Anti-Oppression Educators Collective
The Anti-Oppression Educators Collective (AOEC) is a provincial specialist association dedicated to challenging systemic oppression in education. Formed in 2019, we were formerly known as The BC Peace and Global Educators. Our name change reflects the organization’s desire to focus on peace and international solidarity, however through a framework of anti-oppression. We know injustice is rooted in the historical formation of colonialism, and the only way to justice is to unlearn the colonial. We invite you to join our PSA and embark on this challenging and invigorating work with us!
Our Story
Anti-Oppression Educators Collective (AOEC) first started as the B.C. Teachers for Peace and Global Education (PAGE) was preceded by two groups of educators who shared some common goals and chose to join forces to create a better world. A group of teachers advocating peace, led by Fran Jovic, and a group of teachers advocating global education, led by Mary Gillanders, joined together in 1985 to form the PAGE Provincial Specialist Association (PSA).
At our 2019 annual conference, the organization evolved to the Anti-Oppression Educators Collective (AOEC). Our name change blossomed from a natural organizational shift that reflects the current need for educators to eradicate systemic oppression in all forms.
Anti-oppressive education requires that teachers actively challenge normative educational practices. We have to recognize that education emanates from a colonial system of domination that led to the genocide and marginalization of the First People of Turtle Island. The lineage of such a system is embedded in racism, sexism, ableism, LGBTQ+ oppression, patriarchy, misogyny, classism and environmental degradation. These social forces become structural within education because we reproduce them through our pedagogy and educational policy.
As educators, we know that when we see a problem we can do something about it. AOEC is dedicated to unlearning colonialism in order to dismantle oppression in all its forms. Our hope is to work in community with educators, students and community partners in challenging systemic oppression in all its forms. Framed by pursuit of radical love and justice, AOEC is dedicated to doing this work with you!
“It is necessary that the weakness of the powerless is transformed into a force capable of announcing justice. For this to happen, a total denouncement of fatalism is necessary. We are transformative beings and not beings for accommodation.” ― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
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