{"id":6987,"date":"2018-03-02T23:11:05","date_gmt":"2018-03-02T23:11:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vsb.bc.ca\/heritage\/?p=6987"},"modified":"2018-03-02T23:11:05","modified_gmt":"2018-03-02T23:11:05","slug":"class-8j-9j-at-britannia-secondary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.vsb.bc.ca\/heritage\/2018\/03\/02\/class-8j-9j-at-britannia-secondary\/","title":{"rendered":"Class 8J-9J at Britannia Secondary"},"content":{"rendered":"

A<\/em>\u00a0history written by Mary Jo Campbell, founder of the 8J-9J program.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>The Twins, Dani and Lizzy Nelson, Class of 2003, present Mary-Jo with the plaque they created.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This program was originally part of the Vancouver Free University, and operated from a church, on the East Side of Vancouver. That church became the \u2018Vancouver East Cultural Centre\u2019 \u2013 The Cultch.\u00a0 Four of us, (Mary-Jo Campbell, Ernie Harper, Rod Dunet and Jennie), made application to become one-on-one tutors in Vancouver\u2019s east end under the auspices of the Vancouver Free University\u00a0\u00a0 For the first year, 1971, the program was funded entirely by the Free University\u2019s government LIP grant, (Local Initiatives Program).\u00a0 We held our math class at the local pool hall and our English classes in various restaurants on the Drive (Commercial Drive).\u00a0 We camped a lot as the program ran all year.\u00a0\u00a0 We were among the first, the original.\u00a0 We were young and unapologetic.\u00a0 We were idealists.\u00a0 We took risks and we invented ourselves.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Portable Z<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1972, Britannia, the second high school to be constructed in the city of Vancouver, was the oldest remaining secondary school in the city and had the reputation, as a \u2018dangerous east side school. Britannia\u2019s principal, Norval Brown, had asked for our help.\u00a0 He suggested as tutors, we consider working out of a portable unit on the school grounds on a daily basis.\u00a0 He made it apparent that he could supply us with enough clients to justify a classroom. At the end of January 1972, we met with school administrators to prepare for the beginning of the new semester.\u00a0 We moved into portable unit Z on the grounds of Britannia, on the fringe of the school.\u00a0 We called ourselves \u2018Project 8J\u2019 because the last grade 8 division in the school was division 8I.\u00a0 Most of our students were between ages 13-16 and in grade 8 in skill level and schooling.\u00a0 Some had been \u2018socially promoted\u2019, which meant they were too old to remain in elementary school even though they had not actually completed the elementary grades.<\/p>\n

Students were recommended or identified for the program by the Principal of Britannia, Norval Brown and the Area Counsellor, Bill Lum. Probation officers and social workers in the area also presented us with lists of possible candidates. On that first day, we were given a list of our students under the heading \u2018Special Tutoring Group\u2019.\u00a0 None were attending school.\u00a0 They were \u2018drop outs\u2019 and \u2018kicked outs\u2019 \u2013 alienated from formal education.\u00a0 They were labeled as marginalised, at risk youth, and they were.\u00a0 But we saw them as bright, reluctant, hostile learners.\u00a0 They were loyal to each other, they had honour.\u00a0 The majority were first nations.\u00a0 Most came from large families (7-9 kids) that existed on either welfare or were low income. The official enrollment for the first semester was 31 students.\u00a0 For the most part, they lived in one of three East side housing projects; Grandview, McCleans and Raymur.\u00a0 Our staff of 4 were still being funded through a Free University LIP grant with Britannia providing the portable unit.<\/p>\n

There was no pressure on the kids to show up, initially. Attendance was voluntary.\u00a0 They came only because they wanted to.\u00a0 They were curious, looking for something interesting, positive, something meaningful, someplace to be.\u00a0 Once there, they crossed their names off the Sign -in sheet.\u00a0 This was how we kept attendance.\u00a0 The atmosphere was one of almost total freedom; no locks or rules and we were all on a first name basis.\u00a0 Our students were grade 8s transitioning from elementary to high school.\u00a0 This was a challenging time for most kids, but most certainly for our \u2018special tutoring group\u2019.\u00a0 Coming from a small elementary school into a large secondary school taking 8 different courses with 8 different teachers, was daunting. Most had already tried and failed.\u00a0 This transition period was the time when many kids chose to drop out of school and when many were \u2018asked to leave\u2019.<\/p>\n

Our first year of operation was a major challenge. We were faced with much opposition, harsh criticism and lack of support.\u00a0 Many main school staff were unwelcoming as they thought kids who had been kicked out of school should stay out permanently and not be on Britannia grounds.\u00a0 We made many mistakes, worked incredibly long hours and constantly struggled to come up with an entire new system of schooling.\u00a0 Our \u2018school\u2019 had to be informative, interesting and attractive enough to hold our tough audience.<\/p>\n

Our Curriculum in the First Months<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our students needed to succeed. We were greatly influenced by the elementary school model as an approach.\u00a0 The kids seemed happy there and had experienced some success with the smaller classes, one teacher, and mostly being in one classroom.\u00a0 The elementary school climate was warm, colourful and welcoming.\u00a0 We set up our portable classroom with the best qualities of the elementary school experience in mind.<\/p>\n

Slowly, we introduced a work schedule and a timetable. The daily timetable, in the beginning, had more to do with enticing school drop-outs and \u2018delinquents\u2019 to attend the program on a consistent basis than it did with any recognizable academic curriculum.\u00a0 That was to come soon enough.\u00a0 When it did, we scrambled for course material, a grading system, a reporting system and a system of record keeping.<\/p>\n

We began with a cooking class. This was our first scheduled hour of class.\u00a0 Miss Louise Smith, the Home Economics teacher at Britannia, had a class consisting of only 2 students in the cooking lab at the time and offered us the remaining kitchen units for our class.\u00a0 This access to the main school facilities and supportive teaching staff proved to be one of the big advantages of having our program on the Britannia grounds and not off site.\u00a0 Our main objective was to get the kids together as a class in the regular school, working together and following instructions (recipes).\u00a0 It was an attempt at having kids start, complete and succeed at something.\u00a0 Cooking class was the largest class we had in terms of the kids attending regularly.\u00a0 We also had access to the wood shop through the interest of Mr. Glen Harvey, the woodshop teacher who gave up his spare period to work with our kids.\u00a0 We held a crafts class in the portable unit and taught candle making, macrame, beadwork and leatherwork.\u00a0 After the Easter Holidays we introduced Art class with painting and drawing.<\/p>\n

Academic classes were eventually created to meet the individual interests and needs of each student. The math program used the workbook, \u2018Basic Mathematics \u2013 a write-in text by Walter C. Brown.\u00a0 The kids called it \u2018The Red Book\u2019. Each student worked at his own speed to complete the work.\u00a0 We also created and introduced a \u2018Money Games\u2019 course to familiarize the kids with \u2018real life\u2019, including budgets, banking procedures, bill paying and the cost of living. They were taught such tasks as balancing a chequebook, and calculating percentage and interest.\u00a0 Each student selected a job from the classified ads in the newspapers and negotiated salary and benefits with the instructor. \u00a0A major bank in the neighbourhood supplied us with books of cheques and cheque registers.\u00a0 Pay cheques were distributed by the instructor and students used their cheques to pay rent and make purchases.\u00a0 Students were responsible for creating their personal budgets for food, clothing, rent, and other expenses.\u00a0 It was a very successful approach to teaching math and life skills. There was high student interest in this subject.<\/p>\n

The Science curriculum was suggested by our students who chose to learn about growing plants, and anatomy and physiology. They wanted to know about their bodies as they were maturing and changing and had many questions about what was happening to them.<\/p>\n

Social Studies had students working in groups on projects that interested them. One group worked on a Gastown Project that included map making, research, picture taking, people watching, field trips and written reports.\u00a0 Another group project involved kids examining their own housing project from many perspectives including conducting surveys, interviewing residents, taking pictures, and completing written reports.\u00a0 A group of 5 girls completed a mini-project on Group Homes in Vancouver.\u00a0\u00a0 We all had gone on a field trip to explore Vancouver and we were surprised to learn that most of our students had not been anywhere outside the limits of the East Side of the city.\u00a0 When we toured Shaughnessy with its big, beautiful homes, the kids thought they were \u201cthe nicest \u2018Group Homes\u2019 they had ever seen\u201d.<\/p>\n

There was so much to admire in these diverse young people, despite their troubled lives and alienation from formal education. You had to appreciate their fierce protection of their neighbourhoods, their loyalty to each other and their obvious intelligence.\u00a0 In reflecting on their potential, there had to be a way to turn these kids back on to school.<\/p>\n

8J was primarily instituted as an experimental pilot project with the goal of reintegrating grade 8 drop outs back into the school system. We were succeeding.\u00a0 Attendance was great and we were achieving our goals.\u00a0 The principal was pleased with our efforts as were the students, their families and the community. After only 5 months of operation, the L.I.P. grant was due to expire.\u00a0\u00a0 One of the teaching staff left the program by April and by June 2 more teachers left feeling completely overwhelmed and incredibly underpaid.\u00a0 Only one teacher remained, Mary-Jo Campbell.\u00a0 Our first program evaluation was written in the form of a request to have the grant extended until September. Each of the students wrote a letter of support for the program and The Vancouver Free University submitted their proposal for renewal of the L.I.P. grant.\u00a0 There was no grant, no salary, for that final month.<\/p>\n

Summer 1972<\/strong><\/p>\n

Funding was provided by an L.I.P. grant through the Free University once again. Another staff member, Calvin Lee, joined the team and together we took fifteen of our students to the Okanagan Valley for two weeks.\u00a0 This was the beginning of establishing credibility for ourselves and for our program, among the students.\u00a0 We stayed in a cabin in Summerland on the shores of Lake Okanagan where the kids swan and built rafts.\u00a0 We road horses up to the top of Giant\u2019s Head Mountain, fished in Trout Creek and visited the Game Farm. It was perfect.<\/p>\n

Summer 1972 was special! Being so far away from the portable and Vancouver East, we were able to just \u2018be\u2019 with the kids.\u00a0 Lying on the beach one night, we asked what they would like to study and learn in school. Away from the big city lights on a clear night, the kids were introduced to a spectacular, constellation filled night sky. This sparked an excitement about astronomy which evolved into a science unit that remained a favourite in the program right up to the end.\u00a0 After that, the student\u2019s passions and direction continued to be both solicited and welcome in the curriculum.<\/p>\n

This wonderful summer, resulted in \u2018summer camp\u2019 being a regular part of the program, at least for a few more years.<\/p>\n

In September 1972, grade 9 studies became part of the curriculum and we became Class 8J-9J. Two staff members were now employed by the Federal L.I.P and an operating budget from the City Social Planning Department was in place. The Vancouver Free University provided us with the use of a van and our facilities, Portable Z, was still provided courtesy of the Vancouver School Board. Our student enrollment was set at 20 students and academics became 50% of the program content.<\/p>\n

In January we held, in our home, our first ever graduation ceremony. Five of our first students graduated from grade nine.\u00a0 Four of them enrolled in regular grade10 classes in Britannia right away as Britannia was operating on the semester system.\u00a0 One of our first grads immediately joined the work force.\u00a0 All of them said they wished 8J-9J included grade 10.<\/p>\n

Our second summer camping trip was to Cultus Lake. The two of us took eighteen of our students there in the summer of 1973.<\/p>\n

September 1973-June 1974<\/strong><\/p>\n

In September 1973, the program was given temporary status as a public school alternative. The teacher was now on salary with the Vancouver School Board and an operating budget of $1500 was provided.\u00a0 The Department of Human Resources provided a salary for the Child Care Worker and an operating budget of $1500 as well.<\/p>\n

The program had matured over the past year and a half from being an academic drop-in centre to a fully credited Grade 8 and grade 9 school program.<\/p>\n

Students began applying for a seat in the class, mostly through word of mouth and through recommendations by counsellors. We even had a waiting list.<\/p>\n

We shared a Van with the new \u2018Outreach School\u2019. Britannia was also their \u2018Mother school\u2019 but they were located off site in a space in the First United Church at Hastings and Gore.\u00a0 It was their van.<\/p>\n

The new \u2018Streetfront\u2019 program also opened off site in a storefront not far from Britannia on Commercial and Venables.\u00a0\u00a0 Britannia was now the \u2018Mother school\u2019 for three alternative programs, one on site and two off site.<\/p>\n

A new experimental approach had been implemented in 8J-9J, a segregated classroom. Ten girls studied with the female teacher and ten boys studied with the male child care worker but this proved to be a big error in strategy.<\/p>\n

Summer of 1974:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The child care worker had left the program in June and was replaced by Lari Freeman, who would remain with the program for the next 35 years. We took five of our girls camping and touring Vancouver Island for two weeks. Our third summer camp was the trip of a lifetime for them.\u00a0\u00a0 We toured the Parliament Buildings, The Provincial Museum and had High Tea at the Empress.\u00a0 The girls visited Her Majesty\u2019s Suite and the Prime Minister\u2019s Suite.\u00a0 We ended our magnificent tour with visits to the Royal London Wax Museum, Craighdarroch Castle, the Butchart Gardens, the Undersea Gardens and finally, the Unique Glass Castle. \u00a0We made a scrap book of our adventure when we returned and it was viewed with envy by hundreds of 8J-9J students for the decades to come.\u00a0 It inspired future fund raisers like car washes and bottle drives, when our operating budgets began to dwindle.<\/p>\n

Community School (K-12)<\/strong><\/p>\n

September 1974-June 1975, was a most important year for Britannia and for 8J-9J. Britannia Elementary opened its doors on January 9, 1975 and Britannia Secondary became Britannia Elementary Secondary School.\u00a0 This was also the year of the incorporation of the Britannia Community Services Center Society and the year that Britannia became a Community school.\u00a0 8J-9J was part of it all.<\/p>\n

In September1974, the grade 10 curriculum was added. 8J-9J had finally evolved to become a three -year program for grades 8, 9, 10 and academics became 75% of the curriculum.<\/p>\n

The General Knowledge program was implemented. This social studies course was unique and remained one of the major features of the program.\u00a0 It was a cultural studies class created by the teacher and was presented in \u2018quiz game\u2019 style.\u00a0\u00a0 Originally it operated on a weekly cycle.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Each Monday, the students were given 50 questions to research concerning such categories as famous people, famous art works, important historical evets, acronyms and initials, famous music compositions and classic literature. During the week the students would work individually or in groups to answer the questions.<\/p>\n

The answers would be found in classroom reference books, (class sets of Dictionary of Proper Names, Dictionary of Biography), in the subjects being studied, in the music being played on the sound system, or in the many displays of art and information posted in the classroom. At the end of the week, a test was given on the 50 questions to determine how much \u2018General Knowledge \u2019was acquired over the week.\u00a0 In this manner, the students in 8J-9J learned significant amounts of useful and general knowledge information including the names of government officials and political \u2018hot topics\u2019.\u00a0 Such information was previously of no interest to our students.<\/p>\n

The students really enjoyed this course and were rather surprized a few years later when, in 1979, the board game \u2018Trivial Pursuit\u2019 was on the market. It was almost identical to our General Knowledge program.\u00a0 It was described as a board game \u201cin which winning is determined by a player\u2019s ability to answer \u2018General Knowledge\u2019 questions\u201d.<\/p>\n

This year,the E.R.I.B.C. conducted on extensive external evaluation of Class 8J-9J as one of the nine original Vancouver Alternative Programs. It concluded that 8J-9J had at least five major areas of strength related to the success of the program;<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. serving a rehabilitative function<\/li>\n
  2. having a well developed and highly organized set of instructional procedures<\/li>\n
  3. having a dedicated and caring staff<\/li>\n
  4. able to effect positive attitudes on the part of the students, parents and community towards the program;<\/li>\n
  5. having excellent relations with other educational institutions<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Summer 1975, we went back to Trout Creek with eight kids for our fourth summer camp.<\/p>\n

    Portable East<\/strong><\/p>\n

    September 1975-March 1976<\/strong><\/p>\n

    This Was the year the teacher, Mary-Jo Campbell, was finally given permanent status. We maintained our child care worker position as well and added a new position to the team, staff assistant, (Gail McAsey).\u00a0 It was only a temporary position at this time however.<\/p>\n

    In September 1975, we moved from portable Z into Portable East, a new portable on the opposite side of the school from where we were. It felt more inclusive. We were closer to Britannia\u2019s new wing and we could be clearly seen from \u2018The Office\u2019.\u00a0 We were no longer on the \u2018fringe\u2019 of the school grounds.\u00a0 A wall of windows, allowed us a beautiful view of the North Shore mountains and there was space for our own office.<\/p>\n

    Eventually, over the next two years, lockers and desks were brought in. We slowly introduced desks into the classroom as awards for attendance.\u00a0 Only the best attenders got a desk everyone else sat at the tables.\u00a0 It became a sense of pride to have your own desk; it was property ownership and the students were allowed to decorate their desks and lockers. This helped to alleviate vandalism.\u00a0 Many of these decorated pieces of \u2018real estate\u2019 were works of art.\u00a0 By September 1977, every student had a desk and eventually we introduced \u2018the seating plan\u2019.\u00a0 The best attenders got to choose where they wanted their desk to be and most wanted to be right up front so they could see the board and hear what was being said.<\/p>\n

    Finally, there was only one big table left in the classroom. \u2018The Table\u2019 was situated at the back of the classroom and remained in the class till the very end. It was the \u2018lunch table\u2019, the \u2018games table\u2019 (for chess and Risk tournaments) the interview table and the table where everyone, through the years, carved their name or left a written message to say \u201cI was here\u201d.<\/p>\n

    We very happily remained here, in Potable East, until the end in June 2016.<\/p>\n

    This was also the year of our first inter-school tournament, a soft-ball match with the new Outreach program.<\/p>\n

    A very special guest visited our classroom; former Britannia graduate and Premier of the Province of B.C., Dave Barrett.<\/p>\n

    Two new awards were added at this year\u2019s Awards Day Ceremony:<\/p>\n