible forthe 1996 truck bombing of the KhobarTowers, a US military residence, inSaudi Arabia which killed 19 US ser-vicemen.

Everything changed on September11th, 2001 when a terrorist attack waslaunched on the US by the Osama bin

Laden fronted Al Qaeda organization.Bin Laden had been a financial con-troller for the US backed Mujahedinrebels who had been fighting the Sovietinvasion of Afghanistan. He becameupset when, after the Soviet Union with-drew from the country, the US similarlyabandoned it when it was clear that acivil war would now break out there.He was also angry that the US waskeeping military bases in Saudi Arabia,which he saw as an insult on Islam.After the Islamic Taliban governmentcame to power in Afghanistan, heremained in the country, establishedjihadist training camps and recruitedmembers to carry out a terror campaignwherever he ordered it. The 9-11 attackwas 2 years in the planning and cost binLaden a mere $250,000 to execute it. Itis estimated to have cost the US econ-omy 5 billion dollars.

The US with its allies attackedAfghanistan on October 7, 2001. Theoperation was called ‘Enduring Free-dom’. In rapid succession the Talibangovernment was toppled while AlQaeda camps were destroyed and itsmembers sent fleeing toward the Pak-istan border. Osama bin Laden was ableto make a successful getaway and was

at large for almost a decade before hisrecent death at the hands of US SpecialForces operatives who finally locatedhim in Pakistan.

Besides the two clear-cut goals ofthe operation, change of governmentand Al Qaeda destruction, there weretwo more goals that were less obvious.The first has to do with war logistics.Any war requires drugs; especially opi-ate derivatives such as morphine andcodeine, to treat injuries sustained dur-ing battle. Right there in Afghanistan,could be found up to 95% of the world’sopium poppy crops and, therefore, thesource for those badly needed medi-cines. Secondly, the US finally had theexcuse it needed to occupy Afghanistanand be able to contain Iran, the evenbigger enemy, on its eastern border.

The problem now was: How couldIran be contained on its western bor-der? A glance at a map suggested thatall roads lead to Iraq. But it had becomeclear that Iraq had nothing to do withthe terrorist attacks of 9-11, as no linkcould be established between it and AlQaeda. To solve the quandary, US Pres-ident George W Bush and his advisorsdevised a plan that would give them alegitimate excuse to occupy Iraq. It wasknown that Iraq had been stockpilingweapons, especially biological andchemical weapons of mass destruction(WMDs), up until the time of the 1990Gulf War. In truth, WMDs had effec-tively been destroyed during that con-flict. Most WMDs have a short shelf lifeanyway, and UN ground inspectors hadreported no findings until March 192003.

This is critical date was when the USlaunched Operation Iraqi Freedom, thestated purpose of which was to locatethese dangerous WMDs. Of course, asevents unfolded, none were to be foundand it hardly mattered. The USlaunched an air offensive and theninvaded Iraq, sending troops to allreaches of the country, where it remainsuntil the present.

It should now be clear that, after areview of more than 30 years of Middle





It should now be clear that, after a review ofmore than 30 years of Middle Eastern

history, the name of one country stands outabove all others - Iran.

Eastern history, the name of one coun-try stands out above all others - Iran.As has been stated, the US has neverforgotten about the events of, and reper-cussions after, the Iran Revolution andthe loss of face to US prestige in thatregion. And now, through a series oftwists and turns, much of which havebeen US driven, America has gottenwhat it wanted for many years - an Irancontained on both sides by the book-

ends of Iraq and Afghanistan. At the Nuclear Security Summit,

held in Washington, DC on April 12-13, 2010, attended by 47 countries andhosted by current US President BarackObama, it is significant that Iran wasnot on the guest list. This is an impor-tant point, as it is widely believed thatIran is presently attempting to builda nuclear weapons program. IranianPresident Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was

quick to denounce the summit and saidthat Iran would not be bound by anydecisions coming out of it. Withthis nuclear stalemate in play, a back-log of historic grievances that are unre-solved, and the current volatile situationin North Africa and the Middle Eastplaying out on its doorstep, it is difficultto see how the pressure cooker, that isa surrounded Iran, will keep its lid onin the heated days and weeks to come.




We do not question our ideals of justice because there is cor-

ruption in the world. On the contrary, we fight against cor-

ruption on behalf of those ideals. Similarly, we do not refuse

– or at least we should not refuse – to focus on what is hap-

pening politically on the pretext that our politicians are all

rotten, as we often hear. First, this statement is not true, and

second, it is not a reason to disengage. Very much to the con-

trary, the more our core values are undermined by our gov-

ernments, the more we have a duty to take note, which is the

first step toward action. This is our social contract.

– Christian Nadeau (Rogue in Power: Why Stephen

Harper is Remaking Canada by Stealth)


PAG

EBC

Pummy Kaur

Unfortunately, the need foran International Women’sDay is greater now thanever before. Fundamental-ist governments and

misogynistic religions around the world,including within Canada, make it essen-tial for all to be vigilant, for we havebeen crippled taking two steps back,and a few sideways, for every step madeforward in the equality for women.

In spite of the central organizingprincipal of the UN, that no enduringsolution to society’s most threateningsocial, economic, and political problemscan be found without the full participa-tion, and full empowerment of theworld’s women, women of the worldtend to benefit little from the wealth andwellbeing created. Women make up52% of the world’s population, do about66% of all the work that is done, make10% of all the money that is earned,own 0.01% of all the property that isowned, suffer nearly 90 % of all domes-tic violence and abuse, and give birth to100% of all humans. In Canada 1 in 7women lives in poverty!

Originally known as InternationalWorking Women’s Day, this day startedas a Socialist political event, growingout of protest, political activism, andsolidarity between women. It blendedwith the cultures of primarily EasternEurope, Russia, and the former Sovietbloc, in the late 1800s and early 1900s,amid rapid world industrialization andeconomic expansion that led to protestsover working conditions. Womenneeded to struggle against and fight fornearly everything:

! The right to work, for a living wage! To end child labour! Have safe working conditions and

shorter working days! Control of reproductive rights and

paid maternity leave ! The right to vote and participate in

public affairs! To have private bank accounts

! To better educate themselves andtheir children

! For quality universal health care andchild care

! For the right to public assistancewhen needed

! For equal access to the benefits oflaw

To this day women continue tostruggle against all these hurdles andever more, including; racism, sexism,ageism, homophobia, environmentaldegradation, intellectual property rights,and water as a human right. World widewomen struggle for equal participationin child rearing and household manage-

ment; while continuing to deal withdomestic abuse, and systemic inequal-ity perpetuated by religious institutionsand state.

In 1857 women garment workers ofNew York staged a demonstration toprotest working conditions. They weretreated brutally by the police, and threeyears later formed a garment and tex-tile workers union. In 1909 the Inter-national Ladies Garment WorkersUnion went on strike at the Triangle

Shirtwaist Company in New York, till700 women were arrested, leading to ageneral strike of 30, 000. The strikeended three months later in 1910 whenmanagement agreed to improve work-ing conditions. This display of courageand perseverance was integral to theestablishment of an international day tohonor and publicize women’s role inthe labour force.

Formerly recognized as an interna-tional day by The UN, it was firstobserved in Copenhagen in 1910, andthen in Germany in 1911, following adeclaration by the Socialist Party of theUSA. The following year it was marked

also by Austria, Denmark, and Switzer-land. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factoryfire in New York, which killed 140 gar-ment workers, mostly immigrant womenand children, due to unsafe and over-crowded conditions which managementhad not improved. Also, on the eve ofEWI women held a peace rally onMarch 8th, 1913, to protest war and vio-lence, and the loss of their sons. (EW1,instead of WWI to reflect the reality ofit being a European war with the occu-

International Women’s Day 100th Anniversary


IWD ought to be a day to teach the youth aboutstruggle, the losses, the gains, and the hopes that wehave had as a civilization for our daughters. It ought to

be a day to honour the women who have madepossible all the steps taken forward, risked everything,

often their lives, to make the world better for all.Further, it should be a day to shout out support for the

women in the trenches of women’s movements. Itneeds to be a day to understand the evolution of

feminism from socialist feminism, to radical feminism,to the now all-encompassing ecological feminism.

pied colonies forced onto the battlefield)

Demonstrations on IWD (Interna-tional Women’s Day) in Russia werelinked to the Russian Revolution of 1917.In 1965 IWD was declared an officialnon working day in the former USSRin “… commemoration of the outstand-ing merits of Soviet women in, construc-tion, defense, heroism, selflessness andstrengthening friendship between peo-ples and the struggle for peace … “.

In many countries IWD is an officialpaid holiday, including: Afghanistan,Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, BurkinaFaso, Cambodia, China, Cuba, Georgia,Guinea- Bissau, Eritrea, Kazakhstan,Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Moldova,Mongolia, Montenegro, Nepal, Russia,Tajikistan, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbek-istan, Vietnam, Zambia. In many oth-ers it is officially observed, without aholiday; including, Australia, Canada,Great Britain, Japan, Montevideo, andUSA.

IWD ought to be a day to teach theyouth about struggle, the losses, thegains, and the hopes that we have hadas a civilization for our daughters. Itought to be a day to honour the womenwho have made possible all the stepstaken forward, risked everything, oftentheir lives, to make the world better forall. Further, it should be a day to shoutout support for the women in thetrenches of women’s movements. Itneeds to be a day to understand the evo-lution of feminism from socialist femi-nism, to radical feminism, to the nowall-encompassing ecological feminism.On this day we celebrate, demonstrate,protest, laugh, dance, cry, sing, eat andorganize. We have come a long waybaby! We have fought for every little bitof freedom, for our daughters and oursons.

International Women’s Day aroseout of great needs to create peace, secu-rity and equity for all oppressed women.Mother’s Day, rose out of a USA CivilWar mother’s need to see her 2 remain-ing sons not be killed in wars as 7 oth-ers were. No, it was not created by

Hallmark as a mere one day to buyflowers and gifts for the women in ourlives. For the men who object to thesedays, and/or want their own recogni-tion days, I would ask that they firstwork to make right some great injustice.Then they too can have a day theydeserve, unlike Father’s Day, and nowmaybe even Men’s Day, being createdmore by commercial interests than forany efforts of merit.

“Woman is more fitted than man tomake exploration and take bolderaction in nonviolence. There is no occa-sion for women to consider themselvessubordinate or inferior to men. Womanis the companion of man, gifted withequal mental capacity...If by strength ismeant moral power, then woman isimmeasurably man’s superior...If non-violence is the law of our being, thefuture is with women...”

- M. K. Gandhi

WHY CANADIANS STILL NEEDINTERNATIONAL WOMENS DAY

In 2004 the World Economic ForumGender Gap Index, Canada was ranked7th. In the 2009 Gender Gap Index,Canada ranked 25th. In 2009, Canadawas ranked 73rd in the UN Gender Dis-parity Index. Canada has been stronglycriticized by several UN human rightsbodies on the issue of women’s poverty,and the endemic violence against Abo-riginal women and girl. AlthoughCanada has made commitments toimplement equal pay for work of equalvalue, the federal government hasn’tlived up to its commitments. There hasbeen a sharp decrease in institutionaland political support by the Govern-ment of Canada for the promotion andprotection of the human rights ofwomen and girls during the period 2004- 2009.

Examples include:

• The elimination of the phrase “gen-der equality” from the mandate ofCanada’s primary institutionresponsible for gender equality inCanada: Status of Women

• The closing of twelve of the sixteenStatus of Women offices, on theprinciples that women’s and men’sissues do not need to be separated

• The reallocation of funding fromorganizations that support advocacyfor women’s human rights to organ-izations that provide front-line serv-ices only

• The elimination of funding to thecourt challenges program, a programcreated to provide assistance tocourt cases related to equality rightsguaranteed under Canada’s consti-tution

• The elimination in 2006 of the fund-ing agreements that had been nego-tiated with provinces and territoriesto provide five billion dollars forchildcare and early learning pro-grams

• The decrease in levels of financialand human resources specificallycommitted to gender-equality proj-ects in the Canadian InternationalDevelopment Agency and theDepartment of Foreign Affairs

“Five years ago, Canada was rankedamongst the top ten countries in theworld for its achievements in women’shuman rights; in 2009 Canada hadfallen to 73rd in the UN Gender Dis-parity Index. Changes to gender archi-tecture, shifts in policy andprogramming within the government,and the government’s response to theeconomic crisis have been felt by themost vulnerable women and girls inCanada.”

- Kate McInturff.Executive director CFAIA (CanadianFeminist Alliance for InternationalAction), co-sponsor of the report.


International Women’s Day 100th Anniversary



PAG

EBC

Deirdre M. Kelly

Talk of “social justice” has re-entered conversations aboutpublic school teaching,harking back to the grass-roots political movements of

the 1960s. The term suggests that advo-cacy of positive social change be seenas an integral part of teaching, albeit ina more self-reflective and humble spiritthan was present in earlier days. Often,however, social justice is not definedexplicitly, and when it is, the definitionsare theoretical and varied. Explicitaccounts of what teaching for social jus-tice looks like in practice are sparse.

My own thinking about this to datehas been highly influenced by the the-oretical work of political philosophersIris Marion Young and Nancy Fraser.In broad terms, I conceptualize teach-ing for social justice as involving both(a) anti-oppression education and (b)teaching for democratic citizenship. Atissue in anti-oppression education is thevalue of self-development and concertedattempts to challenge the institutionalconstraints on self-development. Atissue in teaching for democratic citizen-ship is the value of self-determinationand concerted attempts to challenge theinstitutional constraints on self-deter-mination.

Anti-Oppression Education

Anti-oppressive education seeks tocounter various forms of oppression.Often these forms of oppression areconceptualized as “the isms”: sexism,racism, heterosexism, ableism, classism,

ageism, and so on. Rather than catego-rize forms of oppression by which groupis suffering, however, Young insteadclassifies oppression by the differenttypes of structural constraints placed onthe self-development of members of par-ticular social groups. She discerns fivemajor forms of oppression: exploitation,marginalization, powerlessness, culturalimperialism, and violence.

This approach to defining oppres-sion is attractive for several reasons. Itavoids divisive, and ultimately unpro-ductive, debates about which form ofoppression is primary or which group

is the most oppressed. It encourages afocus on the interconnections betweenoppressed groups, where these exist,while allowing important differences tobe seen as well. It also acknowledgesthat all people in a country like Canadabelong to, and identify with, multiplegroups, and these group differencesoften cut against each other. Thus,depending on the specific context, peo-ple may find that a particular groupidentity places them in either a relationof privilege or oppression.

I hasten to add that Young is notsaying the “isms” are not important ordo not need to be discussed or that alloppressions are the same. Indeed, astarting point for Young’s analysis is herrecognition that various social move-ments (against racism, sexism, ageism,homophobia and heterosexism, andclass oppression) have successfullyargued for seeing each “ism” as havingits own dynamic and history.

To illustrate, we can see educatorsattempting to work against culturalimperialism when they: (a) draw theirstudents’ attention to the social studiestextbook’s framing of the period 1870-1900 as “The opening of the West,”which presents as universal and posi-tive the European settlers’ perspective;(b) discuss with students the reasons forthe omission of Aboriginal perspectivesand reflect on how the omission feedsinto existing stereotypes of Aboriginalpeoples; and (c) make visible Aborigi-nal perspectives. We can see educatorsworking against systemic violence, suchas gay bashing, when they name, dis-cuss, and refuse to tolerate homopho-bic slurs or when they agree to sponsora gay-straight student alliance at theirschool. We can see educators workingagainst marginalization when they lobbyfor resources and institutional and class-room policies that would include peo-ple labelled with developmental,psychiatric, and physical disabilities andsingle mothers with small children. Wecan see educators working against pow-erlessness when they work with low-income families, who may not speak thedominant language, to make them feelrespected, valued, and welcomed aspartners in their children’s education.We can see educators working againstexploitation when they explore withtheir students the idea of unequal struc-tural relations wherein, as Iris MarionYoung stated in her book Justice andthe Politics of Difference, “the energiesof the have-nots are continuouslyexpended to maintain and augment thepower, status, and wealth of the haves,”such as when disenfranchised immi-grants or workers located in the ThirdWorld toil under poor conditions for thebenefit of multinational corporations.

Teaching for Democratic Citizenship

Besides institutionalized conditionsthat make self-development possible,

Teaching for Social Justice


Teachers can, and should, play a key role in nurturing amore active and deliberative form of citizenship among

young people. Such teachers help students to articulatetheir interests and learn analytic, communicative, and

strategic skills and to think about the consequences forsocial action based on their analysis of public policy issues.

justice in Young’s conception requiresself-determination. In the context ofeducation, this means an emphasis onteaching for democratic citizenship. “If,”as Young argues, “all persons are ofequal moral worth, and no one bynature has greater capacity for reasonor moral sense, then people ought todecide collectively for themselves thegoals and rules that will guide theiraction.” Teachers can, and should, playa key role in nurturing a more activeand deliberative form of citizenship

among young people. Such teachershelp students to articulate their inter-ests and learn analytic, communicative,and strategic skills and to think aboutthe consequences for social action basedon their analysis of public policy issues.Such teachers attend to teaching criti-cal literacy (including a collective cri-tique of media and other key institutionsthat contribute to the quality of theprocess by which publics are formed),certain content knowledge, and class-room and school dynamics.

To illustrate, we can see educatorsteaching for democratic citizenshipwhen they take seriously the decision-making of school-age children andyouth. They do this, for example, byinvolving students in the setting andweighting of assessment criteria, by giv-ing students greater responsibility inteaching and learning, or by changingthe internal governance of the class-room or school, ceding more power tostudents to develop, say, codes of con-duct or anti-racist school policy.

Social Justice versus Social Responsibility

How does my conception of social

justice relate to social responsibility?The term “social responsibility” hasgained widespread use in British Colum-bia, no doubt due to the publication in2001 of the BC Ministry of Education’sSocial Responsibility: A Framework,part of the BC Performance Standards.The authors of this framework were wellintentioned and perhaps would not seetheir vision as at odds with the one Ihave presented above. No doubt frus-trated by the conservative Fraser Insti-tute’s guiding motto “If it matters,

measure it”, the authors and proponentsof this document hoped to draw atten-tion to and enhance the status of valuesand learning outcomes that areobscured by standardized testing,namely: “contributing to the classroomand school community,” “solving prob-lems in peaceful ways,” “valuing diver-sity and defending human rights,” and“exercising democratic rights andresponsibilities.”

While in some ways laudable, theMinistry’s framework is fledgling.Where social responsibility is definedso abstractly, teachers are not encour-aged to think through how injustice andsocial change occur—or how their prac-tices support or challenge the status quo.In addition, the educators who devel-oped these voluntary performance stan-dards may underestimate an implicitorientation to compliance in the docu-ment. To take but one example, drawnfrom the “Elaborated Scale: Grades 8to 10 Social Responsibility,” section on“Contributing to the Classroom andSchool Community”: A student who“exceeds expectations” (the top cate-gory), among other things, “displaysleadership skills, including diplomacy,

compromise, consensus, and account-ability.” Students who merely meet orfully meet the expectations “sometimes”or “frequently” “support and encourageothers.” Does this imply that only anelite group of students are expected tobe leaders? What about other qualitiesof leadership, such as the ability toassess who benefits and who loses inthe maintenance of the status quo, toquestion conventional wisdom, and totake a stand based on critical reflection,dialogue, and new knowledge? High-lighting only such leadership skills asconsensus building assumes—and gen-eralizes across all school contexts—a sat-isfaction with the status quo.

The subtext of obedience to author-ity is underscored by the illustration onthe cover of the Social Responsibilityframework document—a schoolboy in acrossing-guard uniform holding a stopsign. However unintentionally, animage of the ideal student as conform-ist appears to guide what many educa-tors choose to validate. For example,my daughter’s elementary school madesocial responsibility a theme, and onecomponent involved school adults occa-sionally issuing written slips of recogni-tion to students. My daughter wasrecognized several times for picking upgarbage without being asked to do so.I am still waiting for her or another stu-dent to be praised for having thecourage to speak out against a homo-phobic slur or for displaying creativityin group problem-solving.

The way students demonstratewhether they are meeting expectationsin these areas imply that responsibilityrests with the individual student; thedocument underplays the pedagogical,organizational, and social contextswithin which teachers are asked toassess individual student performance.Even when modified by the word“social,” the word “responsibility” con-notes being accountable for one’s ownactions or having duties and obligations.By contrast, the term “social justice”connotes fairness and equity.

In addition, because the social





Even when modified by the word “social,” theword “responsibility” connotes being

accountable for one’s own actions or havingduties and obligations. By contrast, the term“social justice” connotes fairness and equity.

responsibility framework suggests thatteachers make judgments about, andextensively record, student attitudes andbehaviours, I fear that intensified sur-veillance of children and their familiesmay result—and so too might the risk ofinfringing upon their civil liberties.Researchers in Ontario looking at howteachers were coping with changes inclassroom assessment revealed numer-ous such concerns related to assessingwhat the researchers called the “affec-tive domain.”

If we want to raise nonconformistsand future democratic activists, maybewe want to praise students who havethe courage to question their teachers’

perspective, the ability to defend theirperspective against the majority, or theknowledge to critique the textbook.Although making for a riskier classroomenvironment, these qualities would serveour democratic society better in the longrun. If we hope to press toward a visionwhere self-development and self-deter-mination are valued for all groups, weneed educators (in partnership with oth-ers in the community) to take a standagainst the institutional inequities thatconstrain self-development and self-determination and to encourage theirstudents to learn how to do the same.

Deirdre M. Kelly is a professor in theDepartment of Educational Studies,University of British Columbia. Herresearch on teaching for social justicehas been published in such journals asthe Canadian Journal of Education,Interchange, Educational Insights, Pro-fessional Development Perspectives,Teacher Education and Practice, AlbertaJournal of Educational Research,Scholar-Practitioner Quarterly, andEquity & Excellence in Education. Fordetails, see her webpage:http://edst.educ.ubc.ca/facultystaff/deirdre-kelly



Summer 2011 WWW.PAGEBC.CA Ideas and Dispatches- 31

How do I know people think unions are bad? Well, brothers and sis-

ters, plenty of people told me as much when, working for a teaching

assistants’ local, I ran around begging them to please, pretty please,

come to the union meeting tonight. … Everyone sat around the bar

and griped about being broke as shit, but only a handful of folks

wanted to get together and mention that fact to our august employ-

ers. … The prevailing worldview at grad school seemed to be that

you busted your hump… until the mystical moment around middle

age when you got tenure and were set for life, like your profs. But

those profs didn’t just have the advantage of getting their Ph.D.s at

the same time as all that sweet, sweet 1960s government funding.

They also organized and represented themselves. In my grad

school, on the other hand, people conducted themselves as individu-

als in competition, not as members of a class.

– Laura Penny (Your Call is Important to Us:

the Truth about Bullshit)


PAG

EBC

Pummy kaur

Iwas one of three Surrey teacherselected to attend the CLC May2011 in Vancouver. Most of youhave attended enough confer-ences to know the general format

and proceedings. So, I have chosen tojust list some highlights and some majorinsights I gained.

The CLC consists of 56 nationalcouncils, 12 provincial federations, 1700elected leaders, 125 labour councils, fora total of about 32 million Canadianmembers, and the International TradeUnion consists of 175 million worldwide.That means there are more of us thenof “them” (the right wing union busters),and if we continue to stand up togetherwe can accomplish much more than weanticipated.

We have already accomplishedmuch; such as the CPP and child labourlaw, EI, and health care. We now needto rectify other inequalities, such as mar-ginalized workers being over-repre-sented in precarious jobs, here andabroad, pay inequity, pension reform,child care, tax reform, pharmacare andcare for our elderly.

We need to reassess our tactics. Ral-lies no longer produce the desiredresults, since the media largely ignorethem, or demonize the participants. Thebattle for public opinion is to be won insocial media, by lobbying governmentsand other agencies, by defining our ownlanguage (not allowing Harperites todefine the language for us), to not lose

the war over winning a battle, keep ouractions future oriented, and to discusspositive solutions. We need to help thepublic understand it is labour that keepstheir lives running smoothly (garbagedisposal, teachers, nurses, electricians,bus drivers, postal workers etc). Weneed a globalized labour force to usecollective strength with international tofight back.

Further Awareness and Empowerment“Change is inevitable. Progress isoptional.”

Almost all of our social problems inCanada are directly related to the rap-idly growing inequality between theobscenely wealthy and the vast major-ity struggling to make ends meet. Thequiet unrest is very similar to N. Africa’sin its early stages. The gap is encour-aged by government policies designedto reward wealthy donors. Canada is theonly major oil producing country wherethe interests of Canadians are not first.

The government goal is to increasethe GDP (which is increased every timean ambulance goes to a disaster site, orfirefighters attend to fires cause byglobal warming, or another poor per-son is incarcerated for stealing food).Our goal is to increase the well beingof every worker in the world, withoutwhom there would be no GDP tomeasure.

The antidote to the fear mongeringof Harper is the promise of a brighter

future for the next generation, by engag-ing in common causes and realizing ourcommon good.

United labour has a tremendousimpact upon government.

Always speak up, and not to giveaway our power by giving up in despair.

We have a very large family of like-minded social justice activists, and everything we ever accomplished for thegreater good of all has been donethrough our collective actions.

If there was one shortcoming, it wasthat little or no talk ever emerged of ourindividual responsibility in keeping peo-ple poor and suffering around world.We do this every time we shop in Wal-Mart, eat at McDonalds, watch Fox andCNN, read trash journals, and teach lit-tle to our young about their connectionto the major social issues in the world.It is not just corporations, financial insti-tutions and right wing governments thatcause suffering to millions around theworld. We to have a hand in the suffer-ing of millions of people around theworld every time we consume any of thegoods or services provided by these cor-porations, institutions and governments.

Other than that little oversight theevent was overwhelmingly a big love in,and rightfuly so. It made me very proudto be a Canadian union member. Wehave done a great deal of good in theworld, even if we still have along wayto go!

Canadian Labour Congress Insights

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities

committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity

for not even hearing about them. – George Orwell

Summer 2011 WWW.PAGEBC.CA Resources and Reviews - 33

PAG

EBC

Kelly McQuillan

The opportunity to read andreview this book could nothave been more timely.Amidst the fiery dialogueleading up to the May 2nd

federal election, voting was weighingheavily on my mind. I have always beena strong believer in the power of a voteto influence the country, province, orcity we live in. I feel incredible annoy-ance when people I know apatheticallydon’t bother to go out and vote, yet sitaround complaining about an unsatis-factory result and subsequent bad poli-cies that we all have to live with. As a

teacher, I have taught my students thatvoting is a civic duty — to be a good cit-izen, one must participate in democracyby voting. It is a powerful way to haveone’s voice and opinion heard. I knowthat I have not been alone in this per-spective; however, now I wonderwhether these beliefs are entirely cor-rect. In his recent book, “The Ethics ofVoting,” philosopher Jason Brennan(Brown University) provocatively callsmany mainstream assumptions (whathe calls “folk theory”) about voting intoquestion.

From the start, Brennan asserts thathis focus is philosophical. His book isnot intended to be a critique of the gov-ernment or electoral system; it is anexamination of the ethics of voting. Heclassifies voting as a morally significantenterprise, because the consequences ofour choices at the polls can make every-one’s lives either better or worse.Throughout the text Brennan exploresthe ethics surrounding aspects of vot-ing: who should vote, abstinence, justi-fications for choices, what constitutes a

‘good’ or ‘bad’ vote, self-interested vot-ing vs. public-spirited voting, and thehot-button issue of whether or not it isethical to buy and sell votes. He knowsthat he is up against some deeplyentrenched, emotionally charged view-points. People around the world are lay-ing down their lives for democracy andthe right to vote, it stands to reason thatit is a charged issue.

Brennan’s thesis is that, althoughpeople may have the right to vote, itdoes not make it right for all people tovote. He describes the general ignoranceof the voting population as the “pollu-

tion” of democracy and argues that,rather than make bad choices at thepolls, the vast majority of voters wouldbe doing everyone a favour by not vot-ing at all. Being a longtime proponentof democratic ideas, my first reactionwas emotional. I initially felt Brennanwas being harsh and elitist; however, asI followed his extremely rational, metic-ulously thought out, and clearly pre-sented arguments throughout theensuing chapters he started to make alot of sense. I should note here that,although this is a philosophical text, itis accessible to the average person.Brennan’s style is clear, focused, andeven sprinkled with the odd bit of dryhumour, making it a reasonable read.

So, what is a ‘bad’ vote? Brennanoutlines two main categories of bad vot-ing practices. The first is “unexcusedharmful voting,” in which people votefor bad policies without epistemic jus-tification. He presents the example ofsomeone voting to ban gay marriage onthe grounds that it disgusts them. Vot-ing against gay marriage simply because

one finds it distasteful is not voting in arational (epistemic) or justifiable way.Brennan argues that, since people aremorally bound not to act in ways thatcause collective ill, voting out of igno-rance, irrationality, or bias is bad vot-ing. You need to have rational, wellthought-out reasons for your vote, oth-erwise we end up with racist, sexist, andotherwise discriminatory policies.

The second category of bad votingpractice is “fortuitous voting.” This iswhen someone makes a good choice,but for the wrong reasons (or no rea-sons at all). I can think of a personalexample of this: my friend once told meof how his mother picks who she isgoing to vote for — she chooses the can-didate whose photograph she likes themost. (I fear this is not as uncommon apractice as we would like to believe.)Sometimes her choice might prove tobe a good one, in which case it is highlyfortuitous, since she based that choiceon nothing more than aesthetics. How-ever, there is an equal chance she mightselect a candidate who, if elected, willimplement harmful policies. Brennanargues that this is an unacceptable riskto the common good and that, ratherthan vote fortuitously, someone is eth-ically obligated to abstain. Fortuitousvoting also includes voting for someonebased on his/her character, ideals, orparty, without real knowledge of thepolicies he/she will put in place andwhether or not those policies are goingto forward the common good. (For thepurposes of his argument, Brennanloosely defines the common good asmaintenance of people’s personal/phys-ical integrity, health, livelihood, educa-tion, opportunities for social/economicadvancement, etc.) He explains that,although there is little personal cost toabstaining from voting, many peoplevoting badly is unethical and potentiallyharmful to the common good.

Abstention is a hard word to stom-ach if you are a passionate believer in

A Review Of Jason Brennan’s The Ethics of Voting


Jason Brennan is up against some deeplyentrenched, emotionally charged viewpoints.People around the world are laying down their

lives for democracy and the right to vote.

democracy, especially when one con-siders how many people in the worldare not enfranchised. You might arguethat not voting robs you of your auton-omy, but Brennan points out thatabstaining does not take away yourautonomy any more than if you do voteand a different person is elected (rule isimposed on you that you do not want).

To vote or not vote is your autonomouschoice. In fact, according to Brennan,abstention can be a type of indirect vot-ing. Assume you would like to vote forthe ‘best’ candidate, but you have noreal knowledge of who that would be.Perhaps it would be better for you toleave the decision to the people whoactually know what they are voting for.

What makes some people better vot-ers than others? Brennan’s criteria of agood voter include having knowledgeof current events, being aware of per-sonal bias, having the ability to see pastrhetoric, the ability to tell the difference

between expert and pseudo-expertadvice, having a liberal education, andbeing a critical thinker. He later addsthat, to make specifically good votes,the voter must be highly informed aboutthe issues being voted on and have somebackground knowledge of political sci-ence in order to know what policiesmight look like when put into practice.

All of this self-education takes time,a resource many of us possess in shortsupply. Brennan argues that, ratherthan voting, most people’s time shouldbe spent doing things they are actuallygood at that can serve the commongood in other ways, such as creating art,doing scientific research, operating abusiness, volunteering, etc. To be a goodcitizen, you do not have to be politicallyactive, and perhaps should not be.

Brennan asserts that he is not tryingto be elitist or to imply that only peoplewith the highest education should beallowed to vote. In fact, he deals a

humorous blow to the intelligentsia,referring to much PhD level research,as “little more than pretentious, obscu-rantist twaddle,” in order to illustrate hispoint that irrationality and bias areeverywhere. He shares that in someinstances even he has abstained fromvoting when he knew he did not pos-sess the knowledge to vote well on aparticular issue.

As with any philosophical text, weare left with questions to ponder. Per-sonally, I am thinking about whetherthis fresh perspective may affect myteaching of civics. I will definitely notbe standing up at the front of the classadvocating abstention — I want my stu-dents to be engaged citizens, in what-ever form that takes. The commonthread that weaves through Brennan’sdiscussion is the need for rational,informed, critical thinkers to make care-ful decisions that will positively impactsociety. I think, as always, I will con-tinue to assert the need to be reflectiveand critical of the world around us, andto make sure we are equipped with theknowledge to help us think throughconsequences before we make any kindof decision. Yes, we all have the right tovote. It is an important right. However,if we choose to exercise that right, itcomes with a formidable responsibility.


A Review Of Jason Brennan’s The Ethics of Voting

34 - Resources and Reviews the Journal of the B.C. Teachers for Peace and Global Education

Abstention is a hard word to stomach if youare a passionate believer in democracy,

especially when one considers how manypeople in the world are not enfranchised.

A culture that does not grasp the vital interplay

between morality and power, which mistakes man-

agement techniques for wisdom, which fails to

understand that the measure of a civilization is its

compassion, not its speed or ability to consume,

condemns itself to death.”

– Christoper Hedges (Empire of Illusion)


PAG

EBC

Louise Gonsalvez

In this book Ying-Ying Chang,mother to Iris Chang, shares anintimate look into her daughter’songoing passion to expose achapter of history that was for-

gotten by the international community– The Rape of Nanking. As Iris exposedthe atrocities of the Nanking genocideto the world, Ying-Ying now shares thepersonal and professional life of IrisChang with the world. There is no oneelse who could have more sensitivelyand intimately wrote a detailed biogra-phical memoir of Iris’s short life, which

was tragically taken by suicide, than herown mother. Ignatius Ding, an activistwho worked with Chang, writes in the‘Foreword’ of the book:

One must understand how hard itwas for Ying-Ying to go through her rec-ollection, relive her nightmare onceagain, and spend several years to com-pile and document relevant information.It was very honourable on her part todo so. This is a great gift to the public.It is done to honor the memory of herbeloved daughter, Iris Chang.

Sorrow, justice and liberation are feltat multiple levels in this book. As theback cover of the book states, “TheWoman Who Could Not Forget cementsIris’ legacy as one of the most extraor-dinary minds of her generation andreveals the depth and beauty of the bondbetween a mother and a daughter.”

Some readers may not know the his-tory of Iris Chang. Iris Chang, anaccomplished journalist, scholar activistand noted public intellectual, wrote theRape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holo-

caust of World War II. Her researchand activism brought the Nanking geno-cide into the public consciousness ofWesterners and into the recorded his-tories of World War II. She wanted theworld to know what had happened atNanking, and she was determined tosupport her claims through evidence.The History Page, on the worldwideweb, is evidence of the success of herwork as it refers to this chapter of his-tory as ‘The Rape of Nanking’ andincludes descriptions such as these:

In December of 1937, the Japanese

Imperial Army marched into China’scapital city of Nanking and proceededto murder 300,000 out of 600,000 civil-ians and soldiers in the city. The sixweeks of carnage would become knownas the Rape of Nanking and representedthe single worst atrocity during theWorld War II era in either the Europeanor Pacific theatres of war

The notorious Comfort Women sys-tem was introduced which forced youngChinese women to become slave-pros-titutes, existing solely for the sexualpleasure of Japanese soldiers.

An extraordinary group of about 20Americans and Europeans remaining inthe city, composed of missionaries, doc-tors and businessmen, took it uponthemselves to establish an InternationalSafety Zone. Using Red Cross flags, theybrazenly declared a 2.5 square-mile areain the middle of the city off limits to theJapanese... About 300,000 Chinese civil-ians took refuge inside their SafetyZone. [Academic Yang Xiaming statesthe number is more around 200,000]

Iris Chang was determined to nevergive up in her endless inquiry. Iris oncestated to her mother, Ying Ying, “I can-not teach Christopher [Iris’s young son]to be an intellectual and a sociallyresponsible person unless I demonstrateto him, through my actions, that I myselfam such a person.” These are powerfulwords and they powerfully reveal Iris’smotivations and her deep conviction –to be a mentor to her son, Christopher.

Ying-Ying includes some compellinginsights into Iris’s research that expandbeyond the perimeters of her book TheRape of Nanking (e.g., articles, inter-views, emails). Ying-Ying states that“Iris was one of the first few people topress the issue of monetary reparationfrom Japan (e.g., for such things as theheinous labour camps, institutionalizedrape by the military, and biological war-fare testing on live citizens at Unit 731).She shares an interview Iris had withJapanese reporter Kinue Tokudome whoasked, “Are you planning to go to Japanwhen your book comes out there?” Irisresponded:

I don’t know. All I do know is thatI recognize that there are many sincere,wonderful and courageous people inJapan who want nothing more than topromote the truth, and these kinds ofpeople – though in small numbers – canbe found worldwide. This is a humanquality that transcends ethnicity andnationality. Such people recognize thatwhat happened in Nanking an in otherregions of China is a human rights issue,and that patriotism or nationality or eth-nicity has no bearing on human rightsissues. They see the larger picture. I amone hundred percent behind those peo-ple in Japan, and I certainly hope tomeet them one day.

Japanese soldiers, film makers, andacademics are now coming forth onthese issues. At a recent conference inToronto entitled “Forgotten Voices Liv-ing History: International Conferencefor Educators on the History of WW11in Asia” a former Japanese soldier spoke

Review: The Woman Who Could Not Forget: IrisChang Before And Beyond The Rape of Nanking

Ying-Ying’s book is a compelling story of a mother’slove for her daughter and a daughter’s love for her

mother, father, husband and child. It is an inspirationto those who wish to “stand alone, apart from the

crowd” and stand tall for social justice.

of his experiences. Also film maker Izu-mitani Akiko shared her film “SilentShame”, where she confronts the “hid-den truth about her country’s involve-ment in war crimes in WW II.”Ying-Ying also shares part of JamesBradley’s eulogy to Iris’s two years oldson. Bradley is “the best-selling authorof Flags of Our Father” [the life storiesof six American men who raised the flagat the Battle of Iwo Jima], which is amotion picture directed by Clint East-wood. Bradley states:

Christopher, your mother was IrisChang ... Five years before you wereborn, I was struggling in my effort towrite a book about the six flag-raisersin the photo. For two years I had triedto find a publisher. Twenty –seven pub-lishers wrote me rejection letters ... Flagsof Our Father became a New YorkTimes #1 best seller. Twenty seven pub-lishers had said ‘No.’ Your mother hadsaid ‘Do it...’ (She) touched millions andwill be remembered on all continents incountless ways. Here is just one ofthem...

This book is informative and reachesinternational borders and transcendsthem too.

Few things, if any, could be aspainful as the news that one’s child hascommitted suicide, but this is the open-ing chapter of this book, and the jour-ney that one mother and her patienthusband, have taken since the death oftheir daughter, Iris. This is where a newchapter begins for them and for the fol-lowers of Iris Chang. We learn of Iris’life as a child, daughter, college student,wife, and mother in this book. AsRichard Rhodes, author of twenty threebooks and the Pulitzer Prize winningbook The Making of the Atom Bombsays in the prelude of the book,

In the course of our lives from birthto death we fill multiple roles. None iscomplete without the other; each com-plements the other. Whatever your reli-gious beliefs, at minimum those we havelost survive in our memory of them. Inthis memoir Iris’s mother, Ying-YingChang, shares her memories of thatother part of Iris’s life, the part that was

private. Writing it, Ying-Ying tells us,helped her work through the grief at herdaughter’s death. For those who knewIris only or primarily through her books,learning more about her life enlargesour sense of who she was and how shecame to her celebrated work ... Memoircan’t bring Iris Chang back, but it canat least help us to experience her pres-ence again. It is a presence, full of thecourage of her convictions, full of life.

Ying-Ying shares the immense joy,love and pride, she and her husband feltfor their daughter; the selflessness of Irisas she encouraged her husband Brett toenter and complete an MBA at HarvardBusiness School, the agonizing roller-coaster ride with fertility issues that Irisand Brad endured, the great concernshe had for Iris’s downward-spirallingmental health, and the challenges Irisfaced as she lovingly nurtured her autis-tic son, Christopher. The book includesa plethora of loving ‘Dear Mom’ letterswhere Iris shares intricate details of herwork and intimate details of her per-sonal joys, sorrows, and struggles. Ying-Ying should be applauded for sharingIris, her daughter, with the world.

This review would be incompletewithout a few snapshots of Iris’s letters:

Dear Mom:Thank you for your inspirational

email. I’ve been working on my bookall week and feel more confident aboutmy material ... The sections [of thebook] are so short that I organized eachchapter as I would a speech ... Think-ing of the chapters as speeches for inspi-ration. They are breathtaking in theirpower – and so much more pungentthan prose. In the evenings, when I readthe speeches of Napolean or ClarenceDarrow or Winston Churchill, I feelengaged in actual conversation withthem. Words are the only way to pre-serve the essence of a soul. What excitesme about speeches is that even after thespeakers are dead and buried, theirspirit lives on. This, to me, is true reli-gion – the best form of life after death

Love, Iris

Dear Mom,I want to teach Christopher that it

is far better to belong to the criticalminority than the unquestioning major-ity. I want to teach him the ability tothink independently, to evaluate ideasand information on his own - withoutthe official sanction of the authorities -and, if possible, to create ...These qual-ities are not universally popular in oursociety.

Dear Mom,It was wonderful talking to you and

Dad a few nights ago. Few peopleachieve the level of intimacy and lovethat we enjoy, as parent and daughter,on an almost nightly basis. As a family,we are blessed, truly blessed, and wemust remind ourselves of this every day.

This book is not only for humanrights activists, historians, fans of IrisChang’s work, and those who want topreserve the history of World War II inAsia.

Ying-Ying’s book is a compellingstory of a mother’s love for her daugh-ter and a daughter’s love for her mother,father, husband and child. It is an inspi-ration to those who wish to “standalone, apart from the crowd” and standtall for social justice. In the closing ofthe book Ying-Ying writes:

And the end of the writing of thisbook, I came to the ultimate question,one whose answer I have always been– and continue – searching for: what isthe meaning of life? The answer willsurely vary with different people. WhenI thought about Iris’s life, her speechand all those letters she wrote to me andher dad, she clearly expressed that shewas a person listening to her heart, herown inner passion, while striving to cre-ate something of enduring value.

The magic of writing is in its powerto capture our souls, moments and livedexperiences, and to bring us to placewhere we understand ourselves, others,and the world more deeply. Ying-YingChang invites us into the personal jour-ney she shared with her daughter, andin doing so, she has “preserved theessence of a soul”.


The Woman Who Could Not Forget:

36 - Resources and Reviews the Journal of the B.C. Teachers for Peace and Global Education


PAG

EBC

Pummy Kaur

1 The Armageddon Factor, . . . . . . . . . . . Marci McDonald (Rise of the Christian Right in Canada)2 The Fight for Canada, . . . . . . . . . . . . . David Orchard (400 years of struggle against the USA)3 The Cosmic Serpent, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mark Kurlanski (Our DNA and knowledge)4 A Season of Non-Violence, . . . . . . . . . Pummy Kaur (Global peace through personal actions)5 Superfoods, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David Wolfe (Raw, vegan, natural foods)6 No Laughing Matter, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Margaret Mitchell (Domestic abuse and our laws)7 The Empathetic Civilization, . . . . . . . Jeremy Rifkin (The next stage in human evolution)8 Age of Persuasion, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Terry O’Riely (Power of advertising)9 The Idiots Guide to Global Warming, Elizabeth May (Great teaching resource)

10 The Trouble With Billionaires, . . . . . . Linda McQuaig (The increasing gap and our laws)11 In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, . . . . Gabor Mate, (Addiction and society)12 The Omnivores Dilema, . . . . . . . . . . . Michael Pollan (What we eat)13 History of God, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Karen Armstrong (“God” of Western religions; Christian, Muslim & Jewish)

Pummy Kaur’s Summer Reading Recommendations: Non-fiction and Not Recommended For The Faint Of Heart

And I said: OK. Who is this really? And the voice said:

This is the hand, the hand that takes…

Here come the planes.

They’re American planes. Made in America.

Smoking or non-smoking?

And the voice said: Neither snow nor rain nor gloom

of night shall stay these couriers from the swift

completion of their appointed rounds.

‘Cause when love is gone, there’s always justice.

And when justice is gone, there’s always force.

And when force is gone, there’s always Mom. Hi Mom!

– Laurie Anderson (song: “O Superman”)

PAG

EBC

Scott Parker

Assessing Responsibility is a value clarificationexercise that allows students to judge theresponsibility that individuals played in sup-porting the Holocaust. The authors of this exer-cise do not limit the accused to only Hitler’s

Germany/ Europe, but also asks students to judge how thoseallegedly responsible for the international social, economic,and political climate helped prepare and perpetuate the Holo-caust. It is definitely a common opinion that Chamberlainhelped Hitler by promoting appeasement. American indus-trialists that helped arm Hitler in the 1930’s strengthenedHitler’s Germany. Could an argument be made that Cham-berlain and American industrialists were at least minimallyresponsible for the Holocaust?

For many people, the Holocaust has become the yard-stick to measure human rights violations in the contempo-rary world. Furthermore, and probably more important, theHolocaust is a sober reminder that each person has a moralresponsibility to act, and that to not act can lead to unimag-inable suffering.

After 1945, the world took a giant step towards the con-cept of individual responsibility based on social justice.National and international organizations were establishedto monitor, access, and hopefully act when genocide is threat-ening. This process has been uneven and far too slow. Nev-ertheless, the historical trend is clear: fairness and justicehave become values that have captured the world’s imagina-

tion. Even those who have no intention of implementingthese values are forced to publicly; albeit hypocritically, pro-claim to believe in a world based on social justice.

This exercise allows students to use an historical lens tojudge responsibility for the Holocaust. Even though studentswill focus on an historical injustice, students and the teach-ers should be able to make connections to the contemporaryworld. For example, Canada sells arms to many of the cru-elest dictatorships. Many Canadians refuse to challengeracism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, sexism, and Islamic pho-bia. These attitudes and actions can be compared to the sit-uation of 1930s and 1940s. The hope is that students will beable to reflect on today’s world, using an historical lens fromthe past to evaluate decisions that are being made today andtheir potential consequences.

Students will judge 40 people and their “responsibility”for the Holocaust. First an individual opinion for all 40 (underthe opinion column “O”) {most students seem to completethe opinion section in less than 10 minutes} and then insmall groups, a consensus (under the consensus column “C”).After the small group consensus a class discussion on the dif-ferent opinions could conclude the exercise. By adding upthe two columns, students can evaluate themselves, and theirsmall group.. It might be concluded that the higher the num-ber, the more one expects people to take on individualresponsibility and defend those who find themselves beingpersecuted.

Assessing Responsibility and the Holocaust

38 - Lesson Plans & Activities PAGE BC — the Journal of the B.C. Teachers for Peace and Global Education

It is only in folk tales, children’s stories, and the

journals of intellectual opinion that power is used

wisely and well to destroy evil. The real world

teaches very different lessons, and it takes willful

and dedicated ignorance to fail to perceive them.

– Noam Chomsky

(The World After September 11th)

Student handout

Students will judge 40 people and their “responsibility” for the Holocaust. First an individual opinion for all40 (under the opinion column “O”) {most students seem to complete the opinion section in less than 10 min-utes} and then in small groups, a consensus (under the consensus column “C”). Indicate one of the follow-ing:

1. Not responsible 2. Minimally responsible3. Responsible4. Very Responsible

Opinion / Consensus

____ / ____ 1. Adolph Hitler, Chancellor of Germany.

____ / ____ 2. A high school student who told the Gestapo that certain students were making anti-Hitlercomments in class.

____ / ____ 3. One of Hitler’s direct subordinates, such as Henrich Himmler or Joseph Gobbels.

____ / ____ 4. A German who voluntarily joined Hitler’s elite, the SS.

____ / ____ 5. A German industrialist who financially supported Hitler’s rise to power and continued tosupport him verbally.

____ / ____ 6. The Prime Minister of Canada who visited Hitler in the 1930’s and praised him as a leaderwho, “Who truly loves his fellow man”.

____ / ____ 7. A person who voted for Hitler’s party in the 1932 election.

____ / ____ 8. A judge who carried out orders for the sterilization of “mentally incompetent” and intern-ment of “traitors”.

____ / ____ 9. A worker in a plant producing Zylon B gas, to be used in the gas chambers.

____ / ____ 10. The Pope who made no public statements against Hitler and the Nazi party.

____ / ____ 11. An industrialist who made enormous profits producing Zyklon B gas.

____ / ____ 12. An industrialists who helped arm Hitler in the 1930’s for his own profit.

____ / ____ 13. A Canadian businessman who refused to hire Jews to work in his factory in Montreal.

____ / ____ 14. A person who voluntarily joined the Nazi party in the 1920s..

____ / ____ 15. Canadian immigration officials who refused to allow Jews safe haven in Canada and sentthem back to Hitler’s Germany

____ / ____ 16. A person whom always and respectfully gave the “Heil Hitler” salute.

____ / ____ 17. German students who refused to challenge anti-Semitic and racial slurs in the halls of thelocal school and church.

____ / ____ 18. A person who served as a concentration camp guard.

____ / ____ 19. A person who turned the switch to allow the gas into the chambers.

____ / ____ 20. A driver of the trains that went to the concentration camp.

____ / ____ 21. The American and Canadian governments that limited the number of European Jews thatwere allowed to emigrate to Canada and the United States.

Summer 2011 WWW.PAGEBC.CA Lesson Plans & Activities - 39



____ / ____ 22. A graphic artist who produced Hitler’s election campaign posters.

____ / ____ 23. The “little guy” who claimed “he doesn’t get involved in politics and thus went about hisbusiness quietly as he could in Hitler’s regime.

____ / ____ 24. The soldier who carried out orders to roust Jews from their homes for “evacuation andresettlement”.

____ / ____ 25. A German couple that took up residence in a home evacuated by a Jewish family.

____ / ____ 26. A German high school student who reported to the police that fellow students were homo-sexuals.

____ / ____ 27. A Christian who took over a store just “abandoned” by a Jewish family.

____ / ____ 28. A German who refused to participate in hiding and smuggling Jews to safety.

____ / ____ 29. A policeman who helped round up escaping Jews.

____ / ____ 30. A teacher who taught Nazi propaganda in the schools.

____ / ____ 31. Children who joined the Hitler Youth.

____ / ____ 32. A German student who enthusiastically burned books by “un-German” authors, includ-ing writers such as Ernest Hemingway and Helen Keller.

____ / ____ 33. Parents who sent their children to attend Hitler Youth meetings.

____ / ____ 34. A Canadian businessman who refused to hire Jews to work in his factory.

____ / ____ 35. A poet/writer who made no attempt to critique Hitler in his/her writings.

____ / ____ 36. A teacher who reported to the Gestapo that certain students were not enthusiastic aboutHitler’s policies.

____ / ____ 37. Leaders of German political parties who refused to form an electoral common front tooppose Hitler.

____ / ____ 38. A person who refused to talk to old Jewish friends when they met them on the street afterHitler came to power.

____ / ____ 39. A diplomat for the Nazi government.

____ / ____ 40. German soldiers who were forced to join to Hitler’s army.

Source adapted and revised by Arthur Scott Parker from: Harry Furman: The Holocaust and Genocide: A Searchfor Conscience. State of New Jersey, Department of Education Anti-Defamation League of the B’nai B’rith. NewYork, 1983. p. 180



40 - Lesson Plans & Activities the Journal of the B.C. Teachers for Peace and Global Education

Title: Kids Start QuiltingAuthor: Alex AndersonISBN-10: 1571201416ISBN-13: 978-1571201416

Title: My First Quilt Book MACHINE SEWINGAuthor: Winky CherryISBN-10: 0935278494 ISBN-13: 978-0935278

Title: My First Patchwork Book: Hand &Machine Sewing (My First Sewing BookKit series)

Author: Winky CherryISBN-10: 0935278486 ISBN-13: 978-0935278484

Title: Kids Can Do QuiltingAuthor: Biz StormsISBN-10: 0613508270 ISBN-13: 978-0613508278

Title: Kids Can Quilt Fun and Easy Projects foryour small quilter

Author: Dorthy StapletonISBN-10: 0764127705ISBN-13: 978-0764127700

Title: The Quilt of BelongingAuthor: Janice WeaverISBN-10: 1550464353 ISBN-13: 978-1550464351


PAG

EBC

Roz Johns and Susan Ruzic

The following two quilting activities are part of“How to Organize a Peace Festival”, presented atthe 2010, winter edition of the Global Educator.The activities are intended to promote discussionand deepen our understanding about peace in a

fun and engaging environment. Instructions for each activ-ity are provided to make each activity easier to facilitate. Forthis activity, several resources for quilting have been pro-vided. More detailed instructions on how to construct a peacequilt and other peace activities are available atwww.wartoystopeaceart.com.

Roselynn Verwoord, certified teacher with the BCTF, cur-rently works in educational development at the UBC Cen-tre for Teaching Learning and Technology. She will bepresenting her research on peace quilting in the elementaryclassroom and providing practice in making a quick and sim-ple quilt at the Friday Oct. 21, 2011 PAGE PSA Conference.

The Peace Quilt

Guiding Principles:

• To activate previous learning about the meaning ofpeace

• To strengthen and promote a culture of peace for chil-dren

• To provide an engaging and fun activity

Objective:

• To create a peace art project that can be used as a per-manent display

Use:

• Group activity for a peace committee group, classroomor group organization where participants return towork on the quilt over a period of time

• Festival event where the participants complete a quiltsquare and the finished squares are assembled byanother group at a later time

Quilts: Elementary Activities to Promote a Culture of Peace

Resources for learning about quilt making for children:• Are helpful for first time quilters, give clear explanations about the steps for making a quilt and quilt stitches includ-

ing pictures and diagrams.


Crayon Transfer Quilt




Materials for using crayon to make aquilt square:

The quilt can be any size. A suggestedsize and shape would be thirty-five, 20cm x 20 cm squares. The width would beapproximately 100 cm wide x 140 cmlong depending on seam allowances andthe width of the band around the quilt.

• Solid colour, 100% cotton materialfor making the individual squares

• Quilt backing material – 1.6 m of112 cm wide fabric

• Crib-size batting material – 115 cmx 152 cm

• Construction paper to make yourown peace template

• Pencils• Scissors• Better quality crayons• Freezer paper• Newspaper• Ironing board• Iron• White paper towels• Peace image templates for partici-

pants • Table for working on the cloth

square• Basket to collect and store the

cloth squares for quilting or sewingat another time

• Electrical outlet, extension cordand power bar need to be consid-ered if working at a communitycentre or outdoor event

Assembling the quilt squares:Consider:

• Whether to quilt or sew dependson the age of the participants andthe type of event

• If participants may only be avail-able during the event and the quiltwill need to be finished by anotherperson

• If participants are able to returnand work on the quilt

• A person to quilt or sew the squareblocks together if the participantsare not able to do the quilting

Materials:

• Pins• Thread• Sewing and embroidery needles• Sewing machine if the materials

are not quilted by hand• Masking tape

Instructions for using crayons:

1. Pre-wash the 100% cotton fabric.Dry it without any fabric sheets inthe dryer.

2. Cut the cloth quilt squares - 20 cmx 20 cm is the above, suggested size.

3. Cut the freezer paper, the same sizeas the cloth squares – 20 cm x 20 cm.

4. Iron each block to a matching sizesquare of freezer paper. This stabi-lizes the fabric so you can color itmore easily.

5. Lightly mark a 0.5 cm seamallowance along all sides of thesquare on the freezer paper with apencil. The cloth squares and freez-er paper can be cut and the seamallowance marked ahead of time ifthe quilt activity is part of a one-day event.

6. Decide on the peace image thatyou would like to draw. Make yourown template on the constructionpaper. Keep it very simple. Youcan choose from the providedpeace image templates.

7. Trace your own or chosen peacetemplate onto the quilt square. Usea dark-coloured good quality cray-on. Press as hard as you can with-out breaking the crayon. Use a firmsurface with good light so you cansee the pattern as you trace it.

8. Think of a place where you couldprint your name.

9. Fill in the pattern with whatevercolour crayon you wish to use. Pressas firmly as possible as you color.

10.Lay newspaper on your ironingboard to protect it. Place the

coloured fabric square face up onthe ironing board and cover it witha white paper towel.

11.Heat the steam iron to medium orwool setting. Press the paper towel-covered fabric until the papertowel absorbs the wax. You may ormay not see colour on the papertowel. Change paper towels as nec-essary until there is no more waxon the fabric. Remove the freezerpaper.

Assembling the Quilt:

12.Lay out the squares. A suggestionwould be 7 rows of 5 squares. Thiswill depend on the number ofsquares that you have.

13.Quilt or sew the squares togetherusing the measured 0.5 cm seam.See resources for more informa-tion.

14. Place right sides of two finishedsquare cloths together. Be sure thetops of the drawings are together.Pin and then quilt or sew along 0.5seam allowance on one side.

15.Place another square cloth on topof one of the first square cloths, tomake a row, pin and quilt or sewalong a 0.5 cm allowance on oneside.

16.Continue this procedure withanother three cloths until you havea row of 5 cloth squares.

17. Complete all five rows of clothsquares in this manner.

18.Place the right side of row 1 of thecloth squares on right side of row 2of the cloth squares. Be sure thatthe right side top of row 1 facesthe right side bottom of row 2. Pinalong the 0.5 seam allowance ofthe bottom of row 1 and the top ofrow 2. Open and check to be surethat both rows are right side up.Quilt or sew the seam together.


19.Repeat this process for the nextrows.

Instructions on sandwiching, quilt-ing, binding the quilt can be foundin the following resource book.

Storms, Biz. Kids Can Do Quilting.Toronto, ON: Kids Can Press,2001. Pages 38 – 40.

Presentation of Peace Quilt Square:

• Journaling - tell and/or write astatement about your peace quiltsquare

• ex. My peace quilt square repre-sents peace because…

I chose this peace symbolbecause…

What to do with the finished quilt?

• Display at a local community cen-tre, school or faith building

• Donate to a local or overseas asso-ciation for use as a blanket

Evaluation: What have you learnedabout peace while doing this activity?

• Does the image on the quilt squareshow an understanding of themeaning of peace, ideas to promotepeace, or a change in the partici-pants thinking about the meaningof peace?

• Use the “I Thought and Now IThink” template to show a changein thinking about the meaning ofpeace.




Textile Art Peace Quilt

Use:• As above except when using glue

the quilt can be completed in onesetting

• Sandwiching and quilting are notusually done with this style of quilt

• Binding may or may not be done

Materials:• Pieces of material in any shape or

size, lighter weight material is easi-er to use

• Cloth cutting scissors for each par-ticipant

• Cloth glue for gluing smaller piecesof material for the peace picture tothe quilt square – one stick for oneor two participants

• Smaller and very light weightobjects such as buttons, lightweight twigs, beads for added inter-est

• You may also choose to stitch thesmaller pieces of material on to thequilt square and will need:

• quilting needles, quilting thread• see resources above for examples

of quilting stitches• Large piece of light weight material

approximately 110 cm x 150 cm forassembling the peace quilt squares

Instructions:• Participants choose pieces of cloth

including a larger piece for thequilt square, rectangle or circle

• Cut the quilt square – it doesn’tactually need to be a square

• Decide on your peace picture foryour quilt square, circle or rectan-gle

• Cut smaller pieces of material intoshapes for your peace picture andassemble on to and then glue to thesquare

Presenting individual quilt squaresand Assembling the Quilt:

• Show your peace quilt image toyour classmates, family and/orfriends and talk about why youchose that image to representpeace

• Place your peace quilt square withthe completed image onto the largepiece of material and attach by glu-ing, hand quilting or machinesewing

• Finish the edges of the quilt byfolding and making a seam andstitch or glue

Complete the evaluation activitiesabove.


PAG

EBC

At the Global Educator release party in January, Pummy Kaur invited us all to mix with others in the room by playing“Globalingo”. It was a hit, and certainly recommended for any global justice-themed events.

How to play:

1. Complete the following by locating at last one person who can do/is/has whatever is being described in the box, andwrite the person’s name in the box.

2. As soon as you finish all the boxes, yell loudly “Globalingo,” and feel very smug!

Globalingo: a Mixer

Is a committed socialactivist.

Has African Ancestry. Is an (or descendantof an) immigrant.

Has lived in non-Westernizedculture(s).

Is vegan /vegetarian/lacto-ovarian.

Checks all labels andshops ethically.

Has marched and/orprotested for causesof conscience.

Invests in ethicalfunds.

Car pools/ bikes /uses public transitmostly.

Subscribes to andreads alternativepress on a regularbasis.

Is fluent in two ormore languages.

Does not ever patron-ize fast food places.

Has consistentlydemonstrated solidar-ity with oppressed.

Does not make use ofdisposables (Napkins,cups, bags, pre-pack-aged).

Only uses toiletriesun-tested on, and notcontaining parts ofanimals.

Does not use andtoxic cleanser in thehome.

Has friends of manycolours and cultures.

Has family and/orclose friends that arenon-heterosexual.

Attends / visits non-Christian places ofworships, festivalsand events.

Has off-spring of or isof mixed cultural /ethic heritage.

Has dramaticallyreduced consumption(Has very little left torecycle.)

Works and plays andlearns with diversegroups of people.

Has a partner of adifferent culture /ethnic background.

Grows plants that areindigenous, and usesno toxins in the yard.

Sorts and recycles allsink resources.

Copyright: P. Kaur, 1999

Summer 2011 WWW.PAGEBC.CA Satire - 45

PAG

EBC

PRESS RELEASE

BC TEACHERS FED UP WITH SOCIALIST UNIONDOMINANCE

Tired of the socialist, union dominance of their profession, a new organization has sprungup to represent conservative BC teachers. The new organization, British Columbia Patri-otic and Redneck Educators (BC PARE), will represent “mainstream, conservative teach-ers who wish to promote patriotic values in the classroom, reject union hegemony, andpromote teachers’ choice in what they teach and how they work”. According to BC PAREPresident Rod Naetsk, many teachers are tired of being forced to teach “the so-calledsocial-justice agenda”. “We want to show parents and students that we are proud, con-servative Canadians, and not afraid to be called rednecks,” said Naetsk. Later this yearBC PARE will launch its website, which will list the organization’s goals, some of whichare as follows:

1. To give teachers the freedom to teach the truth about climate change – that it is sim-ply a theory with no proof.

2. To support our troops in Afghanistan and give military recruiters the freedom to visitschools to recruit students who wish to serve their country and protect Canada againstterrorists.

3. To create family values clubs in schools.

4. To show support for Canada’s leading role in standing up for Israel, the only democ-racy in the middle east, and the United States of America, Canada’s truest friend anddefender of democracy.

5. To keep teachers’ pensions invested in military and other industries that benefit soci-ety in terms of research and development, and security.

6. To teach students the true benefits of the oil sands in Alberta.

Naetsk says the organization is supported by “hundreds” of teachers in BC, and is plan-ning a fall convention. As part of the convention, BC PARE will conduct a welcomingrally for George W. Bush when he visits Surrey, BC on October 20th. “We are very proudof Dianne Watts, Major of Surrey, for inviting one of the world’s greatest defenders offreedom,” he says.

Could This Be Real?

British Columbia Teachers forPeace and Global EducationProvincial Specialist Association

www.pagebc.ca

Date: Friday, October 21, 2011

Venue: Fraser Heights Secondary School16060 ! 108th Avenue, Surrey, B.C.

7:45 – 8:25 AM Social Time: Refreshments and Display Area

8:30 – 2:30 PM Workshop Time: includes food breaks

2:45 PAGE BC Annual General Meeting(new attendees are welcome to stay after the PSA for the PAGE BC AGM)

Keynote Speaker: Brigette DePape

Brigette gained national attention earlier thisyear when, as a parliamentary page, she held upa "Stop Harper" sign in the Canadian Senate. Shewill speak on the importance of critical engage!ment and civil disobedience.

Education Not Indoctrination: An Intergenerational Theatre for Living Workshop

October 21st PSA Conference

BC Teachers Federationwww.bctf.ca

Documents

Page BC Jun 29.11 Rev 2 - Draft_BCTELA Update Template