Montreal special ed teacher uplifts her students while teaching about Black history

Montreal special education teacher Annessa Charles recalls not having many lessons in school about Black history.

Charles remembers the occasional poster of Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks or Malcolm X up on the wall.

“But I never really interacted with those very much, or no one really taught me about them or the importance of them,” she recounted. “It was more like an assignment, and then we put it away at the end of February.”

So the Westmount Park Elementary School teacher wanted to do something a little different with her students – Black History Month learning with a special twist.

“Last year, as we were doing our Black History Month activities at the school, there were some students who were also… learning about Martin Luther King or… Ruby Bridges,” said Charles. “So Ruby Bridges was a little Black girl and she wasn’t allowed to go to a white school. So they gave her a hard time. And there were protesters outside of her school every day because they didn’t want her to join that community.

“And so when Black children or biracial children learned about this story, I could see them kind of being very saddened by this, very defeated. And like they felt like they had no hope. So they would walk around kind of pondering the story, going over it. And I just wanted to add an element of empowerment to that. I wanted to give them hope.”

Special education teacher Annessa Charles with her students at Westmount Park Elementary School on Feb. 15, 2023. (Credit: CityNews/Fariha Naqvi-Mohamed)

Decorating the school for Black History Month

That’s why, with the support of her colleagues, she started by decorating their school for Black History Month.

“So I’m like, let me decorate my door with hearts and with Black people and with beautiful rainbows that are brown and butterflies that are brown just to uplift them and let them know that, yes, we’ve been through a lot of struggles,” said Charles.

“There have been a lot of obstacles. It’s still very difficult for a lot of us. There are a lot of disturbing things on the news, but there’s hope and there’s beautiful things. And brown is beautiful.”

It comes down to a very clear message, believes Charles: “Don’t let your self-esteem get affected because of the colour of your skin.”

“I just wanted to let children of African American descent like Black Canadian children, but also all children of colour and all children with different needs and abilities to know that they shouldn’t let their differences hinder them,” she added. “That’s really what I want them to know. Don’t let these things hold you back. Don’t be shy because of these things, or because you may have a physical handicap or you may have a mental illness.”

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Positive response from students

And the students have soaked in those teachings and that knowledge.

“It’s taught me more about like the inequality, about what they had to face,” one student told CityNews.

“Black History Month is in February because of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday,” said another.

Added a third: “It made me feel bad because then it was segregated. And then about Rosa Parks, how she was arrested because she was in the front. But after that, I’m happy that they boycotted it and then they changed the rules.”

Charles, who knew she wanted to become a teacher when she was five years old, says it’s been a blessing to share those teachings were her students.

“Often people put limits on my students, but I’m telling you, every day they blow me away,” she said. “They start reading or they start communicating or they ask for chocolate out of the blue one day. And I’m like, they can speak! This is wonderful. So I just love how exciting my job is. It’s very different from day to day.”