'Makes me feel powerful': Curriculum highlighting province's Black heritage

Teachers and students at St. John Catholic School in Kitchener said they are learning a lot through new Black heritage curriculum.

“It makes me feel powerful inside. It makes me feel great about being a person of colour and that I don’t have to be ashamed of it,” said Grade 7 student Sarame Habtemariam.

“As they're learning, I am learning with them,” said Grade 5 teacher Danielle Green. “It’s building relationships. It’s building allyships between our students.”

My Place In This World: A Black Heritage Curriculum was developed in 2021 by Lorraine Harris, a Waterloo Region Catholic teacher, in conjunction with the Guelph Black Heritage Society.

Harris said the program is now being taught at dozens of schools across Ontario.

“It’s cross-curricular which allows a teacher in language, science, math, it crosses different subject areas and it’s aligned with the Ontario curriculum expectations,” said Harris.

The principal at St. John said while his school has a mix of ethnicities, that is not the case at all schools.

“Schools that have limited diversity do find themselves in a situation where racism could be stronger in those situations,” said Paul Gladding.

Harris said the intention when creating the curriculum was to focus on the positive parts of the past, not just slavery and racism.

“We want our students to have a new and different image of what Africa was like, what our African heritage entailed, before the days of slavery,” said Harris.

The idea is to teach students about Black heritage throughout the entire school year and not limit the lessons to Black History Month.