How much Black history Canadian students learn varies greatly from classroom to classroom, dependent on choices made by individual teachers, but Ontario is making it compulsory learning in three grades. That's welcome news and an inspiration for those already weaving the Black experience into their classrooms — yet some educators are worried about how it will roll out.A Black Students' Union at a Surrey, B.C. high school meets for an event on February 28.
How much Black history Canadian students learn varies greatly from classroom to classroom, dependent on choices made by individual teachers. However, last month Ontarioa plan to make Black history compulsory learning in grades 7, 8 and 10 — the first in Canada to explicitly mandate the topic in its public school curriculum. It's set to roll out in September 2025.the Black experience into their classrooms and hoping for a similar announcement closer to home.
So, as Black Lives Matter rose into public discourse, the trio of teachers jumped into developing a new course for their district. After a pilot run, they're now hoping Black Studies 12 will become a provincially offered elective across B.C., but Scheuer said they would love it even more if the material became compulsory for
What she said she'd like to see after this first step, however, is for Black history to be woven across all grade levels, with teachers exploring a breadth of stories — achievements as well as struggles — in age-appropriate ways. University of Ottawa professor Joel Westheimer says a mandate doesn't fully allow for how a specific topic can fit into a broader curriculum.
"Mandates don't allow … the full consideration of how a particular topic is going to fit into the curriculum in a holistic manner."D. Tyler Robinson, who counts Grade 10 history among the courses he teaches, is wary of Ontario's mandate leading to the shoehorning a bit of Black history "into stuffed curriculum that already doesn't fully get covered," or simply an attempt to check a box rather than make real change.