The Alberta Teachers’ Association

The Alberta Teachers’ Association will grant its Public Education Award to two high-profile academics this year.

This award is offered occasionally to an individual or a group that has given outstanding support to public education in Alberta other than through teaching. This year the honour will be awarded posthumously to Darren Lund, a former high school teacher, professor and human rights activist as well as Carla Peck, a professor of social studies education and outspoken champion of sound curriculum and social justice.

Darren Lund

Lund combined a passion for teaching and research with a commitment to social justice. He sought to promote equity through education research, curricula and practice and applied this ethic to every project he undertook and course he taught. After graduating from the University of Calgary in 1983 with a B.Ed., Lund spent 16 years as a high school teacher in public schools before moving into academia.

His ground-breaking research on student and teacher activism emerged from his founding (along with some enthusiastic high school students) of Students and Teachers Opposing Prejudice (STOP), a pioneering program that lasted for more than two decades. Lund’s initiative awarded him the inaugural Alberta Human Rights Award in 1987. Lund and STOP also forged a path for youth activism toward equality, and among its accomplishments was creating the first-ever gay–straight alliance in Alberta.

Among numerous achievements in a vibrant academic career, Lund’s work in community-engaged learning and interdisciplinary research earned him the inaugural 2021 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award from the University of Calgary’s Werklund School of Education. He also established the innovative and award-winning Service-Learning Program for Diversity, collaborating with 12 Calgary agencies to improve the quality of life and learning outcomes for children and youth of diverse backgrounds.

Lund died on Nov. 10, 2021 after a battle with cancer. He is remembered for his compassion, humility, inspiration to others and tireless advocacy.

Carla Peck

Peck’s research focuses on teachers’ and students’ understanding of democratic concepts. She also studies the relationship between student ethnicity and their understanding of history. Before starting her career in academia, Peck was an elementary school teacher in New Brunswick. Passionate about social justice education, she has always sought to engage students of all ages in discussions about how to make the world a more just and equitable place for everyone.

Peck is involved in curriculum development in Alberta and advocates for quality social studies and history education locally and globally. As part of that advocacy, she has led workshops for K–12 teachers nationally and internationally in these subjects and served as a consultant on numerous boards and advisory groups.

She is the director of Thinking Historically for Canada’s Future, a national SSHRC-funded Partnership Grant on K–12 history education. She has also authored and co-authored numerous journal articles and books on the teaching of history, including Teaching and Learning Difficult Histories in International Contexts: A Critical Sociocultural Approach and Contemplating Historical Consciousness: Notes from the Field.

The Public Education awards will be handed out at the Annual Representative Assembly that is scheduled to take place in Calgary over the May long weekend. ❚

Darren Lund, posthumous recipient		Carla Peck, Public Education Award recipient