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Street smarts: UBC takes education out of the classroom to support social change
the Globe and Mail, May 23, 2005
Photo: Jeff Vinnick
University of British Columbia student Michael Cook walks out of May's Place, a hospice for Downtown Eastside residents with terminal illnesses, and steps onto the sidewalk on Powell Street. Police sirens wail and a man on the sidewalk yells to no one in particular.
Mr. Cook came to the hospice to ask residents if they want to take part in a new project: The 21-year-old student is spending his summer break helping patients create scrapbooks that tell the stories of their lives.
In the hospice dining room, he introduced himself to a resident, and the two got into a long discussion. "He told me about travelling across Canada and his life in Newfoundland," Mr. Cook said. "Then he told me about his diagnosis with lung cancer. He was really eloquent and open and it made me excited to get on with this project. I think it'll go well and I'm just hoping he lives long enough to say what he wants to say."
However, the patient hasn't committed yet to the project. Mr. Cook explained. "He wants to think about what he would say and what he would leave out. He doesn't have any close family or relatives and he doesn't know if anyone would want to read it after he's gone."
Mr. Cook promises to return to hear the patient's decision. Trying to improve the lives of people dealing with poverty, addictions and illnesses takes time and patience, but students such as Mr. Cook are willing to put in the effort. Eight hundred UBC students volunteered in the Downtown Eastside and other low-income neighbourhoods in Vancouver during the past academic year.
When Martha Piper first became president of UBC in 1997, she held a community consultation. The result was an ambitious document, Trek 2000, which states: "Universities have a responsibility to reach out to the larger community and play a role in supporting social change."
In the university's current mission statement, Trek 2010, UBC vows to produce graduates who are global citizens that contribute to the well-being of society. Even though Ms. Piper will leave UBC in June, 2006, many people at the university hope her successor will have a strong commitment to her vision. In 2000, the university set up the UBC Learning Exchange in the Downtown Eastside at Main and Alexander Streets, several blocks from the open drug use and prostitution of Hastings Street. In the first year, thirty students volunteered in women's centres, community kitchens and inner-city schools.
Interest in the program has exploded. The Learning Exchange cut off applications in January after they were overwhelmed with volunteers. On Mr. Cook's first day of classes at UBC in 2002, the Coquitlam resident received a flyer for the Learning Exchange Trek program. He says initially he felt isolated at university and he was confused about choosing a major.
At the Learning Exchange, Mr. Cook took part in an orientation session: a walking tour of the Downtown Eastside and a discussion about the social problems in the community. Every week of the semester, Mr. Cook went to May's Place, where he kept residents company and ran errands, and this summer, he's receiving a grant from the university to run the scrapbook project.
"If I hadn't been at the Learning Exchange, I probably wouldn't have stayed at UBC," he said. "I've met so many inspiring people through the program and I've learned a lot. I learned more here than I did in any of my classes."
Through his volunteer experiences with the Trek program, Mr. Cook has found his calling. He wants to work for a non-profit organization and now he's majoring in social work.
Other students come to the Downtown Eastside as part of their course work. The philosophy, dubbed Community Service Learning, is that students should apply the theories of the classroom to real life. Some teachers allow students to submit a journal reflecting on their volunteer experiences instead of writing a midterm exam. The students haven't made a dent in the severe problems of addiction and poverty in the neighbourhood, but many believe they've provided valuable support to the individuals they've come into contact with.
However, some relationships between students and residents are tense at the beginning.
"When they first come here, some students are anxious because they have stereotypes about the neighbourhood as a scary place full of drugs and crime," Learning Exchange Director Margo Fryer said. "And many people in Downtown Eastside have stereotypes about university students and people with PhDs. It's all part of the learning experience. Slowly, the students develop an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the Downtown Eastside and the lives of the people who live here."
In the back room of the Learning Exchange, one of UBC's most innovative and successful projects in the Downtown Eastside is taking place. Five immigrants are sitting around a table in an English-language conversation class. Their teacher is Ron McKay, who until recently was living in a hotel room in the Downtown Eastside. He's an animated and enthusiastic teacher, and he skillfully gets the Mexican, Taiwanese and Afghan students chatting with each other about their home countries in English.
The project was the idea of volunteer Marisol Petersen, a graduate student at the School of Community and Regional Planning. She realized many residents of the neighbourhood lack conventional job skills, but they could teach English. "I had just got back from teaching English in Taiwan, so I knew the value of a North American English accent," said Ms. Petersen, a 28-year old Kitsilano resident. "I asked some people who came by the Learning Exchange if they thought it would work here, and they wanted to try it out."
The free conversation classes have been so popular with immigrants and refugees that they now run twice a day and there is a waiting list. The teachers aren't paid, but they receive training, gift certificates and letters of reference from the Learning Exchange.
For Mr. McKay, who ended up in the Downtown Eastside after he lost his job several years ago, teaching has given him an incredible boost in confidence. "I'm getting as much out of the program as the immigrants," he said.
"It's shown me that I have some skills and I can contribute. It's given me the confidence I need to reconstruct my life and build it back up."
Mr. McKay is still on social assistance, but he's moved away from the Downtown Eastside to a hotel on Granville Street, and he hopes to return to paid employment as a sales and marketing representative. The ESL project has also opened doors for Ms. Petersen.
"This project has carried me through my Master's program and it's ended up being my thesis topic. Right now, I'm on staff at the Learning Exchange part time, overseeing the program, and now it looks like it will become a full-time job after I graduate."