This is the sixth section of the Full SEAT found on page 12.

Context and Connections 

School library (and classroom collections; and by extension text selection) and classroom pedagogy and learning environments are the foci for the system audit process. This work focuses on a tool to review classroom pedagogy and learning environments to ensure the wellbeing and success of African, Black and African-Caribbean students 

• Texts serve as windows, mirrors and sliding glass doors for the experiences and perspectives of Black students 

• Black, African, Caribbean know their own history, value their cultures and ways of being

• Other  racialized, White, and Indigenous students learn about the cultural experiences, capacities and expertise of the Black, African, and Caribbean communities around them

The Board shall, through its Equity Office, established pursuant to Direction 10, undertake a comprehensive diversity audit of schools, which shall include libraries and classrooms. The Board shall evaluate books, media and all other resources currently in use for teaching and learning English, History and Social Sciences for the purpose of utilizing resources that are inclusive and culturally responsive, relevant and reflective of students, and the Board’s broader school communities. The Board shall ensure that the audit is among the first priorities of the Equity Office and allocate the appropriate resources to conduct a detailed audit. 

Extending Your Learning/Resources 

Culturally Relevant & Responsive Educators:

• Centre and affirm Black, African, and Caribbean students and their intersectional identities

• Foster Black, African, and Caribbean student voice

• Furnish students with diverse resources that reflect their social identities, including resources that reflect the Black, African and Caribbean experience in the Canadian context, locally and nationally

• Disrupt hegemonic language registers, encourage linguistic diversity and empower students to challenge dominant language codes

• Eliminate texts that essentialize and dehumanize Black, African, and Caribbean students 

• Create spaces for critical engagement, foster critical thinking and equip students with antiracist language

• Empower students by validating their lived experiences and holding high expectations for each

• Commit to building libraries of culturally responsive texts that reflect students’ multiple identities 

• Critique oppressive practices that seek to maintain dominance for the privileged 

• Create a sense of community and wellbeing in your classrooms and schools

• Interrogate social locations and examine personal power and privilege 

• Challenge whiteness, White Supremacy, patriarchy and other hegemonic power structures

• Acknowledge institutional racism and its impact on peoples of African descent  

Reflective Questions 

• What opportunities do learners have to see aspects of their identities represented in celebratory and empowering ways through our teaching and materials? 

• How do materials and resources explore power relationships? (move beyond kindness towards justice, beyond identity to include social context)

• Could materials or content  trigger a stress/ trauma response in learners that will impact their ability to learn or result in behaviours that will then be disciplined? (known or unknown, consider possible inherited trauma)

• How is equitable access to digital resources and diverse cultural networks reflective of the intersectionality of the students we serve and the world in which they live? (Peel EML, 2020)

• What models of learning best acknowledge each student’s unique intersectional identities and allow them to achieve their full expression as learners? (Peel EML, 2020)

• What opportunities do learners have to express aspects and authentically explore aspects of their identities? 

• In what ways can identity be used to provoke or invite learning as it relates to curriculum expectations and social contexts?

School Improvement Equity Plan

• Does our collection contain an equitable representation of diverse text that offer “mirrors”; opportunities for reflection and affirmation for students into their own lives and does it reflect aspects of their social identities?

• Does our collection contain an equitable representation of diverse text that offer “windows”; opportunities for insight and understanding  for students into the experiences of others including those of Black, Indigenous and other marginalized communities?

• Does our collection contain an equitable representation of diverse text that offer “Sliding Glass Doors”; opportunities for action and agency for the reader to imaginatively  and critically construct their relationship with the text and the world around them?