Each Wednesday, Portland State students and Centennial Learning Center students meet in the Art Building to do projects, eat lunch and hang out. PSU’s Design for Social Change class and CLC’s Art and Social Change come together to create the program titled Friendtorship, a play on words combining friend and mentor.
Each Wednesday, Portland State students and Centennial Learning Center students meet in the Art Building to do projects, eat lunch and hang out. PSU’s Design for Social Change class and CLC’s Art and Social Change come together to create the program titled Friendtorship, a play on words combining friend and mentor.
The word was created to get rid of the hierarchy that the words “mentor” and “mentee” imply. “We really wanted to focus on the friendship part of this course,” said PSU art Professor Lis Charman. “The heart of it is really the building of relationships.”
CLC is an alternative high school in Multnomah County’s Centennial School District. Most students have been expelled from their previous high schools or left the school and referred back to CLC. A majority of the students in the Friendtorship program have been homeless at some point and most have bad relationships at home.
But when they get to this class on Wednesday, that aspect of their lives is forgotten. They get to work and be a part of something just as much as the PSU students do.
“My favorite part is that we don’t really see ourselves in a kid/adult relationship. We are in a design class where some of the students happen to be from a local high school,” graphic design senior Ethan Allen Smith said.
“Everyone can vouch for the fact that we learn as much from them as they learn from us. We work together to create work,” Smith said.
The Vanguard attended the Friendtorship class on Wednesday, May 16, and during the opening activity, graphic design senior Patrick Woolworth and Marcus Williams, a CLC student, collaborated together, exemplifying the kind of friendship built from participating in the program.
Woolworth pointed to Williams and said, “He’s mentoring me as much as I’m mentoring him. I’m learning how to keep my mouth shut sometimes. I thought going into this that it would be all giving wisdom and advice, but it’s not even about that. It’s just about being two people interacting and having respect for each other.”
Friendtorship began two years ago, and while PSU students aren’t able to repeat the class for additional credit, some students continue to participate in the program.
Williams said that when he first started the class, he really didn’t talk a lot. Now, he talks all the time, according to Woolworth and graphic design senior Ryan Bush. “I think it’s cool that we get to interact with other people outside our comfort zone,” Williams said. “It’s cool to just kick it with others and we get to do these cool art projects.”
Bush said that on Mondays the PSU students have class, get together and come up with ideas and all sorts of projects to do when the CLC students come later in the week. He said it’s not really designed to have any hard content; they just pick up on the general mood for the day and work off that.
“If things are really productive, or if everyone just wants to hang out—we really just feel it out. There’s no hard content, it’s just about building the relationships with the students,” Bush said.
He said that it’s almost like an extended family. Often students, PSU and CLC alike, have big classes where it’s not about talking and working with each other. But in this classroom, it’s the opposite. “Talking about personal stuff here really doesn’t make me feel weird anymore,” Bush said.
Charman said that she hears so many different things from students about what they get out of this class. Some plan to be teachers and are able to learn about working in a classroom and teaching. Some say it’s just different from a regular class because in this one, they really have to be involved and engaged in every single activity. And some really like the opportunity to share what they know and give back to people who need it.
She also said that from the CLC students’ point of view, they were never able to see the possibility of college. With this class, many get a door opened to them that wouldn’t be there otherwise, and they really get attached, emotionally and mentally, to their friendtor from PSU.
“My heart is touched daily on the way that I can see how much these relationships mean to me, to the PSU students and to the high school students,” Charman said.
In a class like this, there is so much more than just the academic information available for students to walk away with. Smith said that if there was just one thing that he could take with him for the rest of his life, it would be to never underestimate anyone.
“Their entire lives, the students at CLC have been ignored, forgotten, belittled and mistreated. Even when describing CLC, these students are more often than not described in terms that make them seem ‘less-than’ or somehow ‘below’ the rest of society. In our class, though, they are offered an opportunity to work at their pace and to their potential, without any labels or fear of being ridiculed. And every single time they not only complete the work but excel in each project,” Smith said.
