A British Columbia teacher has been suspended for five days for a physical altercation that occurred in 2020 with an Indigenous student. The Vancouver Sun reports that the interaction happened after a teacher asked his class to line up before entering the school and a student continued to walk toward the classroom. The teacher reportedly stood in front of the student, when “a physical interaction occurred, and as a result, both the teacher and (student) fell to the floor.” At the time, the teacher was suspended for two days without pay and ordered to not use force to manage student misconduct. Kelowna Now reports that the BC Commissioner for Teacher Regulation has given the teacher a five-day suspension, saying that he was guilty of professional misconduct and that his behaviour “reflected the harmful legacy of physical abuse in Indian residential schools.”
