Teacher suspended over assignment where students shared trauma, including incidents of abuse
A BC teacher has been disciplined over an assignment that had students share traumatic experiences with the class, including incidents of abuse, and the teacher neither reported those to authorities nor adequately supported students after disclosure.
The assignment was known as Kuljit Singh Uppal’s “Sacred Cow,” and he began by disclosing to the class that he’d been abused by a family member as a child — without a trigger warning.
Then, he led a brainstorming session with students on various topics, from sexual orientation to race to mental health, poverty, gender equality, addiction, abuse, sexual assault, child marriage, abortion, and more.
He explained a “Sacred Cow” is untouchable and encouraged students to present their own “Sacred Cow” to the class.
- You might also like:
- Opinion: Is Vancouver planning for a no-kid city?
- Holocaust education becoming mandatory for BC high school students
- BC teacher fired for inappropriate relationship where student lived with them
During the presentation days, discipline documents say multiple students became emotional, with presenters often crying, and some even left the class. Uppal didn’t leave the room to check on them.
The discipline decision also noted five or six student presentations mentioned something that gave reason to believe they’d suffered physical or sexual abuse. Uppal is a mandatory reporter, but despite this did not report the disclosures to school administration.
While some students reported feeling supported and closer to the class, others experienced panic attacks and reported feelings of vulnerability and being “stripped naked.” One student even went home and self-harmed the day of the assignment.
The district determined Uppal did not provide adequate follow-up resources to the students and that he was “completely blindsided” by presentations about abuse, claiming they had never come up before in the 10 years he had conducted the assignment. But upon further investigation, the district learned reportable presentations were also made in 2020 with no reports filed.
The students involved in the exercise were in a Grade 11 and 12 Social Justice class.
Uppal will have his teaching certificate suspended for five days this month, and he will not be allowed to teach Social Justice again until he completes courses on trauma and respectful professional boundaries.