Due to severe flooding in July, Barnett House will remain closed until early 2027.
The ATA Library is still open and providing resources to members.
Staff are working from home and continue to serve members online and by phone.
The Southern Alberta Regional Office (SARO) in Calgary is unaffected and conducts business per usual.
The drama classroom I shared with my colleague Kim was not overly large: four black walls, a blue curtain system that collected dust, and an office that was more like a storage room, complete with a stereo from 1996. To some, it was just a classroom, but to me and my students, it was a place of acceptance and belonging.
As a drama teacher, you need to create a space where teenagers, highly sensitive to peer pressure, are willing to let down their guard and put themselves out there without the fear of judgment and ridicule. At the start of each semester, our classes focused a lot on building emotional, physical and psychological trust and safety. It was rewarding as a teacher to watch a group of students, often from different grades and backgrounds, create what we would call our “dramily” (our drama family). This sense of belonging allowed students to feel comfortable enough to challenge themselves and find success. And isn’t that what school is supposed to be about?
On the door of the drama room was a safe-space sticker, indicating that no matter who you are, you are safe in the drama room and with the teachers who worked there. This tiny sticker was a symbol that spoke volumes, especially to students who needed that reassurance.
One day when I was preparing to leave the school to start my role as ATA president, I saw a student in tears. I asked what was wrong, and she informed me that it was just hitting her that I was really leaving and that my class was her safe space. I thanked her and assured her that my colleagues would continue to make the drama room a safe space for all students.
As teachers, we have moments we will never forget, and this was one for me. Regardless of any legislation, laws or policy, teachers will continue to make their classrooms safe spaces for all students. We build these spaces through our actions, and sometimes through the symbols we hang in our classrooms. That could be a safe-space sticker, images or flags from around the world that welcome our students into our schools. This is why I find the legislation around flags so damaging. It takes away one means of showing students they belong.
We live in a society that increasingly sees issues in either–or terms, but belonging has never worked that way. It is built through small gestures, symbols and people who care. Try as some might, you cannot legislate belonging, but it seems we can legislate barriers to it.
