Help Teach

Help Teach: Episode 15 - Outdoors in Reach
Mihai Covaser: [00:00:00] Welcome, learners and learned alike, to Help Teach.

Mihai Covaser: [00:00:09]Hello and welcome to our community audio project. I am your host, editor, producer, and project co-lead: Mihai Covaser. I am also a youth living with a physical disability. My most formative experiences living with a disability have come in the Canadian public education system. Many students like me, with physical, emotional, or mental challenges, go through their years of schooling lacking the supports and accommodations they need to partake of the same opportunities offered to their peers. The vision of this project is to provide educators in Canadian classrooms, students with disabilities, and members of the general public, with the tools and knowledge that they need to make our institutions more accessible and inclusive for all. Join me and a diverse cast of guests as we explore perspectives on disabilities and education in this podcast series. One last message for you teachers tuning in: Listen in each episode for our key takeaway that you can implement in your classroom today to help us further this vision.

Mihai Covaser: [00:01:13] Welcome back to Help Teach! Today on the show, I am very happy to welcome both a returning guest and a new guest, and as we would have it, it’s a small world and there’s a connection there that I didn’t know existed, and it’s led us to a really interesting episode today, talking about disability and involvement in environmental advocacy, as well, and how that crossroad can affect students in the classroom. So without further ado, I would love to introduce to the show–first, for our interview today: Isabel Huang. Isabel, welcome to the show!

Isabel Huang: [00:01:48] Thank you so much! I’m so happy to be here.

Mihai Covaser: [00:01:51] So Isabel, as I start with all of my guests, I would really appreciate it if you would just tell us a little bit about yourself, you know, let the audience know who you are.

Isabel Huang: [00:02:00] Yeah, definitely. So I’m based in Vancouver, I’m a current UBC student studying food, nutrition, and health, which I guess is my connection to you–

Mihai Covaser: [00:02:11] UBC represent.

Isabel Huang: [00:02:12] And I’m a student intern. Yes, exactly! Um, I’m also a student intern at Fraser Basin Council, and my colleague Jessie couldn’t be here today, but she has also been integral to this project.

Mihai Covaser: [00:02:26] Absolutely, and we’ll talk more about that project very soon here. Before we get to the subject of the Fraser Basin Council and what you’re doing with this project, I know that you’ve been involved fairly extensively with other accessibility and disability-related causes and initiatives over the years, prior to your work with the FBC. Would you mind telling our audience a little bit more about that? How did you get started there?

Isabel Huang: [00:02:48] Yeah, for sure! So I think I first started because, during the pandemic, some of my peers identified that, because of the huge shift in the way that we learned, there needed to be some extra education surrounding how to best support students with disabilities. So I worked with high school educators to identify ways for teachers to support students with their mental health and also with their disabilities. I think that the pandemic was hard on everybody, especially students with disabilities, and we were able to gather information from students who had ADHD, as well as other learning disabilities, and then also mental illness, things like eating disorders, anxiety, OCD, depression… And what we found was that the pandemic caused people’s symptoms to show in new ways, and it was much harder for them to mask, especially for people with learning disabilities and their ability to effectively learn online, or people with mental illness, due to the drastic change in routine. I mean, I’m sure–Like I can speak for myself; I really had no routine during the pandemic, right? So a lot of people experienced the same thing and it’s just like a whole new world to navigate. So gathering those results, we created a professional development workshop with a licensed psychologist for teachers, and it was so cool to see happen, because I can speak from my personal experience, and after that workshop happened, I saw an immediate shift towards the amount of compassion and support that educators started to provide students at my school, and it was that extra level of compassion in an already hard time, where, you know, people were having difficult home lives, maybe financials weren’t doing too well, either, and being able to extend that extra compassion was really helpful for everybody. And I think that carried over into now, where we’re kind of transitioning out of the pandemic and people have taken that lesson of treating everybody with compassion into the current world we live in.

Mihai Covaser: [00:05:09] Absolutely. That’s really interesting. So you’ve always had a passion for research, then, and sort of gathering data like this? Or is that something that started at university for you?

Isabel Huang: [00:05:19] Yeah, I would say I’ve dabbled in my fair share of research and experiments when I was younger, and I’ve always been quite curious, so I would think, like, “Why are things like this?” And then most of the time, I’m like, “I don’t know!” Or I’ll, you know, procrastinate my work by searching up online and going down a deep Wikipedia rabbit hole. But yeah.

Mihai Covaser: [00:05:44] For sure!

Isabel Huang: [00:05:45] I think now, I’m super excited to be actually having questions and then going through and finding answers and helping to make improvements.

Mihai Covaser: [00:05:55] No, I was really interested to hear that you saw a firsthand impact of the work you were doing in your classroom and in your learning environment. That’s always what I strive to do with the work and the research and projects like these that I put out; I’m looking for the immediate impact, right, so it’s always really gratifying when you can see it.

Isabel Huang: [00:06:13] Mmhm, definitely.

Mihai Covaser: [00:06:16] And so following work like that, you decided to also join up with the Fraser Basin Council, the FBC. Would you mind telling us a little bit about what that is and what you do?

Isabel Huang: [00:06:28] Definitely. Fraser Basin Council is a nonprofit organization to advance sustainability all across B.C., and they tackle sustainability by collaborating with organizations in many different sectors, including social, economic, and environmental, but my work specifically engages with their youth programs.

Mihai Covaser: [00:06:52] What exactly does the youth program do that’s different from the greater organization? What sector do they focus on?

Isabel Huang: [00:06:58] I would say that they are kind of their own entity. They have two of their own programs, so I can kinda give a brief overview of both of them.

Mihai Covaser: [00:07:07] Sure, please.

Isabel Huang: [00:07:08] The first one is the Youth Advisory Committee and their youth age sixteen to thirty from all across B.C., who voice their concerns in sustainability and climate change issues in their community, and they provide guidance and feedback on all of FBC’s youth initiatives. The other program is Co-Creating a Sustainable B.C., and this one is really cool because they have youth-led projects on sustainability issues that are most important to them, so they’ll identify an issue in their own community that they would like to tackle, and it’s really based on the passion and interest that they have in solving something that they’ve identified as an issue in their community.

Mihai Covaser: [00:07:54] Mm, okay.

Isabel Huang: [00:07:56] These projects are super cool. Like I saw some photos of youth in the Cowichan Valley who built a community pantry from the ground up, like with wood and hammering and things like that, and I was like, “Whoa! That’s more construction knowledge than I know!” It’s so cool that they, like, learned a trade while doing this project. But…yeah.

Mihai Covaser: [00:08:18] That’s super interesting. So it–The FBC sort of really reaches across B.C. to connect youth to all kinds of different skills and opportunities, but in youth’s own areas of passion, it sounds like, right?

Isabel Huang: [00:08:31] Definitely. Yes.

Mihai Covaser: [00:08:33] Awesome. Well, that’s really, really cool. I hadn’t heard much, I didn’t know much about FBC before connecting with you, so it’s really interesting to look into that and to hear more about it from you. How then does the FBC and this youth program connect to students with disabilities, because I know that you’ve continued your work in helping students with a variety of disabilities into your work with FBC, as well. So where is that overlap?

Isabel Huang: [00:08:58] What I love about FBC is that they welcome and encourage youth with disabilities, and in that effort, they want to make their youth programs more accessible. And they’re not just someone who says that they are welcoming inaccessible; they’re taking action to change and to identify areas of weakness, to keep their word. My work at FBC consists of identifying the challenges that youth with disabilities face in the context of climate action, and one of the ways that we’re doing that is conducting a survey to gather more information about people’s experiences.

Mihai Covaser: [00:09:39] And we will get to that survey in just a moment here, but before we do, I’ll mention to our audience that you are listening to Help Teach, where I’m having a discussion with Isabel Huang and soon, with a returning guest, to talk about accessibility, disability, and environmental activism, and where that crossroad exists. So don’t go anywhere! We’ll be right back.

Mihai Covaser: [00:10:10] Welcome back to Help Teach! Now, as we mentioned a couple of times in the first half of this episode, we do have a returning guest to this show, so without further ado–I know we kept the audience in suspense–I would love to introduce Élise back to the show. Élise, welcome.

Élise Doucet: [00:10:26] Hi! Happy to be back. I’m really excited for this episode; it’s gonna be really cool.

Mihai Covaser: [00:10:31] Absolutely. Élise has been very patiently waiting here in the wings to come on and speak, so it’s very nice to have you back. Third time on the show; definitely becoming a regular here, so grateful for that. What have you been up to, aside from speaking prodigiously on digital media projects? What’s been going on with you?

Élise Doucet: [00:10:53] Uh, a lot of schoolwork, so I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to work on other initiatives, but I’m kinda figuring out where I can find the time to spend doing things like this. And I have some projects I’ve started that are in the works, but they’re not–nothing’s confirmed yet, so I can’t talk too much about them, but…
Mihai Covaser: [00:11:11] Okay! Some top secret projects. Well, as soon as they come to be, feel free to bring them to the show! I’d love to talk about them. So, as we were discussing in that first half, there’s a connection here between Isabel and Élise, in that you both work with FBC, the Fraser Basin Council, as well as their youth program, talking about environmental activism, and Élise, for you, that also looks like combining that with your lived experience, so we’re gonna get to that in just a moment, but you mentioned just before we broke there, Isabel, your survey and the most recent project that you’re conducting with FBC, with regards to disability. So tell us a little bit about this survey. What exactly is the research behind this? What’s the motivation and what are you doing?

Isabel Huang: [00:11:57] Mmhm. Yeah, so we’re currently conducting a survey on running focus groups for youth with disabilities or for folks who have direct experience working or living with a youth with disability. So that could look like working with a disability through climate change initiatives, or even living with a youth with disability, like a family member or something like that. And after, we will analyze the results and come up with a report of recommendations to improve FBC’s youth programming.

Mihai Covaser: [00:12:31] Interesting. Okay, so it’s a survey for internal improvement of the organization, then?

Isabel Huang: [00:12:37] Mainly. We have also been reaching out to other organizations and we’re willing to share our anonymous survey results with them, and yeah. It’s so great that other people and organizations are interested in our work and want to improve their own policies, as well.

Mihai Covaser: [00:12:55] Mmhm, mmhm. Just briefly, what kind of questions are asked on this survey? If you can give me one or maybe two examples, just to give the audience an idea of what data you’re trying to gather here.

Isabel Huang: [00:13:07] Yes, for sure. So, some of the questions we ask are, “How has your disability affected you in the various areas of your life, in relation to climate change?” So whether that be financially, or your home life, or socially, we kind of want to get a gauge of how youth with disabilities experience climate change–

Mihai Covaser: [00:13:32] Uh huh.

Isabel Huang: [00:13:33] And we also ask about how their awareness and concern about climate change affects their disability, as well as if they engage in any climate change initiatives, if they’ve ever experienced any barriers due to their disability in being able to fully engage and immerse themselves.

Mihai Covaser: [00:13:54] Interesting. Okay, okay. With that, I do want to turn it to you, Élise, and I want to ask you, seeing as you have lived experience in both the advocacy for disability and advocacy for environmental causes world–I’m not sure this came up a lot in the episodes in which you’ve appeared, but you do a lot of work with environmental activism. You can find a lot of cool pictures online with Élise at various events. So I do want to ask: how has your experience with disability shaped your experience with climate advocacy? What does that overlap look like for you?

Élise Doucet: [00:14:29] When I first started getting into advocacy, I wanted to kind of learn how to advocate in the first place, which is partially why I got into kind of more climate action, because there wasn’t a ton of disability Deaf-related groups that was local, but there was for climate action, and I mean, I was always into climate action, in a sense, because the outdoors is very near and dear to me, especially being deaf. Outdoors is accessible to me in a way that cities aren’t, which is kind of an odd sentence, but it’s true. No, like going hiking by myself, there’s no background noise out in the middle of nowhere, there’s none of that, so it’s a lot easier to participate in that kind of thing. So protecting the outdoors was always really important, as well, so getting into climate action just kind of made sense. However, climate action groups, especially like small, local ones, they don’t really think about accessibility, so it was a little bit hard to kinda, you know, go into these groups and then immediately be like, “Well, I want to help, but I need supports, like I need you to figure out how to turn on student captions, or I need us to be in a circle, rather than a weird triangle-shape so I can lip read.” Just kind of mostly small changes, but it is kinda hard, especially, you know, as a young person to kinda ask for those things, especially when you’re there trying to help, to kind of immediately have to ask for things. That’s hard.

Mihai Covaser: [00:16:02] Yeah.

Élise Doucet: [00:16:03] But that’s kind of why I appreciated Fraser Basin Council, being able to be a part of the Co-Creating a Sustainable B.C. in their pilot year, so early on in that journey for me, because actually, the reason I applied for that program was because, at the very bottom of the application, there was a little line about providing ASL interpretation and I was like, “There we go! That’s great!” So that was kind of the tipping point, because I was kind of like, “Mmm, I don’t know if I want to, I don’t know,” because I’d never heard about the Fraser Basin Council before, and then someone sent me the application, and then… But then I saw that and it was like, “You know what, I’m just gonna do this.” And that was really great to have that accessibility so that I could learn about climate action, as well as just general advocacy skills. So that’s kind of how being deaf has sort of shaped that experience for me in climate advocacy.

Mihai Covaser: [00:16:57] That’s really interesting. That was really both intriguing and kinda poetic, that idea that the outdoors is actually more accessible to people than the city or a home can be, in some respects. You’re right; it’s kind of counterintuitive, because we think that there’s so much infrastructure and so many different services that we like to provide–or that we wish were provided more readily–that help people with accessibility, but then you think, “Maybe it’s simpler than that, you know, maybe there’s something out there that’s even more accessible.” So that was really neat to hear. Speaking of which, about different organizations being accessible and wanting to become more accessible, I want to turn it back to the survey, then, because that’s the goal as we’ve heard, that’s what Fraser Basin Council was trying to do. So tell me, Isabel, what were the results of the survey so far? I know you’ve been running it for a little while, and if you’re listening to this episode, the link to that will also be in the episode description, and as more publications come out around this project, I’ll be sure to add them to those notes. But why don’t you tell us a little bit about the results you’ve been seeing so far? What are people saying?

Isabel Huang: [00:18:03] Yeah, for sure. So the preliminary results are really interesting and some of the issues that participants have noted are weather-related, whether that be too hot or too cold; cost and maintenance of eco-friendly products, things like beeswax wraps and plastic straws. Now that there’s such a huge push to make these eco-friendly alternatives, I think people forget that not everybody can use them, whether that be due to it not being financially feasible or simply because their disability does not allow them to use them the same way. Other issues that people have identified are just physical barriers and even being made to feel guilty about not being able to engage in climate action in “traditional ways”, which is so interesting because it’s so funny that we’ve identified like a traditional way to engage in climate action. There is no traditional way, but it’s these circles of people that they’re around and the attitudes of the people that make them feel that way, right.

Mihai Covaser: [00:19:10] Interesting, and that goes back to what Élise was saying, right, about having to ask for things when you’re there to help. I thought that was interesting, too, right, because it’s like, “I have something I can offer you, but I just need certain accommodations in place to be able to do that,” right?

Isabel Huang: [00:19:25] Exactly. Yeah. It’s such an untapped potential and I think people often dismiss or don’t provide people with disabilities with enough accessibility needs, which is really prohibiting. It kind of feeds into this cycle of wanting to help out, but feeling like you can’t, and then maybe feeling guilt because of it, and, you know, especially for people with mental illness, maybe they already have depression and anxiety, it would create this vicious cycle of making their depression and anxiety get worse, and, you know, it’s always a vicious cycle when it comes to that. And in general, like, people with disabilities struggle to have their voice heard, because they simply aren’t considered in climate change or sustainability initiatives.

Mihai Covaser: [00:20:17] Élise, what do you think of those results? Are there any of those things that have resonated with you, maybe the aspect of sorta traditional ways to help or any of that? What do you think of those results?

Élise Doucet: [00:20:28] I think those are all kind of very real things that people are feeling. Not being able to engage kind of in traditional ways with climate action, I think, is something that I’ve experienced, kind of like I touched on briefly, just– It’s hard to go into a group and ask for them to do kind of internal change and internal work on themselves, rather than kind of immediately get to what these groups would like to do, which is working on climate change, which is a very external thing.

Mihai Covaser: [00:20:59] Yeah.

Élise Doucet: [00:21:00] So that’s kind of very hard to do. Being involved in climate change can be very hard to not get too emotionally involved in, because it–there’s always these depressing statistics coming out that just kind of–It’s like, “Well, what’s the point? Why don’t we just have one last hoorah and then set the planet on fire or something?” Like why are we trying? Because, you know, because it feels like climate change has been such an issue for such a long time, and we know that things are not going in a good direction. I think most people would like climate change to not be an issue, but when it’s been this, like, chronic issue for so long, it feels very hopeless, and that’s kinda hard to get out of bed and, like, do things about, especially when there’s some people who just don’t do anything. And then it’s like, “Well, if we aren’t all in this together, and I don’t know if I’m gonna succeed at, like, fixing this…”

Mihai Covaser: [00:21:55] Yeah.

Élise Doucet: [00:21:56] And I’m suffering by using the bad paper straws, why can’t I just, you know…

Mihai Covaser: [00:22:03] No, for sure. And relatedly, I wanna ask both of you, but Isabel, if you have some ideas to start us off with: how can climate change advocacy and action become more accessible? Is there sort of a pattern that you’ve identified from these preliminary results, ideas that you’ve been floating around? How can we improve that situation to make sure that we are all in it together?

Isabel Huang: [00:22:28] Yeah, that’s a great question, and I think the accessibility guidelines that we have to follow are really person-dependant. Obviously, as a general rule of thumb, we want to have clear descriptions of the guidelines in the sustainability activities ahead of time, whether that be offering remote meeting options, doing activities indoors or even outdoors, as Élise has pointed out. There’s not one method that works for all people with disabilities; it’s definitely a case-by-case basis. Having interpreters, mobility aids, and communicating that information ahead of time really helps to avoid additional anxiety. Other, more preventative measures include education surrounding disability, and even topics like invisible disabilities and fluctuating needs, and how we can best support people with disabilities in navigating that.

Mihai Covaser: [00:23:34] I’m also curious, seeing as we seem to have identified some barriers and some possible solutions, I have a couple of questions for you. First of all, how might the survey be applied to future policies or initiatives? And I’m also curious: what has the reaction been from UBC? Have they become involved at all in this work? Do they know about it? Yeah, so sort of a two-pronged question there, but what’s next?

Isabel Huang: [00:23:58] Yeah. We are currently collaborating with some other organizations related to climate justice and that advocate for students and youth with disabilities. Specifically at UBC, there’s been a group called Climate Justice UBC, who have been super helpful in the creation of our survey and in supporting us through how we collect data, how we run focus groups, and I think this is just the first step in it helping to make climate change and climate action more accessible for youth with disabilities. You know, youth with disabilities encompasses people age sixteen to thirty, so a lot of university students are age sixteen to thirty, and a lot of them are heavily engaged with sustainability leadership initiatives, and like we said earlier, a lot of organizations are interested in hearing what results we have to share. And it’s so great to see that a lot of them, they are also just as interested in improving their policy; they just don’t know where to start and they’re looking for any information that they can get their hands on, and we’re just really happy that we can provide them with some information and hopefully they can take some inspiration and look at our data to see where they can improve their own programming where they see fit, and maybe take initiative to think about ways to survey their own groups and find deficiencies and try and improve on them.

Mihai Covaser: [00:25:36] Élise, I wanna turn the last word on this topic to you. Who would you like to see get their hands on this data? How would you like to see this applied?

Élise Doucet: [00:25:46] I’d like everybody to see this data?

Mihai Covaser: [00:25:48] Fair enough! Honest answer.

Élise Doucet: [00:25:51] Yeah, no, I think it could be useful to a lot of different organizations, beyond just kind of climate action, climate justice, like any sort of advocacy organization or even just companies in general, I think could benefit from this information to figure out how to kind of run programs and structure projects.

Mihai Covaser: [00:26:13] Absolutely. On that note, I think that teachers can take a lot from this, as well. Now teachers in the audience have been very patient; this episode has sort of gone a ways from the classroom, but allow me to bring it back here with our key takeaway for the episode, because there’s a couple of things that we would suggest for you teachers listening in the audience who are interested in making climate action more accessible to students and integrating it more into the classroom, and bridging that gap between students with disabilities, who you may be helping and teaching and the various initiatives that they may want to take part in, you know, to make their educational experience their own, to become more logistically involved in different sectors and different scenarios of advocacy. So we do have a couple of ways that you can do that. Beginning with things like the disaster action plans that many schools work with, I’ll turn it to you, Élise, to tell us a little bit about why that might be important and just briefly, how teachers can be more aware about what these plans look like and who they’re helping.

Élise Doucet: [00:27:22] Yeah, of course! So disaster plans often don’t take into accountdisabled people, and I know my own experience, when I was at one school–and it didn’t end up happening, which was very frustrating–but we did a lot of advocacy to try to get them to put in a fire alarm into the bathroom that had a flashing light on it, because I’m deaf, right, and if I’m in just the general classroom, whatever, I’d see everybody screaming, running out the door or something if there’s a fire. You know, I would be alerted to it, even if I didn’t hear the fire alarm. However, in the bathroom? Not necessarily, because if you’re in there by yourself, not gonna see anybody, you know, not gonna realize. So it didn’t end up happening, they didn’t want to do it in that situation, which was unfortunate. It’s just, you know, next time they’re redoing things, just get a fire alarm that has a flashing light attached to it, as well as the sound, so then, you know, I can see, “Oh, flashing red light. That means something. I should probably leave the building.” And, I mean, that’s what I have in my house at this point. Yeah. That’s the major one for me, making the disaster plan effective for me; however, for other disabilities, it would be completely different.

Mihai Covaser: [00:28:48] Absolutely. And there’s a lot of ways that these can happen, there’s a lot of ways in which it’s very difficult to make these changes, if it has to do with the built environment of the school, but that’s just to say: teachers, keep an eye out. See the next time you have these sort of emergency exercises, which we’re talking about this because with climate change and with what’s happening with the planet, these disasters may become more and more frequent in various parts of the world. So we just encourage you to be aware and take a look around and see whether that is something that is accessible in your school, and maybe dropping a word if it’s not. Lastly, we just wanted to mention, as well, that in the episode notes today, there will be a lot of links, a lot of information to different organizations that are doing work surrounding environmental activism and that tackle that overlap between disability and envrionmental advocacy, as well as, of course, the link to the survey. So another key takeaway would just be to do that little bit of homework, as we offer in every episode, and see what information might be relevant to you and how you can improve your own learning on the issue, as a teacher and as someone who has a responsibility for students who at once can be at the intersection of a lot of these issues that are very important to them. Well, I really appreciate you both coming on today. It was really great to talk to you, and good luck with your survey and gathering those results, Isabel! I hope that goes well for you and your colleague, and maybe we can talk again another time.

Isabel Huang: [00:30:15] Yeah, of course. Thank you so much for having me and I’m so happy to be speaking to you both and have such a wonderful conversation.

Mihai Covaser: [00:30:24] And Élise, thank you for coming back on again. It’s a pleasure to have you.

Élise Doucet: [00:30:27] Yeah, no, I’m happy to be here.

Mihai Covaser: [00:30:30] You’ve just heard another episode of the community audio project, Help Teach. I’d love to give a huge thank you to my other co-leads on this project: Payton Given, Maggie Manning, Élise Doucet, and Alexis Holmgren, all youth leaders at the Rick Hansen Foundation, who I’d also like to thank for their continued support in this initiative and others. I’d like to give a huge shout-out to our community mentor for this project, Charl Coetzee. My name is Mihai Covaser. I am your host, editor, and producer for this podcast series. You can now find all our transcripts, episode notes, and links to other resources on Transistor.fm, or listen to us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. If you have any questions about the show, if you’d like to offer suggestions, or you would like to be connected as a guest, you can now get in touch at helpteachpodcast@gmail.com. That’s helpteachpodcast@gmail.com. Please send in any questions that you might have regarding our episodes, and we would love to address them in future ones. Tune in next time for more great conversations and key takeaways that you educators can implement in the classroom today, to make it a more accessible and inclusive place for all. Thank you for listening, and I’ll see you next time.