BCSSTA Provincial Specialist Association Pro-D Day
“Canadian Affairs: Now For Something Completely Different”
On Friday October 24th, the BCSSTA held its annual conference at Simon Fraser University for the second time in four years. 500+ educators from across the province took part in both online as well as in-person workshops and speaker sessions delivered by teachers, professors, non-profit organizations, and experts on a variety of topics related to primarily secondary level Social Studies courses. We also hosted 30 exhibitors and vendors providing opportunities from educational travel and museum experiences to government and non-governmental civic interest groups.
Andrew Coyne provided a keynote to introduce the conference theme of Canadian affairs though it was impossible not to comment on current international relations as well. Our speaker series provided further discussion on this theme, such as “Not the 51st State” with Sam Sullivan, but workshops were necessarily much more broadly based to appeal to the wide spectrum of participant interests and needs. There were opportunities to delve into the application of AI to fighting climate change, to learn to pan for gold with Yukon Dan, to discover historical narratives in B.C. history, and to delve into the many other social issues we educate our students about on a daily basis. The day was filled with chances to collaborate, debate contentious issues and improve our awareness of other viewpoints as well as teaching strategies. With resources provided by exhibitors like SSENC, as well as from workshop providers, teachers were actively engaged and feedback from them was overwhelmingly positive.
The SSENC table itself had easily over 100 participants stop by inquiring about the resources on display – as well as helping themselves to the lens cleaning cloths which were once again a hit! Of note were the many SFU student teachers we spoke with. Our partnership with SFU provides them with a very cheap admission in exchange for the use of several Faculty of Education classrooms for workshops. These and other early career teachers were thrilled to receive resources as well as learn there are organizations such as SSENC that provide excellent opportunities as well as resources.
