As teachers in British Columbia gear up to meet a new requirement for Holocaust education in classrooms, how that content gets taught has deeply divided the union representing the province’s 50,000 teachers.
Internal communications provided to The Globe and Mail show that a group of Jewish teachers – BC Teachers Against Antisemitism – raised concerns with colleagues belonging to a social-justice group partly funded by the union – the Anti-Oppression Educators Collective (AOEC) – about the group’s social-media posts. The AOEC has said it stands against oppression of all groups and decries antisemitism.
The B.C. government announced last fall that Holocaust education would become a mandatory part of the Grade 10 social studies curriculum starting in the 2025-26 school year. But how that curriculum gets delivered is largely in the hands of individual teachers, who can draw on a number of resources.
One curriculum expert said teachers need more support in collecting and navigating teaching materials for difficult subjects.
In their letter last November, the Jewish teachers highlighted social-media posts and other materials produced by the AOEC that called for the freeing of all Palestinian prisoners, made references comparing Israel to colonialists and declared the group’s support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel.
The AOEC responded a week later assuring the teachers that its members are concerned about antisemitism and said “the massacre of civilians on Oct. 7th is abhorrent.” The group went on to say the Jewish educators were “conflating Jewishness with Zionist political ideologies.”
“We are committed to educating our membership about the distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism in our effort to fight antisemitism and all forms of oppression,” the AOEC letter says.
The BC Teachers Against Antisemitism responded further in a letter that noted “Zionism is simply the right to self-determination in our Indigenous homeland.” The letter goes on to say that Jewish people should not face discrimination based on the actions of the Israeli government and noted that many Jews and Israelis themselves vehemently oppose the current government. It suggested the two groups get together, but said AOEC did not respond.
The letters came to light after news last week that a group of teachers called the Holocaust and Antisemitism Educators Association (HAEA) who applied to the union, the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF), for special funding to help develop a Holocaust curriculum were denied. Instead, they were told by their union that their goals could be met with groups already accredited with the union’s Provincial Specialist Associations (PSAs), including the AOEC.
Resources developed by the BCTF or its PSAs are not added to the curriculum in any formal way, according to the union. But part of the mission of specialist groups is to participate in curriculum development, as well as other professional development activities.
“We do not believe they [the AOEC] are capable of doing unbiased work in this area,” reads a statement from BC Teachers Against Antisemitism.
Repeated efforts to reach representatives of the AOEC were not successful. The AOEC’s website, as well as its Instagram and Facebook pages, were taken down after The Globe reached out with questions last week.
Lindsay Gibson, an assistant professor at UBC’s department of curriculum and pedagogy, said the province should be working with various stakeholders and other groups to help produce the resources, rather than expecting teachers to create everything themselves and leaving them to navigate the materials on their own.
“It has created some problems in that in some cases, teachers who may not have much background in the area might be choosing resources that are problematic, right? That might not deal with these important topics in a sensitive way,” he said. “It’s still yet to be seen what will they do about the Holocaust? Are they going to support teachers with some resources?”
He said that with “a current generation of students who are maybe less knowledgeable about it than other generations, there probably is time for new resources and for new thinking about those particular things.”
Dr. Gibson added that to properly teach the Holocaust, it’s essential to cover antisemitism.
The BCTF said in a statement that certified teachers in B.C. are trained professionals with the expertise to determine how they teach curriculum in their classrooms. Throughout their careers, teachers gather resources and lesson plans from a wide variety of sources, including sometimes developing their own, it added.
Rachna Singh, B.C. Minister of Education and Child Care, said in a statement that she recently wrote to school districts – who are the employer and responsible for the educational programming delivered in schools – to remind them of her expectations around fighting antisemitism and that complex topics be taught in a careful, respectful and age-appropriate manner that supports all students to feel safe and welcome.
According to the ministry, it has met with Holocaust educators and social studies teachers. It will be seeking a meeting in the near future with HAEA for further discussion.