The Colten Boushie Case

I honestly do not know where to begin to show and express my confusion and hurt. As a future educator, so much truth and meaning has to be said on my part. I feel like I would owe my students answers, answers that I do not have. Again, I did not grow up with much diversity in my school or my community, especially First Nations peoples. I wasn’t taught anything about it and definitely felt sheltered. If I have First Nations students in my future classroom, I am not sure how to properly comfort them when these things happen. I do not know how to make them feel okay when I can’t tell them it would be different for them. Oh how badly I would want it to be different for them, I want it to be different for everyone. I could sit and tell them I’d fight for them and their story, but then I feel defeated again because I am just one person. That is the problem I keep coming back to. I am just one person. I am just one person, how could I ever make a difference? But then thankfully I keep telling myself that this is why I wanted to become a teacher. Because yes, I am just one person,  but if I’ve impacted just one person throughout my career, I will have felt I’ve done my job. So if I can educate just ONE person on this Colten case and make them more aware about the depth of racism behind it, then maybe I’ve done my job. No I won’t stop there, but my focus to keep going and keep sharing these stories is one, just one person. Educating one person doesn’t seem so scary or so impossible, so thats where I am going to start!

Saddened with grief and hurt this past week,

Kennedy