Tupper Tech teacher Russ Evans had a student with a difficult home life. She lived with her single father who behaved more like a troubled child than a parent.
“You do not want the details in your head because they will never leave,” Evans said.
District apprenticeship teacher Wendy Gilmour found the student shelter with a caring family that supported her pursuing a trade, helped her obtain work clothes, boots and tools, and worked to build her social skills and self-esteem. Gilmour found her a safe worksite and helped the company owner and site supervisor focus on her potential rather than her challenges. Today, she’s a second-year apprenticeship carpenter and Evans said the company owner and CEO would tell you she’s the most talented carpenter he employs.
“I know that this sounds amazingly dramatic,” Evans said, “but [Gilmour] changes people’s lives every single year.”
Some of the students she’s supported will speak at a Journey into Trades event at Vancouver Technical secondary Friday morning.
“Last year when we did this they were all students that I had worked with,” Gilmour said. “Honestly, I felt like a proud parent.”
Karen Larsen, career education coordinator for the Vancouver School Board told the Courier about Gilmour to highlight her “amazing” colleague and the trades programs offered by the VSB. Larsen has also nominated Gilmour for a YWCA Woman of Distinction Award.
Gilmour completed teacher training in 1978 and worked in two other districts before she became a home economics teacher with the VSB in 1991. She subsequently placed students in work experience and then in 2005 became district apprenticeship teacher.
Tupper Tech provides skills for Grade 12 students to enter trades. Gilmour organizes the apprenticeships.
Evans says Gilmour helped a teen enter a one-year metal fabrication program at BCIT that should guarantee him reasonably steady and well-paid work. He had no landline, no Internet at home and no cellphone, and could have ended up homeless without her assistance.
“She is essentially responsible for every single apprentice I have coached and I strongly suspect every other teacher in the district would tell you the same thing,” Evans wrote in his award reference letter.
Gilmour has helped students with learning disabilities see success. A student with weak English language skills recently surprised her by completing an auto refinishing class at Vancouver Community College. He now works as an auto collision tech.
“There’re so many kids that just love working with their hands and when they get into a woodwork shop, or get into the engine of a car, or get into a kitchen, or start working with somebody’s hair, they just shine,” Gilmour said. “And they’re not shining, sometimes, sitting in classrooms.”
She sees a great demand in Vancouver for cooks, bakers, and any trade involved in construction.
Trades aren’t for dummies or slackers. You need 70 per cent to pass any program, attendance requirements can be strict and some programs at BCIT start at 7 a.m.
Gilmour says the biggest barrier to easing young people into trades is parents’ lack of consideration. It’s not that parents don’t see trades as a viable choice once they think about it, but they rarely think of this path as an option.
Gilmour says making sure students have everything they need in place to succeed is simply her job.
“I love seeing students, who have perhaps struggled and haven’t had some of the supports that they needed in schools, being successful,” she said.
