Strathcona Dental Fair at Britannia

Strathcona Dental Fair

Britannia Secondary School

It took about the same amount of time to get to Britannia as it does to commute to UBC on the 49th bus. In retrospect I should've taken the skytrain but I ended up arriving on time anyways.

We had our first presentation in a home-ec room, evident in the stoves, cupboards, and bag of oats. We, the pre-dent students, all stood at the front of the classroom and in pairs gave mini speeches on different components onoral health. My partner was Aaron Monga. Our part was "nutrition." I started off strong, read off the page for a line or two, then decided that the script was useless. So I put it down and gave a natural conversational on alternative sugars and the importance of fluoride.

Immediately following the mini speeches, we broke the class into groups and disctributed ourselves among them. The objective? To teach the kids how to brush and floss, techniques for which I did not have knowledge when I was in high school. I learned that it is best to have each of the kids to introduce himself and show us how they brush. After, I would show them the correct way. In return, they would mimic me. We ended with a bunch of questions designed on the fly to test their knowledge. Within 5-10 minutes we ran out of things to say and resorted to asking the kids which subjects they liked best.

Section three of our presentation involved us reconvening at the front of the class, explaining the Strathcona Dental Clinic, which provides free dental care to those kids in need of it, and asking trivial questions to which we awarded toothbrushes, toothpaste and the like. So far I wasn't thrilled but was indeed satisfied that I got some stage time in public speaking.

After recess, we repeated this for another class. This was an art class. I asked a kid if the teacher actually taught them art. He replied by saying, "Well, she shows us how to do art but we just work on it ourselves." This sounds much like my art classes at Killarney. When I asked a student what his favourite class was he replied that it was this class, an art class, bacause it consisted mainly of watching movies. Instantly, the teacher yelled across the room that he wasn't supposed to tell me what they really did. We repeated the same presentation but this class seemed more energetic. Many of the students said they already had us come in last year. 

By lunch time, we had set up a table in a major intesection in the halls. There, we would hand out gum to students (just one stick each) after having asked a trivia question about dental health and receiving a correct answer. Mostly, we asked them, "How many times are you supposed to brush your teeth daily?" Indeed, such questions were and are lame. 

More interestingly, some of us (including me) headed downstairs to the cafetaria where we caught students in-line to pester. We went from table to table in the table with a decent success rate since we only got rejected by one table.

Soon after heading upstairs, Harjot followed some kid to his locker despite his disinterest in learning about oral health. Holding a jumbo-sized toothbrish and giant teeth/jaw model, he gave an enthusiastic account on how to brush your teeth. Everyone broke out into laughter either due to his enthusiasm or the kid's reaction. The laughter doesn't stop here:  A teacher, a lady in her 30's, walked by but was unfortunate enough to have caught Harjot's eye. He followed her down one flight of stairs despite her having told him that she was good and that she was aware of how one should brush one's teeth.

At this point, I have had the feeling that if I heard about how you should brush your teeth one more time I would shoot myself. Mustering my strength, I carried on. With two more classrooms to go, it would surely be a long day.