Mr. Teri Westerby

11/12/2025

“I was sixteen when they put a rifle in my hands.
The war was nearly over, but nobody told us that. We were just boys. We were scared, hungry, and told we were defending our country. I didn’t understand what that meant. All I knew was that the world around me was collapsing, and somehow, I was now part of it... whether I liked it or not.”

My grandfather told me that story only once.

He was a German teenager forced to fight near the end of the Second World War. A child caught in a war he didn’t choose.

He wasn’t proud of it, but he carried it with him every day of his life. The guilt, the grief, and the understanding that even survival could feel like a kind of loss.

He taught me that remembrance isn’t just about honouring one side or another. It’s about remembering what happens when humanity loses its way.

It’s about learning from every story. From those who fought for freedom and those who were trapped by tyranny, so we never repeat the same mistakes.

Today, as I stood at the Downtown Chilliwack Remembrance Day Ceremony representing the Chilliwack School District, I thought about him.

I thought about all the young people who’ve been sent to fight wars they didn’t start and about how fragile peace truly is.

Remembrance Day isn’t just about those who died; it’s also about those who lived.

Those who came home changed.

Those who bring wisdom carved from pain and experience.

They deserve not only our gratitude, but our compassion, no matter the battles they continue to face.

We honour them by standing together, by learning, and by protecting the freedoms they fought, and so many gave their lives for.

Lest we forget. 🍁❤️🏵️

11/05/2025

Every photograph, letter, and keepsake holds a story. Of a person. Of a moment in time that shaped who we are as a community.

The Chilliwack Museum's newest exhibit, Collecting Memory, is a collective act of remembrance. It honours the people who shaped Chilliwack, bringing to light the hidden stories that might have slipped quietly away if not for the care of those who chose to remember.

This exhibit is living archive of the people and moments that continue to ripple through our shared history. It’s about remembering those who came before us: the teachers, farmers, artists, elders, and everyday neighbours who left traces of kindness, courage, and care in the world.

By witnessing these memories together, we amplify the lives and legacies of those who came before us, whose experiences became part of the very fabric of the community we live in. And in doing so, we see ourselves reflected in them.

When we collect memory, we honour all of the people who continue to impact us. They must never be forgotten. Their stories remind us that our shared history isn’t something that sits in the past but is something we carry forward, together.

Join the Chilliwack Museum and Archives community for the opening celebration this is a moment for all of us to celebrate together. 💛

🕰️ Opening Celebration of *Collecting Memory*
📅 Saturday, November 22, 2025
🕐 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM
📍 Chilliwack Museum | 45820 Spadina Avenue, Chilliwack, BC

11/04/2025

November marks Hindu Heritage Month and Lebanese Heritage Month. It's an opportunity to learn more about the rich culture and history of Hindu and Lebanese communities in Canada, and to celebrate their contributions in British Columbia.

Learn more: 🔗www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/proclamations/proclamations/HinduHeritageMth2025
🔗www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/news/2025/10/statement-by-minister-guilbeault-on-lebanese-heritage-month.html

10/31/2025

How does your school board measure-up? How are censorship attempts impacting your school communities? Full resource for Confronting Censorship in our schools in the comments.

10/30/2025

I was super thrilled to have the opportunity to speak with the students at G.W. Graham about intersectionality and advocacy.

These conversations remind me how passionate and thoughtful our next generation of changemakers already are.

Thank you for the warm welcome and for engaging so deeply in topics that shape a more inclusive and equitable future!

09/26/2025

🧡✨ Chilliwack Secondary School is hosting an Orange Shirt Day Pow Wow on Friday, September 26 & Saturday, September 27, 2025.

🪶 This free, public gathering is a time for community to come together in the spirit of truth, reconciliation, and remembrance to honor Survivors of residential schools and remember the children who never made it home.

🧡 Orange Shirt Day, inspired by Phyllis Webstad, reminds us that “Every Child Matters.” This Pow Wow is an opportunity to learn, to connect, and to walk together on the path of reconciliation.

✨ Everyone is welcome. Bring your family, your friends, and your orange shirts.

📍Where: Chilliwack Secondary School, 46363 Yale Rd

🎶Host Drum: Red Hawk Express
🎤 MC: Chris Wells
🎟️ Arena Director: Gary Abbot

✨ Grand Entries: Friday at 7 p.m. / Saturday at 1 p.m. + 7 p.m.

🍲 Community Feast: Saturday at 5 p.m.: first come, first served, all welcome

🛍️ Vendors: Browse Indigenous art, jewelry, moccasins, clothing, and more.

🧡 Orange Regalia Special: Honouring Survivors and children lost to residential schools, with prizes awarded.

✨ Cost: Free & open to everyone

From 1876 to 1951, the Indian Act tried to silence powwows and other cultural traditions, but communities held onto them, protecting their songs, dances, and teachings. That resilience, paired with the rise of the Indigenous rights movement and the strength of interconnection across Nations, has brought powwows back into the open as powerful celebrations of culture and community.

Powwow is drumming and dancing. It's a circle of sharing. It is a place where people from different Nations, territories, and traditions come together to learn from one another, to honour each other, and to celebrate life.

For non-Indigenous Canadians, accepting the invitation to attend is not only about watching, it’s about showing respect, bearing witness, and choosing to stand alongside Indigenous Peoples.

After generations of attempted erasure, gathering together in the powwow circle is an act of joy, of survival, and of reconciliation in motion. 🧡

Photo from Indigenous Tourism BC

09/18/2025

Congratulations to Steven Point for the highest honour this nation can give, celebrating his dedication and achievements.

09/13/2025

For too long, public schools in BC weren’t built for everyone.

Students and educators with disabilities were excluded, segregated, or told to “make do” with systems that weren’t designed with them in mind. That began to change because people spoke up.

Because communities demanded better.

Now, that's changing thanks to decades of struggle, advocacy, and courage from disabled people and their families.

The Accessible BC Act is part of that history.

Two years ago, it made it a requirement that every school district create an accessibility committee, draft a plan, and set up a way for people to share feedback. The purpose? To identify, remove, and prevent barriers so that schools are places where everyone belongs.

But accessibility isn’t just about ramps, elevators, or door buttons. It’s also about words. If policies are written in government jargon or legalese, then the very people they’re supposed to support can’t use them.

That’s where plain language comes in.

Plain language means writing policies, guides, and information in ways that are clear, direct, and usable for everyone. It’s not “dumbing down” - it’s opening up. It’s accessibility in action.

That’s why the Surrey Schools Accessibility Working Group created a four-part animated video series that explains four key terms: disability, barriers, accessibility, and inclusion.

These videos make big ideas simple, without losing their depth. They remind us that accessibility is about the kind of community we want to live in where no one is left out.

👉 Watch the videos here: https://vimeo.com/1067776709?fl=pl&fe=sh

👉 Learn more about School District No. 33 - Chilliwack's accessibility plan: https://www.sd33.bc.ca/sd33-accessibility-plan

Thanks to the work of Inclusion BC, more people can have a deeper understanding of disability, barriers, accessibility, and inclusion with the hope that it will transform into more actions to ensure that all students feel they belong in their schools

See all four animated videos in the Surrey Schools Accessibility Series! Part 1: Disability Part 2: Barriers Part 3: Accessibility Part 4: Inclusion

09/12/2025

The Myth of One Right Way to Be

Pathologizing difference always starts with the same dangerous idea: that there is only one right way to be. One normal. One standard against which every human life must be measured. And if you don’t fit that narrow mold? You must be broken, sick, in need of fixing.

Once someone is pathologized, they’re no longer just a person—they become a specimen. We study them. We catalogue their habits. We write reports as if we’ve discovered some strange new species in the wild. Their life gets framed not as a way of being, but as a problem to solve. Like zoo animals, they’re observed through glass, documented in detail, and always compared to the “right” kind of human on the outside.

Take Eamonn. Eamonn cycles for hours every weekend. He talks about gears and routes with a passion that can leave little room for other tasks. In the pathological frame, we could call this “restricted interests,” “repetitive movements,” “difficulties engaging.” In other words: symptoms. But strip away the clinical lens, and what do you actually see? A cyclist who really loves his thing. That’s it.

This is how pathologization works: ordinary passions, traits, and identities become “abnormal” when they’re filtered through the assumption that deviation from the majority must mean disorder.

And history is littered with examples. Q***r people once carried the medical label of “sexual deviance.” Trans people were slotted into “gender identity disorder.” Neurodivergent people were (and still are) pathologized for the very traits that shape their brilliance. Women who resisted men were “hysterical.” Left-handed children had their hands tied to force conformity. Indigenous people were “studied,” stripped of culture, and forced into schools under the banner of “civilizing.”

All of this was—and is—about control. If difference is disease, then intervention becomes justified. If nonconformity is a symptom, then the system gets to claim authority as the cure.

But the truth has always been simpler: difference is not a diagnosis. It’s humanity. Nobody is normal. Some people are only “normal” by accident.

So the real challenge isn’t to find the cure for difference. It’s to unlearn the lie that there was ever one right way to be in the first place.

We can pathologise anyone’s behaviour- especially if we don’t understand what they’re doing- or you know- ask them!

The third in this series is Eamonn

This is Eamonn. Eamonn moves his legs repetitively for hours on end. He also has restricted interests and can spend up to 5 hours at a time cycling, especially at the weekends. While doing so Eamonn has difficulties engaging in other tasks. Eamonn’s behaviour demonstrates symptoms of unusual hyperfixation not seen in his non-cycling peers.

09/11/2025