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A BC teacher was suspended after guiding students through an assignment by explaining his own childhood abuse.

After telling the Surrey high school class he was sexually abused by a family member as a child, the example prompted students to include their own stories of substance abuse, body image, mental health and self harm during presentations to the class.

"The students who presented were often crying, and many students listening to the presentations were emotional, with their heads down," a November decision issued by the BC Commissioner for Teacher Regulation reads.

In February 2022, Kuljit Singh Uppal was leading the students through an assignment in his Social Justice 12 class.

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It was called a "sacred cow" assignment, for which students were instructed to give an oral presentation on something that was "untouchable" or "sacred" to them. Uppal and the students floated potential topics like sexual orientation, race, mental health, abortion, addiction and abuse.

That's when he told them of his own abuse.

He didn't set any ground rules for student confidentiality and the students felt it wasn't optional, according to the decision.

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The students gave their presentations the following week. Two left the class during presentations on the first day and Uppal didn't follow up with them.

The next day, five or six students gave presentations that "gave reason to believe" they'd suffered physical or sexual abuse, which Uppal didn't report to school administration.

Some students said they felt supported by the class, while others felt "stripped naked" and "vulnerable" by the assignment. One of them harmed themself when they returned home.

Uppal was ordered not to teach the social justice class again until he took two courses on professional boundaries and trauma-informed teaching. The teaching regulator also suspended Uppal for five days.

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