While the world is expressing shock and surprise over the idea that young people are sharing mean messages and provocative images with each other, a high school class in Coquitlam is plunging even deeper into the darker side of human nature.
Dr. Charles Best teacher Ken Ipe, who rocks his speaking podium when he gets excited by his topic, is encouraging his students to examine why it is that racial slurs and homophobic insults are seemingly such an entrenched part of the culture and what causes otherwise educated and sane individuals to not just bully one another but kill entire races of people.
"C'mon, what would you rather be, what's popular," he begins as he cajoles his Social Justice 12 students into a discussion about cultural stereotypes and asks them to state what country they would like to be from if they weren't already Canadian. The class of mostly Grade 12 students is slow to warm up to the topic, they sense his drift and don't want to be seen as racist, but, as each student takes their turn, it does appear that some cultures are better than others.
Being Jamaican, Japanese, Russian, Italian, Australian and British would be cool because of the accents or the food, the students say, but no one says First Nations person, an omission Ipe takes care to point out as he introduces his next unit on native residential schools and their impact on generations of First Nations' kids.
COMBATTING INTOLERANCE
"Deep down we're all intolerant to some respect," Ipe tells the students, and even he admits to being raised in a family where light skin confers respect and authority. "The lighter the skin the better," he says, talking about the prejudices his own South Asian family arrived in Canada with 40 years ago. Growing up in Surrey, Ipe himself suffered from racist comments and tells his students that negative stereotypes are everywhere and not easy to guard against - a good lesson and a timely one in this era of instantaneous judgement and vitriolic commentary via the internet.
It's been six years since the Social Justice 12 course was developed to settle a human rights complaint launched against the province by a married gay couple who claimed the school curriculum discriminated against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people by failing to to include information about them in programming.
Initially controversial - Abbotsford school district almost pulled the course after parents' complained about its content - but Social Justice 12 has gained wider acceptance over the years. Other schools in the district, such as Riverside secondary in Port Coquitlam, and Archbishop Carney Regional Secondary School, also in PoCo, offer it, too, and Ipe also teaches the curriculum to other educators.
"If you're a good history teacher you know it's important. I tell my students, I don't have a lot of faith and hope in the species but I have hope in you."
STUDENT-LED CAMPAIGNS
When he first piloted the course at Dr. Charles Best there weren't enough students to fill a classroom, now he has three classes of 30 students studying LBGT, women's and First Nations issues, globalism and genocide and there is a waiting list of students wishing to study this alternate view of history in which a light is shone on some of the darker moments.
For example, students are encouraged to do a campaign to highlight social injustice. Some of the projects the students have researched and conducted include petitioning the federal government to toughen laws against sex buyers and pimps, instituting a campaign to protect youth from sexual exploitation and raising awareness about little known conflicts that are devastating entire populations through war, sexual violence, disease and poverty, such as the troubles facing the people of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Ipe says the goal of his course is not just to educate students about these little known or little talked about social issues, but to encourage them to take action against injustice when ever or where ever they see it. "It's not our good deeds, it's our brutal indifference that defines us as humans. I challenge them (the students) to 'not be normal.'"
While many adult commentators wondered why young people stood by as Port Coquitlam teen Amanda Todd, was bullied (she later committed suicide), few of them are willing to admit, as Ipe does, that adults are just as likely to be bystanders when atrocities happen.
HOLOCAUST SYMPOSIUM
The persecution and killing of six million Jews during the European holocaust is a case in point and Ipe shares this lesson in both his English and Social Justice 12 classes. The students read books written by survivors and are encouraged to empathize with the victims and talk about what they would do, or not do, in the same circumstances. Two years ago Ipe took his class to visit the Auschwitz death camp museum in Poland and this Wednesday, the lesson will be further underscored when a holocaust survivor speaks about his experiences at the Holocaust Symposium organized by Ipe in partnership with the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.
These lessons of human apathy and cruelty are not lost on the students; they see more clearly than most that standing by while others suffer may be normal, but it's not right.
Although the topics of genocide and exploitation can be painful to discuss, the students relish the opportunity to have their eyes opened by Ipe through the Social Justice course.
"It was constantly on my mind," Grade 12 student Kia Mansoor said of the course which had her telling her friends not to buy certain items because it could lead to the exploitation of Somalians or who now looks at media differently after studying the pornography unit. "When you see something (in the media), you don't know the whole story," said Mansoor, who plans to take political science in university. She's now more skeptical and less trusting but more knowledgeable about the world, she says.
Andrea Ceron shares a similar story. "I needed to take this course to prepare myself before I get out in the real world," she said. "It's so important," she says: "I would tell people to stay informed. People's eyes need to be opened."
For these students Social Justice 12 is the course that framed the rest of their learning, their eyes, now opened, see things that most people will gloss over out of pain or disinterest.
It's normal to simply stand by and watch when targeted groups of people are made to suffer, but for some of Ipe's Social Justice students, taking action is the new normal.
