Social Studies 10 update to teach topics such as the Holocaust, Residential Schools, and Japanese Canadian Internment
Beginning with the 2025/26 school year, the internment of Japanese Canadians will be a mandatory topic of learning for all grade 10 British Columbia students. British Columbia is the first province to
include the Japanese Canadian internment in its core curriculum. In all other provinces and in BC until now, the Japanese Canadian internment has been taught as an optional module, if at all. This change to the learning standard of the Social Studies 10 curriculum in BC will ensure that this aspect of our Japanese Canadian heritage is covered in all BC schools.
include the Japanese Canadian internment in its core curriculum. In all other provinces and in BC until now, the Japanese Canadian internment has been taught as an optional module, if at all. This change to the learning standard of the Social Studies 10 curriculum in BC will ensure that this aspect of our Japanese Canadian heritage is covered in all BC schools.
In 2019, NAJC conducted extensive consultations within the Japanese Canadian community across Canada. The results were presented to the BC Minister of Tourism, Arts & Culture on November 15, 2019. The consultations report identified six broad themes ranked in the order of importance collectively suggested by participants as to what the BC government should do to redress its history of racial discrimination and unjust actions that devasted the Japanese Canadian community.
Number one was the need to include the history of Japanese Canadians in the mandatory core public elementary and high school curricula. All of the themes identified in the consultations report were developed as pillars of the BC Redress initiatives that are currently being implemented by the Japanese Canadian Legacies Society.
Unfortunately, the timing was not good for our number one priority, since the K–12 educational curriculum had only recently undergone a complete overhaul. Accordingly, the JCLS did the next best thing: assemble a team of BC educators under project lead Michael Perry–Whittingham to develop a new website with learning resources that could be used by teachers wishing to (optionally) teach about Japanese Canadian history, and make the resources available online to teachers across the country. That work is ongoing.
In the meantime, in 2024, NAJC was invited to engage with the Ministry of Education and Child Care which was considering revising the Social Studies 10 learning standards to include the Holocaust and the concept of genocide. During those discussions, NAJC argued once again that the internment of Japanese Canadians should be a mandatory topic of learning for all British Columbia students. The ministry agreed with our suggestion, and it is very pleased that the new website and teaching resources will be available for the start of the upcoming school year.
