So close, yet so far apart.
Byrne Creek Secondary and St. Thomas More Collegiate are only about five blocks away from each other in south Burnaby, but preconceived notions about public versus private schools, rich versus poor, religious versus secular, have kept some students feeling worlds apart.
Until now.
This month, the schools arranged a student swap to find out how the other side lives – and learns.
It was an eye-opening experience, according to Byrne Creek leadership teacher Laida Falsetto.
“They were expecting rich kids,” she said of her students’ expectations of STM. “They were expecting not a lot of multicultural diversity. They were anticipating that it was going to be a very serious setting. They were expecting very distant relationships between students and teachers – that they wouldn’t have that amicable, easy-going connection, which is what we have at our school.”
STM students had some preconceived ideas about their Byrne Creek counterparts too, according to teacher David Mattiazzo.
“There was some hesitation,” he said. “A lot of our students have only gone to private or Catholic schools, so they had some uncertainty with going to a public school. Are they going to be welcomed? Is it going to be safe for them?”
The idea of the exchange was inspired by an annual swap in the Vancouver school district between east and west side schools.
On May 3, about 30 students from Byrne Creek visited STM, each student going through the day with an assigned buddy. On May 4, it was Byrne Creek’s turn to host.
Students at each school discussed expectations and preconceived ideas about the other school before the visit and debriefed together afterwards.
STM Grade 12 Andrew Juni, who’s gone to private schools since kindergarten, signed up to broaden his horizons, he said, and found the Byrne Creek kids more accepting than he expected. He also found out they have a lot in common when it comes to life goals, like post-secondary education.
“We all wanted the same things,” he said.
He also got a chance to hear about some misconceptions Byrne Creek students had about his school, he said.
“They said they thought we wore ties all the time and carried Bibles around,” Juni said.
That notion of STM being a serious, formal place was dispelled after the visit, according to Falsetto.
“When we got there, it was the opposite,” she said.
And Byrne students got to dispel some misconceptions about their school too.
“A couple of them said they thought they were going to be terrified because they thought they were going to get in a fight because they’re outsiders or something like that,” Byrne Grade 11 student Jorry Luz said.
Juni’s experience at the school showed him just how inaccurate that idea was, he said.
“I was so ignorant,” he said. “I didn’t think public schools would be so accepting.”
The overall impression for the students and teachers involved in the exchange was that there’s a lot that unites their two communities despite the private school/public school divide.
“The biggest takeaway that I took from this was that like we’re all pretty much the same,” Byrne Creek Grade 12 student Reece Avila said. “We’re all living in the same community. Public school or private school, we’re all teenagers in the end.”
