Classroom activism not the right model

This is in response to the open letter from Saskatchewan school teachers calling on their colleagues to speak out in support of the eight Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs who oppose the Coastal Gaslink pipeline (March 6, 2020).

According to the writers, teachers must model to students “how informed adults can act on their knowledge to participate in social action for decolonization.” They say that the curriculum provides a strong argument that it is good for teachers to encourage student activism in the classroom.

But is teacher activism inside the classroom good for the students? Activism requires taking one side over another in a conflict that is often multi-dimensional and complex. Is taking a side in a controversial and high stakes issue such as the Wet’suwet’en conflict what we want teachers to model for our children?

Or do we want educators to model inquisitiveness, critical thinking, and objectivity so that students can formulate their own political opinions and ideologies, in their own time?

The activist teachers do not indicate if they have ever visited a Wet’suwet’en community or spoken to any of the First Nations people who live in the territories through which the proposed Coastal Gaslink pipeline will pass.

The majority of these people support the pipeline and have democratically elected chiefs in accordance with their views.

The First Nations communities through which the pipeline will pass are poor and remote. They lack access to the steady jobs and amenities that teachers enjoy in Saskatchewan. The people who live in these communities support the pipeline because they see it as a way — and perhaps their only way — out of poverty.

The teacher activists say they are motivated to speak out on behalf of the heredity chiefs in order to “model to students the importance of good relations between Indigenous and non-indigenous people.” But First Nations leaders such as Ellis Ross and Theresa Tait Day have commented in the media that activism by non-indigenous people and others, who have no vested interest, is making the Wet’suwet’en conflicts worse.

Teachers, like all citizens, are free to pursue whatever activist activities they like in a lawful manner outside the classroom.

But, in my opinion, encouraging students to adopt their personal ideologies and political agendas inside the classroom, particularly in the case of the Wet’suwet’en conflict, is professional overreach and highly inappropriate.

Classrooms should be places of objective learning and inquiry, not breeding grounds of activism. J.A. Matthews, Regina