A new school year is upon us, and students are coming back in to the John Bosco Achievement Centre. The credits they will be striving for are the same as in previous years, and the ultimate goal of graduation from high school or obtaining a GED is the same as well. But something feels different.
The school space seems to be brighter and more inviting. There is a welcoming vibe as you walk past the water cooler and coffee maker set up for the students. Some of it is the walls. There is a wall of motivational signs with messages like “love”, “justice”, “dignity” and “hope”. On the opposite wall, there are brightly coloured portraits of brilliant female scientists, doctors, mathematicians, and others in the STEM field.
So why these women, and what do the posters mean? We asked the new teacher in the John Bosco Achievement Centre, Bethany. She told us that when students come into the classroom, they’re not always doing school work. Often, they’re looking around. And when they do, she wants her young students, the girls especially, to see themselves represented in science, and math, and medicine. The women in these posters are from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds, are differently abled, and (with the exception of Rosalind Franklin) are all still alive and working.
Over the course of the summer, Bethany got to know a number of students who popped in to do a little school work here and there. Her hope was that by connecting with them in the summer months, she would be able to convince them to keep going in school come September. And it has worked! With the exception of one student who has moved on to another program, Bethany has seen every one of her summer students in the first few days of the 2019 school year. She calls this “classroom continuity”.
Those posters and signs? They were put up in the summer by those students who, along with Bethany, created their own welcoming space designed for inspiration. Now, along with coffee, and water, and breakfast cereal, the students also have the chance to learn something even while sitting and spinning in their chairs. Just as Bethany intended.
Bethany has the bright, cheerful demeanour of someone who not only loves her job but is keenly aware of everything it entails. She’s someone who gets genuinely excited to meet a new student and figure out how to help them, and you just know that she will celebrate their successes as much as they will themselves. She has one more advantage when it comes to the youth entering the John Bosco Achievement Centre – she is quite young, as far as teachers go.
Only a younger teacher would think to create bitmojis for their students. Bethany has made a series of bitmojis that students can choose as soon as they get into school. How are you feeling today? Choose one of these cards. Bethany writes their name on the back of the card, so that she knows how to approach that student that day.
On the very first day of school, many students chose the “nervous” or “apprehensive” bitmoji cards. But the majority chose something like the one Bethany is holding above. “Grateful to be here!” “Feeling fantastic!” In large part, this is because the first person they meet upon coming to school is Bethany herself. It’s hard not to be excited about school when Bethany is so genuinely thrilled and interested in you being there.
Bethany is originally from Guelph, and came to the University of Ottawa for her undergrad in second languages. She fell in love with Ottawa and stayed for teacher’s college. Now she is a permanent resident of Ottawa, helping the city’s most vulnerable. She comes to us from Talitha House, an open detention facility for young women where Bethany taught last year.
One gets the feeling that it is close to impossible to get a negative emotion from Bethany. The thing to which she is most looking forward is working with this particular group of youth, who have life experiences beyond those of regular high school students. They might be learning math, but it might help them do their taxes, or prepare them for work at a construction company. Every youth comes in with a particular goal, and Bethany sees it as her mission to draw that goal out of them then help them reach it.
Today, it was the first day of school, and there was a student who was very nervous about coming into the classroom itself. But after a while, she felt bold enough to sit down with Bethany to discuss what she might like to achieve this year. After that conversation, she was comfortable sitting down in the classroom and beginning the lesson plan upon which they had agreed. An hour later, Bethany called her over. She asked her to choose one of the bitmojis created for this very purpose – how was she feeling today, about school and about the journey upon which she was about to embark? Bethany assumed she would choose something that indicated her apprehension. But she shocked us all when she pulled out a card and handed it to her new teacher.
“So Excited”
This is what Bethany brings to the John Bosco Achievement Centre. Excitement about learning. Comfort in attendance, and in bringing friends along. And the sense that there is a teacher sitting in that classroom that gets where students are, and will meet them at that point to get them to where they want to go. No pressure, no judgement, no drama and no problem.
Bethany bikes to and from Operation Come Home every day, at least for the fall. She is proud that she has recently managed to become both a city biker and a mountain biker, and she’s looking forward to skiing in the winter. Through every season, she’ll be listening to her beloved Beyoncé, especially her favourite song ‘End of Time’. It begins like this:
“Come take my hand
I won’t let you go
I’ll be your friend”
