The ATA News , December 9, 2025 ❚ 3
Belonging is the foundation of learning
VIEWPOINTS
Amelia Newbert (she/her) Co-Executive Director, Skipping Stone
In classrooms across Alberta, teachers do more than deliver curriculum—they create belonging. Every day, teachers help show young people how to paint a life for themselves where they can learn and grow and be part of something larger than themselves. Now, in a moment when Two-Spirit, trans and gender-diverse students are being legislated into silence through measures such as Bill 9 and the use of the notwithstanding clause, the work of creating belonging has never been more essential. This is certainly not the first time, nor likely to be the last, that teachers find themselves navigating the tension between the politics they operate within and the students they support. At the heart of that tension lies a resistance that seems to surface any time our society begins to expand its circle of care to include equity- denied groups, and the goal of that resistance always seems to be the same: to control whose stories are told, whose humanity is seen as legitimate, and whose narratives and histories are socially acceptable.
Teachers understand this instinctively. They know that safety is not an ideology. It is the condition that makes learning possible. When students feel safe, their curiosity expands. When they are erased, their energy goes to survival instead of exploration. Inclusion is not political activism; it is pedagogy. It is the everyday practice of ensuring that every child can show up fully in their classroom, ready to learn. The current public debate can make that truth easy to forget, but inclusion has always been part of teaching. With every lesson that is adapted so a student can participate more fully or to make room for diversity of cultural or lived-experience perspectives, inclusion is being fostered. Supporting Two-Spirit, trans and gender-diverse students is a continuation of that same ethic. None of this is easy work. Alberta’s teachers are carrying extraordinary burdens: heavier workloads, shrinking resources and increasing complexity. Yet in the middle of all that, it’s clear that teachers are continuing to choose compassion over compliance and curiosity over fear, and that matters. For a Two-Spirit, trans or gender- diverse young person, acceptance from one person can be the difference between despair and possibility. It can be the first moment they believe they have a future. In the face of fear, your steadiness matters. At Skipping Stone, we see every day what happens when young people encounter teachers who make space for them to exist. Confidence grows. Learning returns. Life expands.Those small, consistent acts of inclusion ripple outward into families, schools and communities. Equity and inclusion are not luxuries; they are acts of everyday courage.They ask us to remember that the classroom is one of the last public spaces where truth, compassion and complexity still meet.As this province debates who belongs, your classrooms quietly model the answer. For every student who walks through your door, Alberta teachers are showing that education can still be an act of care. And in this moment, that care is revolutionary. Amelia Newbert (she/her) is a founder and coexecutive director of Skipping Stone, a nationally recognized nonprofit that supports trans and gender diverse youth, adults and families to ensure they can access the supports and services they need and deserve.
YOUR VIEWS
In response to a post on the Alberta Commission on Learning’s (ACOL) recommendations back in 2003 in relation to the recent report from the Aggression and Complexity in Schools Action Team, which outlines similar actions to be taken.
Chelsa Simpson So their grand plan is to give back the PUF funding that they cut in the first place?? And [they]’ll act like they’re heroes for it. Don’t get me wrong, PUF funding absolutely needs to be restored to what it was pre- Covid, I just hate that this government will take credit for “fixing” something that they broke in the first place. Also, I sincerely hope that this increase in PUF funding will extend to public schools, not just private. Monique Bentley So, exactly the same stuff teachers have been saying for the past 20 years, and exactly what was said to cause the strike? And this government decided to spend more money, and force educators to do more work to get what they already had?
Rebecca Sweet What is even sadder is that in 2003, when those recommendations came out, funding for early intervention (PUF and mild– moderate) was even better than it is today and had services provided by health units, START programs and private service providers and the commission still recommended improvements! Since then, programs have eroded, and we are starting miles behind where we were 20 years ago!!!! Arlene Griffiths Garcia Our whole education system is in such a mess. Teachers are heroes, but they can only work with what they have as support, which, at this point, is very little from our provincial government.
Equity and inclusion are not luxuries; they are acts of everyday courage.
With our Two-Spirit, trans and gender diverse students vulnerable to this form of systemic invalidation, we must stand firm for these youth to ensure that their lives, experiences and humanity do not fall victim to erasure. Giving voice to trans narratives matters because in them lies the truth that gender diversity is not a problem to be solved but has always been an essential piece in the fabric of human diversity. We see evidence of gender diversity going back at least five millennia. Many Indigenous communities around the world have long held the knowledge that more than rigid binary genders exist, including here on Turtle Island, where Two-Spirit people have often played core and sacred parts of community lives. These truths anchor students to a lineage of strength, resilience and joy, and set the groundwork for them to thrive.
FOR THE RECORD
On Human Rights Day, Dec. 10, we’re standing in solidarity with Alberta teachers. Every educator deserves the protection of fundamental rights, and every use of the notwithstanding clause puts those rights at risk.
CORRECTION An article in the Nov. 18 issue of the ATA News entitled “Recall petition targets education minister” incorrectly stated that the recall petition must be signed by 60 per cent of eligible voters in the constituency to prompt a recall vote. To clarify, the petition would need to be signed by electors equal to at least 60 per cent of the total number of votes cast in the riding in the most recent election. The ATA News apologizes for the error.
— The Manitoba Teachers’ Society Dec. 3 social media post
Opinions expressed on this page represent the views of the individual writers and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Alberta Teachers’ Association.
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