By the BCTLA Conference Team
In the feedback to the 2022 BC Teacher-Librarian annual conference, one of the pieces we got back from someone was that we were too woke and spending too much time on social justice issues when we are supposed to be neutral as teacher-librarians. We take feedback very seriously, so of course, based on this comment we went with a Drag Queen for our keynote and a theme of Social Justice League: Teacher Librarian Edition. This wasn’t us just being glib and contrary. Libraries are not neutral spaces. ‘Neutrality’ as a way of allowing hate or even just standing by while it occurs is not actually neutrality. It is taking a side. The BCTLA is proud to support social justice issues within library spaces and to push back against the book bannings and misinformation out in our communities.
Before the conference starts we have our awards night and social hosted, as always, by Victoria teacher-librarian and quiz-mistress general Keely Thornton. Surrey, as well as hosting the conference, cleaned up on the awards, getting the New Teacher-Librarian, Teacher-Librarian of the Year, President’s Award and Lifetime Achievement Award. Awards done, it was time to boogie with some music bingo. With more at stake than just a win for a row, you had to listen for some well known classics as well as some more obscure golden oldies all with a theme of school. Of course Alice Cooper was one!
This was our second year doing a hybrid conference with both physical and virtual sessions on the same day. After the success of last year we went bigger with a lot more virtual sessions. So that was of course when things decided to fail. Our conference software decided to bug out and most of our online participants couldn’t get to their Zoom links. On top of that, the Zoom didn’t automatically record as it was meant to. We managed to get the word out and get some people on, but decided that the best thing we could do as an association was to rerun the sessions that didn’t have recordings and to get the recordings out to people as soon as possible for the 300 or so people who were registered.
In person, we had around 300 more people come out to Kwantlen Park Secondary School in Surrey, BC on the unceded ancestral lands of the Kwantlen, Katzie, Qayqayt and Semiahmoo. The hot topics this year were around generative AI, especially GPTs like ChatGPT, social justice, book talks, digital tools, and library organization. Indigenizing and making reconciliation an active part of our school libraries and school communities has continued to be an important part of the BC journey and was reflected in both the in-person and virtual offerings. Since the arrival of ChatGPT 3 in November 2022, the question of its role in education has been a hot button issue and we were delighted to have options for people to learn about it.
Mina Mercury, drag queen extraordinaire, was our keynote. Mina has been doing a Kids N’ Queens story time and gave a fabulous keynote discussing this initiative and its importance in allowing youth to see queer people in positive ways. Mina also discussed growing up queer in a small town and their advocacy work. However, it was Mina reading some of their favourite picture books to the room that was the real showstopper. Demonstrating their outstanding performance skills, Mina captivated a room of adults with heart and humour. Posting on instagram later that day Mina said “I left invigorated, inspired and appreciative of all the hard work these amazing people are doing for my LGBTQ2S+ community. It makes me believe that these next generations of children are definitely going to change the world.”
Ending the day was a panel discussion on the impact of library learning commons and books featuring author and graphic novelist Jeff Chiba Stearns, teachers Robin Speed and Andeep Garcha, former student at Kwantlen Park Vivian Prasad, and recently retired Indigenous District Principal in Surrey and a long time teacher-librarian and library learning commons advocate Gordon Powell. Each panelist provided excellent insight into the role that library learning commons play in their roles as parents, educators, and students.
Thank you to all who attended, presented, and supported our wonderful community of teacher-librarians.
The BC Teacher-Librarians’ Association is a provincial specialist association in British Columbia. We are part of the BC Teachers Federation.