Rally for Justice in Education

Saturday at 1:00PM on August 27th, at the Vancouver Art Gallery, the BC Student Alliance is hosting a rally of high school students who feel marginalized by British Columbia’s education system. As of right now our education system is not listening to the voices of its constituents. Our curriculum has been designed without community consent, very few districts in BC have a student trustee, and teachers/parents have been given a lop-sided amount of influence in making decisions that affect students.

The byproduct of this is an apathetic population of young people that do not have adequate means of self-expression. In our current culture, people are taught that to be young is to be naïve and therefore only adults should speak out on important topics. Because of this, social justice movements have been lacking in solidarity from youth when the people who are hurt the most by issues of class, race, gender and sexual orientation are often times children.

This rally for justice will be an opportunity for young people to speak out on topics that will affect our future like the environment, upcoming elections, or activism in general, and to call out our education system for failing to support its students in finding their voice. Right now, children are sent off to school like it’s a chore, where they are regularly told lies that perpetuate colonialism, and put into an environment that does not support, but oftentimes provokes mental illness/stress/anxiety. The result of this system going unquestioned is a population of people that are too conditioned to stand up for themselves. The BC Student Alliance is drawing the line in the sand here by stating that our generation is not going to fall prey to fear, and we are going to speak out on the problems that face us in the 21st century.

Our speakers will cover topics like the need for more student representation on the school board, the need for social justice within schools, education as something that is not limited to the classroom, and how we will grow our student movement.

Although this event is organized by the BCSA, we welcome all community members to show up and stand in solidarity with us. We want teachers, parents, families, and everyone in the BC activist community to come and hear our voices.

*We will be set up on the South Side of the Vancouver Art Gallery (the side close to the entrance) on Robson Street. This event is taking place on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory and homelands of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

A schedule will be posted in the event discussion.