Interview with Grade 11 and 12 Reps - Geffrey Chu & Julia Issa
Sanesha Hajiyanee | April 10, 2021
This interview has been edited and cut down for clarity. The interview was conducted in advance to some current situations, such as the third wave of COVID-19.
The Student Activity Council is a huge part of The Woodlands community; they play an important role in getting students involved in school life, and helping them to enjoy their high school years. The SAC is made up of a contingent of student representatives, including a group of executives, some upper council members, and Grade Representatives. The role of Grade Rep is awarded to one student from each grade to represent their respective grades, and what makes it so special is that the student body itself votes for their Grade Rep at the start of each year. Candidates come up with a campaign, run it for about a week, and then votes are held.
This year, for the grade 11 and 12 representatives, there are Geffrey Chu and Julia Issa, respectively. The Woodstock got an exclusive chance to interview both of them together and learn more about the elusive role of the SAC Grade Rep - especially in this crazy year - and about the amazing personalities that we appointed this year.
To kick off our interview, we shared a bit about ourselves. After all, we had not yet been able to meet each other in person, as we would have in a typical year. We started to talk about fun facts, and Geffrey showed us a cool talent that he had. He said that this was his fun fact for SAC, and the fun fact was that he can do pen spinning. So he does that all the time, where he spins pens between his fingers. (Try it. It is much tougher than it looks!). For Julia, she told us about some things that she likes to do, which were painting her nails and reading. She talked about how she has a bunch of books that she wants to read, but she has never gotten around to reading them.
Already off to a great start, we started asking the more serious questions…
Sanesha: Where do you guys see the rest of the school year heading?
Julia: Well, the way I see it, schools aren't so bad. ... I don't think we'll be online again, it's possible, but it's kind of hard to tell - that’s the sad thing about the year is we have no idea.
For my grade, I don't think we'll have a prom. I think it'll be very difficult. A lot of the events people look forward to, it's kind of tough to adapt because of the gathering limits. So, we won't be getting the same experiences, but we'll have to adapt and overcome.
Sanesha: And what about you, Geffrey, how do you see it going?
Geffrey: Well, looking by local statistics, it seems like we're not going to be back together until the end of the school year. So, I'm thinking the school year is just going to be a lot more online, like SAC is just trying to help students get connected, we're going to keep on making online events. And everyone's trying their best. The teachers are trying their best and like, the new system right now is not that bad. And, people are going to school again, right? So, I just hope the cases just don't keep on going up. And maybe we can just slowly work at it and hopefully the situation gets better.
Sanesha: Yeah, I totally agree with that… this year has been a difficult one for everybody. So, what do you think is the best way to get through this? Do you guys have any plans to help support students who are going through a rough time right now?
Julia: We both ran for grade rep right in the middle of the pandemic. So we knew that our roles would be online, and we're being more supportive. So, for my grade, I did the weekly schedules because I thought we needed a lot of structure. Because the really challenging part about this year is having no structure, no reliability. So that's what I wanted to be as a grade rep. I wanted to be a solid person to be able to ask questions [to]. If you go to my account @WoodlandsGrads, there's always something there that will be useful to you. I really wanted to have structure because a lot of people asked for it. Like, that's one of the main things I got when I sent out polls and it's proven effective. And they're all saying things like, ‘Oh, I now know what I'm doing’. So, structure, reliability, are very important because it's already stressful for everyone.
Sanesha: Yeah, and what about you, Geffrey, do you have any plans for supporting students?
Geffrey: Well, my main theme for my campaign was good communication. Because, I believe, in a situation like this, students need to get connected. And it's just important that we can talk to each other because now we're all home. And we just need people to talk to, you know? So, one of the first things that I did was I made a Discord and I got people to join. I just tried to connect with people, get them to know what SAC is trying to do, and make more events where people get to talk to each other and just get social.
Sanesha: Yeah, I completely agree with you guys. You guys are sort of like the leaders of what your grade wants. I mean, it's in the name - you’re grade reps! So, I think that it's really important for you guys to help us get through this year, and really just help us understand what's happening, because it's been so confusing. Like, for us grade 10s, we have a bunch of chats on Discord and Instagram. But I think for us, it's mainly about trying to understand what's happening because we barely had a grade nine [year], so high school is barely there.
Julia: Every grade has a different struggle. Like I know for my grade, it’s about not being able to graduate properly, have a prom, a lot of things. But for the grade nines, it’s their first year of high school. And they haven't had any school experiences. Everyone has their own struggles. And how we, how every grade rep, adapts to what their grade needs - I think that's very important.
Geffrey: And I will just point out that today in class, [the teacher] was talking about how her students weren't talking at all in her class. The community for grade nines is kind of weird because they didn't have their graduation from grade eight, and then they're coming into grade nine with such a hard year.
Julia: They don't know each other - the grade nines or even the grade tens so much. Like for my grade, we've already been through two and a half years of in-school, right? I'm not saying that everyone knows each other, but we've had more. And it was through the clubs. It was through the events like SAC events and stuff that I met my friends. And they aren’t getting that. So, it's pretty hard for everyone.
Sanesha: So, you talked about stress and struggles, and I wanted to ask, what are some of your recommended techniques for excelling in school?
Geffrey: For me, it would probably just be to set yourself a good schedule and make sure that you're keeping up with it. Because I find that if you miss a lesson, or if you don't understand something, you need to ask your teachers about it, make sure you understand. Especially for something like sciences, you need to know the basics in order to continue learning lessons later on. And it's just really important that you understand every step that your teacher says or else, you'll fall behind and get really stressed.
Julia: Exactly. For the grade twelves we all have ‘senioritis’, you know, where we lose all motivation for no reason. Like, it happened to me, mid quad 2. It was just so much work. Like grade 12 has a heavy course load. And we're doing it in half the time. It's just really stressful. I think the most important part is, give yourself a break.
Sanesha: Yeah, it's insane. So, with the pandemic, and everything with it, how do you feel about the changes that have been made to the school year? For example, distance learning? How do you guys feel about that?
Geffrey: The online - I feel like it's not too bad. It gives students a lot of flexibility. Because now I get to wake up a bit later - I'm pretty sure a lot of other students will get to sleep a little bit later. And lunchtime is longer now. So, it just gives students a lot of flexibility. [But] I personally like the normal school routine better, because I just kind of miss it. I think everyone does.
Sanesha: I think most of us do. What do you think is the biggest lesson that you learned throughout this pandemic? And what have you done to incorporate this message into your life?
Geffrey: I think the biggest lesson is just to give yourself a break sometimes. I just like to take a stretch sometimes, go take a walk, get some fresh air. And yeah, just refresh yourself. That's how you get back on school and do good because if you don't take breaks or anything, it can get really draining and tiring and your schedule can get messed up really easily. So just make sure you refresh yourself and give yourself a break. Take a walk. Go outside.
Julia: I think the biggest lesson is, as cheesy as it sounds, like, don't take your life for granted. And see how everything changed so quickly. [It is] so weird to think that we were the people we were a year ago. And like Geffrey said, take a break. You should be proud of yourself for getting this far. We had, you know, a vacation for how long last year? And I was like ‘I didn't even do anything’, I didn't, like, fulfill my fitness goals. I was knitting a sweater. I didn't finish the sweater. I finished it now. But I think it's important to realize; this is such a unique event for us. Just be proud of yourself for doing it, for getting out of bed and going to your classes, you know, just simple things like just doing your daily tasks, or even not doing them, just ‘existing’. It's a big accomplishment for everyone.
Sanesha: So, what do you think is the most important task that you would like to tackle as a grade rep?
Geffrey: The most important task is the name “rep” itself. You have to represent your grade, whatever your grade wants, you want to make sure that you bring it up to the council. And you really have got to speak for your grade. Like, it's more than what you say on the podium on your campaign day, but you got to continue a job, right, it's your job for the whole year. And you’ve got to continue all the way until the school ends, whatever your grade wants, you have to listen to them.
Sanesha: Yeah, I totally get that. Grade rep is a very powerful word. You have a very big position. You're representing over 100 students, so it can be pretty… [big]
Julia: I forgot how many people we are representing [laughs].
For me, I always try to help people. People know, like, they trust that I'll do what I'm going to do. And that was my biggest motivation. Like I don't want to say I was going to do something and just stop and not do it, or like, stop mid-year or slack off or whatever. It was really important to me to follow through with the promise, especially this year. And I think I really wanted to make it consistent. So yeah, consistency. Because what's the point of me posting a weekly schedule if it's not posted weekly? So that's very important to me - to just keep on doing it to the end of the year.
Sanesha: And I think with that, it's also that a lot of people are looking to you as sort of the leaders for us. We are looking to you guys to see what we should do this year. How are we going to do anything? And since, last year, there were so many activities, everyone was always so busy with something or the other. This year, everything is a little bit more laid back.
And another thing with that would be, if you could do one thing for your grade this year, what would it be?
Geffrey: My grade wants gaming tournaments, and that is what we're going to do. That’s pretty much it because what else can we do? Carnival is canceled, semi formal is canceled. I wasn't in SAC last year. I think it's the same for Julia too, right? Yes. So, we didn't get to experience what it would be like in-person SAC school year, like what it would be like inside the normal school year. So we're just trying our best hopefully that would satisfy [the student body].
Sanesha: What about the kids who don't like gaming? Like for me personally, I know that I'm not as interested in gaming as someone else. That being said, do you have any plans for them?
Julia: So, it's not grade specific. You know, I think engaging the school doesn't have to be grade specific. I think our role as grade reps is very important in the communication department, but I think everyone can enjoy the gaming tournaments like we did have the exclusive ones for the grade rep’s month. But we do have a lot of events in progress, like we acknowledged in our SAC meeting how not everyone likes gaming. Like I don't play Rocket League, I don't play on whatever the games were that we played. So, I understand that. Not just me personally, but all of SAC, we understand that not everyone will be inclined to the same events. So that's definitely been a factor in our future events. We do have a lot of events in progress. We won't spoil but ... we have a lot of variety. I think a lot of people will enjoy the different events we have in store for the year.
We tried to get them to give us a bit of a sneak peak, but sadly they did not want to spoil anything for us (and did not have permission).
Geffrey: And we just had our February event, like the grade specific events to accommodate what the overall grade wanted. So like, for example, we (the grade 11s) did a sort of painting event. And Julia did the grade 12 grad info and yearbook thing. The grade 10s did gaming and then grade 9 did memes. So, we all tried to focus on what our grade wants.
Geffrey has used Discord and Instagram to help spread information about the goings-on of this crazy school year and about the events SAC has been hosting.
Julia: For my grade, no one had time to sit down and do an event, unfortunately, that's why we focused more on like, the senior portrait tips and tricks. For me, my biggest role was helping in applying to university and college. And that was really tough to navigate, because I'm also a student, right? Like, I know we're leaders, but I also didn't know what to do. So, it was very important to me to help people apply and understand what OUAC was like (and OCAS for college). So, we got past the biggest hump of the year...all the applications have been sent. Now it's just, what Geffrey said, we have to have fun, and just finish the year.
Sanesha: Yeah. And you just said that you're in that group as well. You're still going through it as well? Do you guys think that that has become challenging, when students ask questions and you don't really know the answer, because you're going through it yourself?
Julia: For me, in grade 12, I do have a bit of the upper leg only because I wanted to help everyone (I've always been like this, like, I'll figure out something so I can help the others). So I understand what kind of questions I'll be asked. So I made sure I knew as much as possible. But I think that's my nature. Like, I'm not just doing it for everyone like, of course I want to help, but I'm also helping myself by making the schedules and making the posts. We are just students too, so even I don't know what the schedules are. And I think Geffrey will feel the same, because he's also a student. And he also has to navigate the year.
Geffrey: Well I think Julia got that on point [laughing]
Sanesha: So a lot of students are preparing for the transition into post-secondary education. Based on your experience, how has your preparation for the future been affected by the systems that have been put in place?
Julia: Oh gosh. It was very hard this year. The hardest thing was that we did not have the assemblies anymore. We did not have the resources all of the other grades had for graduating. There was a scholarship club, there was an assembly for how to do everything, and also there was the college and university fair that happened in downtown Toronto. We missed out on a lot of informative things. So I tried my best to give people the info.
In terms of systems for applying to universities, colleges and such, I think people were mostly worried about grades. And actually applying. I know a lot of people were scared about what grades would be counted, like ‘oh is quad 4 going to count’, ‘are they going to look at my grade 11 marks’, because it is a quadmester system so there are a lot of uncertainties.
…It is a very weird system this year. You get more conditional offers for your university or college.
Julia's Instagram account @woodlandsgrads has been a great source of information for many students, including grade 12's and others.
Sanesha: So you still don’t know if you are there or not.
And it depends on the university itself. A lot of the universities are attacking things differently.
Julia: Yeah, exactly, so some schools with supplementary application programs might not send you anything until May, so you have to really push through until mid-May, and you have to maintain your average through the end of quad 3, I think is what they look at. And it is very weird - it is a big advantage and a disadvantage this year. Like we are getting less content to worry about - technically less things to worry about but it is harder in a different way, you know?
Sanesha: Yeah. I completely get what you are saying.With that I know that most people have probably sent their applications in by this point, but what suggestions do you have for any other grade 12s or even any grade 11s who are going through this stuff now?
Julia: I was thinking of talking to Geffrey and talking to the grade 11s somehow. Because there is so much I didn't know until I researched it as a grade rep, and I cannot imagine how everyone else felt finding out about everything. So my advice is to ask questions.
Nobody really tells you why some things are important, like why it is important to take certain courses in grade 11. It is kind of sad the way you have to really fend for yourself. So I just say if you are concerned about anything, just ask questions. And a lot of grade 11s have reached out to me to say ‘hey help’.
Sanesha: So for me personally, Google has been my savior.
So if there was any chance SAC or grade reps could do some kind of information session for each grade to figure out what they want to do with courses?
Julia: I definitely want to do something like that. Like I have been thinking of something like that. Also, I want to tell the grade 11s; don’t do things without being genuine. I know it is tough to tell who is being genuine or not, but it will help you in the future. And another thing is, build your way up - nobody tells you why being an exec is important.
I would love to have a conversation with the grade 11s to clear everything up. Like a Q&A night. That is definitely something I wanted to do. I would have done it earlier, but I was busy being a student, you know?
Sanesha: So lastly, do you have any plans for the graduates? I know anything relating to graduation, (prom is not happening) but like anything relating to that?
Julia: So like I said my biggest [concern] was getting everyone through the university application and college applications as smoothly as possible. So I need to plan a bit more, but we can still do a bunch of things we did last year. Like I think Senior Sunset could be a possibility. I am not guaranteeing it, but a lot of events we've had could happen again. We could do the montage; we have a lot of fun things we could do with the grads. I think my personal responsibility would be to do the graduate pages, like ‘this person went to this program’ and ‘this is what they are planning to do’. I am going to be doing that in June, when everyone accepts, because June 1 is the deadline to accept most offers.
And I will just keep doing things. So whatever comes up I will help guide them through it.
Sanesha: It has been really fun to get to talk to you guys. I did not know there was so much responsibility to being a grade rep, especially this year. Do you have any last things you’d like to say or if there is anything else you’d like to include to any of the questions, it’s open.
Julia: I am just happy… that people are happy. I get a lot of texts; it makes me so happy when people say, ‘thank you for what you've been doing’. A lot of people interact with my posts. It makes me happy that what I am doing is being well received. That was my goal coming in. I like being helpful and I am glad I get to do it in a professional position.
Sanesha: And Geffrey, do you have anything you would like to add?
Geffrey: Not really. I haven’t really paid close attention to Julia’s Instagram account, but I will now, especially after this interview, and I just wanted to let you know that you are doing really good.
Julia: Thank you. I was happy and confident when I saw how shocked people were with how quickly I made the account and started the schedules. I think this year everyone has really stepped up their game.
Sanesha: Yeah, you guys really put the bar up to here [indicates above head].
Julia: I think it has inspired people that want to make a change. I've gotten texts about future grade reps that want to do what we are doing. I think it has really changed the way the role is perceived. It is not just ‘clout’. We are not just doing it to do it, we do it because we want to help.
Julia, Geffrey, and I had an amazing conversation. It was great to know what their plans are as representatives and just as students, and they had a lot of incredible things to say about this school year and their experiences so far. They really have become role models for how future grade representatives should be. Everyone should go check out their Woodlands grade rep pages.
Julia: @woodlandsgrads Geffrey: @woodlands_gr.11
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