Fall 2023

Hello THESA members! I hope your school start up is going well!

We are excited to join together with you this fall at our THESA conference on October 20th. Have you registered yet? We will be gathering together in person and online at Semiahmoo Secondary School in White Rock/South Surrey on October 20, 2023. The theme is Fostering Courage through TLC (Teaching, Learning, Creating). Visit www.thesaconference.ca to register and learn about Carolyn Roberts, the keynote; the fantastic sessions on offer; and the social events on the Thursday and Friday. We are so grateful to the group of Surrey district teachers who are hosting this event.

We are actively looking for a host for the 2024 conference. Please email psac47@bctf.ca or get in touch with a THESA Executive member if you want to learn more about the opportunity to host a THESA conference.

This spring, your THESA executive met and made some changes to our scholarships that we offer annually. We are excited to share that we moved to rename our graduate scholarship to the “Mary Leah de Zwart and Mary Gale Smith Graduate Scholarship” to honor Dr. de Zwart and Dr. Smith for the innumerable contributions they have made in home economics in our province and around the world, particularly in creating the HEEL graduate program. Additionally, we previously offered three scholarships. We moved to add an additional scholarship called the “Denise Nembhard Scholarship” that is awarded to a student that shows promise that their participation in home economics education will contribute to antiracism, decolonization, and indigenization of home economics classrooms in British Columbia. Denise Nembhard was a member of the THESA executive for many years, was on the curriculum writing teams for the last two iterations of the BC Curriculum, and worked actively to decolonise and indigenize her curriculum, practice, and classroom. Please visit our website to learn more about THESA’s scholarships.

This fall, the THESA executive will continue to support you as members. We are focused on our association’s goals and objectives, which you can view on our website thesa.org, including focusing on decolonizing and indigenizing home economics (read more about this here on our website) and climate change/justice. Our treasurer Megan and I are also working in tandem with UBC on the Food Literacy International Partnership where we are investigating concepts of food literacy and creating inquiry opportunities for teachers to engage with concepts connected to food. We will share more about this as the project continues. We are also thrilled to share that Megan is working at UBC this year as the Faculty Advisor for preservice home economics teachers. Maddy continues to attend FoodSafe meetings and ensure that they know what is happening in our classrooms with FoodSafe. Additionally, I will be representing home economics educators at the BCTF Provincial Specialist Association Council meetings, ensuring our unique home economics voices are heard.

Finally, a little reminder - THESA offers grants of up to $500 for groups of home economics educators for professional learning opportunities as well as personal resource grants up to $50. We hope you will take advantage of these offerings!

I wish you all the best in your 2023/24 school year!

Melissa Edstrom

THESA President

Joe TongSeptember 26, 2023Presidents Letter

Fall 2023

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