Cultural diversity strengthens our schools
Name: Raza Mirani
Occupation: Teacher
Union: BC Teachers’ Federation
As a Pakistani-born Vancouverite, young Raza Mirani learned to navigate his way around numerous ethnic and linguistic cliques at his East Van high school. In the 1980s, Gladstone Secondary was home to large and well-established Italian- and Portuguese-Canadian communities, a significant Chinese-speaking population and a small number of South Asians. Inter-cultural relations weren’t always cordial.
Today, it’s a fundamentally different school. “There’s no one culture that is dominant and there’s no more ghettoization,” Mirani says. “We’ve come a long way.”
In a family story that has happily come full circle, Mirani is now a teacher and head of the science department at his old school and his eldest son Amir is a Grade 8 student there. Married for 15 years, Raza and his wife Hina have three boys aged 14, 11 and 3.
What’s Mirani’s message for immigrant kids, based on his own experience?
“They can’t see themselves as outside the community. Yes, it’s important to maintain the culture and identity [of the home country] but it’s also important to be part of this society,” he says. “We pigeon-hole ourselves too much. That can be dangerous. Within the global climate, we have to understand we are Canadian and we have to take care of this place now.”
As the former President and now General Secretary of the Pakistan-Canada Association, Mirani helps immigrant families integrate the best of both old and new countries, and speaks out on behalf of the community when needed.
His career path illustrates what teachers mean by life-long learning. Mirani completed a Bachelor of Science in biology at the University of BC. Following a 5th year for teacher training, he started his career in the classroom in 1997. He completed a graduate diploma in technology education at Simon Fraser University in 2003, and now is working towards his MA in digital curriculum.
Asked his favourite thing about his job, Mirani responds enthusiastically: “It’s the kids! For secondary teachers a lot of it is our passion for the subject area we’re teaching, but it’s also the day-to-day interaction with the students and seeing them share your love of the subject.”
Mirani’s first union involvement was with the technology committee. He later expanded his commitment and now serves as a member at large on the executive of the Vancouver Secondary Teachers’ Association.
“Teachers can become isolated in the classroom,” Mirani said. He enjoys his union involvement because it enables him to see the bigger picture and to understand the way decisions are made that impact the classroom.
“I like serving my colleagues and making a difference.”