Sad grad, 2.0

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This article was published 25/06/2021 (1538 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Every student pictures Grade 12 differently.

Some plan to audition for a school musical. Others want to see themselves hitting the game winning shot on the basketball court. In many cases, teenagers simply want to participate in a science fair, on a debate team, or at a grad powwow.

Nobody pictured this — a school year spent mostly behind a computer screen, muting and unmuting, missing the mundane sound of a school bell or hallway chit-chat.

But that’s how members of the Class of 2021 were forced to finish their high school careers. They are moving on to the next stage in life without the closure seniors before them have come to expect.

“I was taking it day by day, but in my mind, I was hoping that things would have improved enough to the point where we could reach some sort of senior normalcy by the end of the year,” said Isla Furness, a graduate who expects to collect her diploma in the parking lot at Nelson McIntyre Collegiate in the coming days.

Those sentiments are echoed by peers who have learned only to be certain about one thing this year, uncertainty. Throughout 2020-21, seniors have sought support from tireless teachers and many opened up about their mental health struggles to friends, family and school staff. 

The Free Press spoke to 12 graduates about how they will remember this year and their hopes others will see Class of ‘21 on a resume with an invisible asterisk that reflects their perseverance to convocate following a school year unlike any other. 

 

CHLOE LAFORTE

West Kildonan Collegiate

Future plans: Enrol in the University of Manitoba’s U1 program and decide whether to pursue psychology, nursing or another field of study

Chloe Laforte has cancelled too many plans to count this year. 

Among them: throwing a grad cap in the air with a crowd at West Kildonan Collegiate; taking a limo to her grad dance in the navy-blue ball gown she bought for the occasion; and visiting a cabin to celebrate convocation with friends.

“Grad powwow was a big thing, too. I’m Indigenous, so it was really important for me to celebrate in my own culture,” says the 18-year-old, who is Ojibwe from Sagkeeng First Nation. 

Family members from Sagkeeng were going to drive down to attend it — until the third wave axed those plans. In lieu of in-person attendance, a link to the virtual event was available to watch from afar.

A self-described nerd who danced and volunteered throughout high school, Chloe said she has come to terms with the unusual end to her time at West Kildonan now that the initial shock has worn off. 

“(My dad) tries to help me see the bigger picture,” she said. “He says, ‘Everything happens for a reason and your time will come for celebrating.’”

 

Sean Ticsay 

Sisler High School 

Future plans: Studying at the University of Manitoba, pursuing a health sciences degree 

Bow tie, dress shirt, suit jacket: from the torso up, Sean Ticsay looked just like a politician at this year’s Youth Parliament. But below the camera, the young man was in leisure mode. 

“I was in pyjamas and Crocs,” laughs Ticsay. 

Youth Parliament Manitoba would normally include sessions at the Legislative Building, followed by a sleepover in the halls of Kelvin High School, though most try to pull all-nighters. This year, Ticsay’s first in the organization, that all happened over Zoom instead. He has zero complaints. 

He learned about the parliamentary process, made new friends, and heard from politicians like Lloyd Axworthy, former premier Gary Filmon, and the NDP’s Flor Marcelino, one of Ticsay’s heroes. “She was one of the first elected Filipino politicians,” he says. “From a diversity perspective, that’s huge, eh?” 

After hours, participants played online games, like Among Us, and did trivia for hours.  

“Some people managed to stay up all night,” says the future surgeon, who did a stint as the speaker of the house after a backbencher takeover. “I fell asleep at 4 a.m.” 

 

CHARLEMAGNE MORALES 

Collège Garden City Collegiate

Future plans: Attending CGI College with a goal of working in law or law enforcement 

At the Grade 9 open house at Collège Garden City Collegiate, Charlemagne Morales found the table for the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA). She signed up on the spot. 

The GSA room soon became a safe space for Char to learn every Tuesday at lunch about the LGBTTQ+ community — about both history and different gender and sexual identities, while connecting with peers who made her feel comfortable and understood.

“The pandemic took some of that away with everything going virtual,” says the 18-year-old.

Meetings became less frequent, though members continued to chat on an app called Telegram, maintaining the strong connections built at school. Char and her friends read Moon At Nine, a Y.A. queer love story set in 1988 Iran. 

Even without a physical GSA space, Char says the club continued to play a pivotal part in her self-identity and discovery over the past two, mostly remote years.

Earlier this month, with friends from GSA, she coloured herself pink, yellow and blue to celebrate Pride and announce to the world she identifies as pansexual. 

“If I wasn’t in GSA, I probably wouldn’t have even come out,” she says, four years after approaching the GSA table. “Without it, I wouldn’t have known who I was.”

 

MAX KHOMENKO 

Mennonite Bretheren Collegiate

Future plans: Do photography and videography work, and attend Vancouver Film School 

Set sizes shrunk, projects were postponed, and masks became mandatory — but Max Khomenko insisted the show go on in order to obtain an internship credit.

“As much as this year has been struck by COVID and we’ve had to make adjustments and alterations because of that, I’ve really looked at the positive side to it,” recalls the senior at Mennonite Brethren Collegiate Institute. 

“With school being online, it seemed like I honestly had more time to prioritize my passion in making videos and photography.” 

Little did Max know when he pitched an idea to school leaders in Grade 11 to launch a work experience course that the young creative would participate in the program’s pilot year during a pandemic. 

Throughout 2020-21, the 17-year-old said he’s been forced to improve his organization skills while working under local content creators, editing projects at home during lockdowns, and tuning into Zooms with peers doing work placements at school. 

 

ISLA FURNESS 

Nelson McIntyre Collegiate

Future plans: Study health policy at the University of Manitoba

The production was supposed to be big, and the Women? Little. 

Isla Furness figured her final memories as a stage manager at Nelson McIntyre Collegiate would involve mounting Louisa May Alcott’s coming-of-age novel. The theatre club’s rendition was to be staged before winter break.

“This time last year, we were meeting at The Forks pretty often to see how we could turn the show,” recalls the 18-year-old. “We were thinking we could do it as a radio show or push it to May… Either of those (options) would’ve been nice, looking back.” 

When ongoing COVID-19 rules cancelled plans, Isla focused on her role as yearbook editor and producing a “micro-musical” with peers — until Winnipeg schools went fully remote because of a spike in cases this spring.

There has been no shortage of letdowns. But to dwell on them is to feel drained, Isla says, adding it’s difficult to stay upset when no one person is to blame.

 

KEVIN COX 

Winnipeg Adult Education Centre 

Future plans: Join the military while pursuing post-secondary in order to become an engineer

It turns out the fourth time’s the charm for Kevin Cox — one of the newest alumni of the Winnipeg Adult Education Centre. 

As a teenager, Cox dropped out of high school because he wasn’t interested in any of the course offerings. In his early 20s, he completed limited math credits in order to open his own restaurant with accounting knowledge. The third time he went back to work towards his diploma his catering schedule got in the way. 

“If it wasn’t for the pandemic, I wouldn’t have been able to graduate. Remote learning was the only reason I was able to stick with it,” says Cox, a 35-year-old who was working as a sous chef in the film industry when the pandemic hit. 

As shoots began infrequent in 2020, Cox decided to return to school, while juggling homecare support for his parents and occasional film jobs. He says he was “basically climbing the walls with stress” up until he wrote his last test, but he’s proud he pushed himself.

Restrictions have made his family prom plans uncertain, “but if it’s just me and my wife dancing to cheesy eighties music in the backyard, I’m fine with it,” adds Cox. 

 

BHAVYA BHUSHAN 

Fort Richmond Collegiate

Future plans: Moving to Montreal to learn about biomedical life sciences at McGill University 

Bhavya Bhushan did not know what to do with herself when the pandemic rudely cleared her bursting schedule without consultation.

The 18-year-old has participated in nearly every extracurricular — her school’s creative arts anthology; student council; chess; water polo; Model United Nations; Youth and Philanthropy; High Altitude Balloon Club; Women’s Empowerment; Peace of Support; and Project Pulse Winnipeg, among others. 

“I used to leave at 6 a.m. and come back at 9 p.m.,” says the Grade 12 student at Fort Richmond Collegiate. 

With many activities on hiatus, Bhavya has filled her time working, mainly from home, with researchers in the human anatomy cell science department at the University of Manitoba.

She was selected to give a presentation — at 4 a.m. CST — on her research on a rare child cancer to young scientists across the world at the 2021 Thailand International Science Fair. 

“It’s heartbreaking because you’re missing out on the whole experience,” she says, about COVID-19 preventing travel to Thailand, as well as an upcoming fair in Beijing. “At the end of the day, you are sitting in your bedroom giving a presentation. It’s not the same.”

 

BRENNON HARPER 

Maples Collegiate

Future plans: Mentor youth through Seven Oaks’ summer work program and enrol in introductory trade courses this fall at Red River College

Ice-fishing on the Red River. Medicine-picking in Birds Hill. Setting up sweat lodges at Elder Dan Thomas’ property near Brokenhead. 

These are the kinds of activities Brennon Harper was supposed to participate in, but the pandemic had other plans for the 18-year-old and his classmates who were working towards cultural course credits at Maples Collegiate this year. 

“I just miss the field trips — those were fun,” recalls the Grade 12 student, who is Oji-Cree for Garden Hill First Nation.

Before everything changed in March 2020, Brennon anticipated much of the twelfth grade would be spent working at Thomas’ residence with other designated oskabehs (helpers) to do land-based learning.

For their safety, elders-in-residence in Seven Oaks School Division have been providing remote support this year.

In turn, Brennon will remember 2020-21 as the year he learned remotely, floor hockey season got cut short not long after it started, and by the rare trip to the division’s Aki Centre that he was allowed to take when restrictions eased briefly. 

 

RAJ NARAIN SINGH GILL  

St. Maurice School 

Future plans: Obtaining a degree in political studies and economics from either Carleton University or the University of British Columbia 

Madam Speaker, be it resolved that debating online is worse than debating in person. Arguing in favour is Raj Narain Singh Gill, who’d like to make clear that the Manitoba Speech and Debate Association did the best it could under the circumstances, and he still had a lot of fun this year. 

“A very important part of debate is the passion,” he says. “In person, it’s there — you have the proposition versus the opposition, in a room, deadlocked. There’s hand gestures, there’s eye contact. There’s style.” 

Online,“you’re looking at yourself talking,” adds Gill, who started debating two years ago after moving to Winnipeg from India.  

It’s also harder to focus, and speeches are interrupted by choppy connections. Century-old traditions, like standing to make a point of order or information, are replaced by typing into a chat window.  

“It’s just not the same. I believe it is worse,” he says. 

 

LOUISSE GARCIA 

Sisler High School

Future plans: Begin arts studies at the Université de Saint-Boniface in pursuit of becoming a French teacher

Louisse Garcia’s final year at Sisler High School was out of tune. 

Contrary to her favourite class’ title, choir at Sisler High School involved nearly no singing this year. Instead, the 18-year-old, who ranges between alto and soprano, spent most classes humming with classmates under masks and studying sheet music — aside from the odd distanced outdoor ensemble, when it was deemed safe within public health restrictions. 

“I really miss the pre-concert stress: ‘Are we going to finish this choir piece in time? Will we be able to polish everything?’” says Louisse, whose high school resume includes musicals, choir and being a member of the Conseil Immersion Français de Sisler. 

Stresses related to learning remotely, competing virtually — and placing third — in a national French speech competition, and pulling off a successful online francophone conference with peers ended up dominating her year.

“We were basically in online school for practically a year and a half,” she says. “(The Class of 2021) really tried to keep pushing on, to keep going, even though we knew that we weren’t going to get a senior year, and persevere.”

 

DAREN WATTS 

Miles Macdonell Collegiate

Future plans: Play basketball and study finance at the University of Manitoba

“I didn’t go a day without touching a basketball,” says Daren Watts, 18, describing his relationship to his sport in pre-pandemic times.

The senior at Miles Macdonell Collegiate had high hopes for his final year — one he had long anticipated would be his best yet, with a record average of points and numerous awards. 

COVID-19 cut both the shooting guard’s high school and club careers short. The 2019-20 provincial AAAA boys basketball high school championships were cancelled the day before they were scheduled to start and the subsequent season never happened. 

While Daren describes Grade 12 as “underwhelming,” he found motivation to keep doing agility training and practice outdoors, in preparation of joining the University of Manitoba Bisons this fall. 

Even that, however, has been a challenge as he says bylaw officers have kicked him out of Dakota Collegiate’s court for practising, and many nets elsewhere have been taken down or taped off to discourage gatherings.

 

MAEVE ALLAN 

Collège Jeanne-Sauvé

Future plans: Studying science at the University of Manitoba

As they brainstormed an address, Maeve Allan and her co-speech writer Jayden Fraser asked themselves one question: “If you stripped back COVID… how would our class be remembered?” 

The valedictorians at Collège Jeanne-Sauvé will deliver their answer in a pre-recorded video uploaded to YouTube next week. 

“We decided our legacy was one of kindness, patience and empathy and the whole idea that in losing our identities at school (as an athlete, band member, etc.), we started to see each other as people,” says Maeve.

The 18-year-old’s ideal year would have consisted of ultimate frisbee, choir and musical performances, and a school trip to Cuba. She instead found herself often setting an alarm at 8:28 a.m. to wake up, roll over and join a virtual class scheduled to start two minutes later. 

Unexpected side effects of remote learning included learning self-discipline to study at home and having frank conversations about mental health. As students and teachers adjusted to constant uncertainty, Maeve says, “there was a new sense of openness and vulnerability.”