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Posted on 06/09/2002 7:06:42 PM PDT by hedgetrimmer
Schools to retain course aimed at outcasts
By DONNA JONES
Sentinel staff writer
Students and educators have been dealing with hazing, teasing and bullying since the first schools opened.
But what may have been viewed as not-so-nice facts of life took on new urgency when outcast students like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold began to exact murderous revenge on those they perceived as their tormentors.
In the wake of school shootings at Columbine High School and elsewhere, educators in Santa Cruz County and nationwide are turning increasingly to specialty companies that promise their workshops will bring kids together and ease campus tensions.
Students from Florida to Seattle have participated in daylong sessions such as Challenge Day and Breaking Down the Walls, which seek to build empathy among students by allowing them glimpses into the personal lives of others.
San Lorenzo Valley Junior High has hosted Challenge Day for the past two years. Soquel High School sponsored the program this year. Aptos High School brought the similar Breaking Down the Walls workshop to campus in 2000 and 2001.
The programs will return to San Lorenzo Valley and Aptos next school year, and Santa Cruz High School will host its first Breaking Down the Walls event in the fall.
The workshops have won praise from many, who call them life-changing. But they’ve also earned condemnation from some parents who believe they invade family privacy and amount to brainwashing.
Somewhere in between are questions about their effectiveness and whether they are worth the thousands of dollars they cost.
"There’s no magic box, no kit or inspirational keynote speaker that will prevent bullying," said Sherry McLaughlin, who evaluates school violence-prevention programs and runs trainings nationwide from her base at the Alameda County Office of Education.
Challenging perceptions
Surprisingly, supporters of the workshops, including the executive director of the nonprofit Challenge Day, agree the workshops are not panaceas, but insist they can be part of the solution.
The workshops are just the start, said Challenge Day’s Benjamin Schick. "It gives (students) the experience of what’s possible, but it doesn’t give them a way to develop it."
Follow-up programs, available at additional cost from Challenge Day or developed by schools, also are necessary to build the relationships that bridge interest and age gaps on campus, Schick said.
But a seven-hour Challenge Day workshop costs $2,500, and additional programs can cost thousands more, depending on the number of students involved and the extent of the services.
Aptos High used more than $4,000 of the reward money it received from the state for improved standardized test scores to pay for two days of activities in January.
Mary Dunn, a counselor at San Lorenzo Valley Junior High, said she wishes her school could afford the follow-up program or that she had the time to do more herself. But the workshop alone is a valuable experience, she said.
About 200 students and 60 parents participated in Challenge Day workshops at the school in the fall.
"There isn’t a more powerful experience that I have participated in than Challenge Day in terms of the way it changes a person’s soul," Dunn said. "It’s incredible. I can’t say enough about the impact on campus."
Students gain a sense of the problems some of their classmates face and how their actions can hurt or help, she said.
Students and teachers at Aptos High School, which hosted the comparable Breaking Down the Walls program in January, reported similar experiences.
"It allowed kids to see they are not alone," said junior Brianna Ferber, 16, echoing the comments of many Aptos students. "It’s given people more insight and helped them be more tolerant."
Typically, the workshops start with ice-breaker games and inspirational speeches before moving to small group activities that give students the chance to get to know each other. Toward the end of the day, they participate in Crossing the Line, an exercise that encourages students to reveal intimate details about their lives.
At Aptos High School, questions touched on suicide, sexuality, domestic violence and drug and alcohol use among students and their families. San Lorenzo Valley Junior High students were asked if they had ever been teased or had someone close to them die.
Right to privacy
Some parents think the activity violates family privacy, and worry that while the programs may build empathy among some students, others might use the information they learn as especially effective ammunition.
Aptos High parent Bruce Mathias wondered how many adults would agree to participate in such an exercise at work.
"In this day and age, when everybody is so concerned about privacy, I don’t understand why this exercise gets a free ride," Mathias said.
Schick said Challenge Day minimizes the risk to privacy by couching its questions in the form of "Have you or anyone you know ... ?"
Phil Boyte, owner of Learning for Living Inc., the company that offers Breaking Down the Walls, declined to be interviewed for this article.
Mathias said parents who allow their children to answer questions about their sexuality and drug use haven’t given the issue sufficient thought.
"I can think of 100 ways that information could come back and bite you in the butt," he said.
But Jeanette Magana, the mother of Brianna Ferber, the Aptos teen who took part in the program, said she has faith in her daughter’s ability to decide how much to disclose.
"In general, kids are going to talk if they need to," Magana said. "More harm is done when we try to stifle what kids need to talk about."
UC Santa Cruz psychology Professor Avril Thorne, who participated in a Challenge Day as the parent of a junior high school student, said concerns about vulnerability may not be off base.
She described the workshop as "emotionally intense," adding she was astonished by what she learned about some her daughter’s classmates. She said the Crossing the Line exercise moved so quickly she couldn’t be sure students registered many details. But working with students in small groups she heard about families living in poverty, parents abusing drugs and children who had been abandoned by family members or experienced violence in the home.
"I felt a lot more sympathy for the stresses kids are coming to school with," Thorne said. "Now when I drop my kid off at school and I see these kids with backpacks, I think, ‘They’re loaded down with more than books.’"
The junior high students seemed to appreciate the plight of their classmates, too, she said.
"The question arises, though, whether they’ll make use of that vulnerability if they get angry at that kid later," Thorne said.
‘Secrets are power’
It’s a question educators should consider carefully before putting on schoolwide programs, said Margarita Azmitia, a UCSC psychology professor who specializes in adolescent development and friendships. The age and maturity of students, for example, can make a difference.
At the junior high level and particularly in the case of seventh-graders, students are finding their way in new environment, forming new relationships and defining who is going to hold power, Azmitia said.
"Secrets are power," she said. "Kids are not able to manage self-disclosure. ... Either they’re telling too much (about themselves), or telling other people (about others)."
Revealing secrets in a small group that has built a sense of community over time is one thing; giving large groups of people private information is another, Azmitia said.
"Kids get caught up in the emotion of the moment, but if they say things that they regret later, there’s no provision for taking things back," she said.
Even at the high school level, the programs could backfire, Azmitia said. While the exercises may indeed be life-changing for many students, not all may be affected. The personal information they reveal could be used against them by a bully, for example.
"We don’t know enough about who it doesn’t work for," Azmitia said. "And if it doesn’t work, you’ve compounded the problem."
Over the line
Schools have to be given credit for trying to deal with issues that have been festering for centuries, Azmitia said.
"There’s no easy solution," she said.
Some parents, however, believe that schools are stepping over the line with programs such as Breaking Down the Walls. They fear the programs, with their intense emotional component, manipulate students psychologically, tearing down not barriers between people but the structural integrity of family values.
Mathias compared the presentation to cult introductions.
"You’re told you’re going to see the truth and light, and you go through a ritual, part of which is exposing yourself," he said.
Aptos High Principal Liz Modena said the school was trying "to create a sense of community," not brainwash students.
The school’s job is to not only to prepare students academically for the real world, but socially, too, she said. Issues of diversity and tolerance aren’t confined to the campus.
"No one’s trying to tell them how to think," Modena said. "We’re trying to give them some tools, some understanding."
It would be great if parents were doing the job, said Schick of Challenge Day. Too many are not.
"Every decade that goes by, parents are spending more and more time away from their kids. ... Who are we kidding? And guess where violence is showing up? At schools."
Many parents want schools to do something. The Aptos High site council, for example, a governing body that includes parents and school staff, voted unanimously to buy Breaking Down the Walls and about two dozen parents participated in the Challenge Day at San Lorenzo Valley Junior High.
What’s less clear is how much is accomplished in an all-day workshop.
Schick pointed to Wyoming schools, where educators credited the Challenge Day with a decrease in suspensions.
Thorne, the psychology professor with first-hand experience at a Challenge Day, said she was impressed with how well the facilitators ran the workshop. But she’d like to see more extensive study. Researchers should look at short- and long-term consequences, and at particular students as well as the general population, she said.
Despite her expertise in school-violence prevention, McLaughlin of the Alameda Office of Education had never heard of either Challenge Day or Breaking Down the Walls, so she couldn’t comment specifically on either program.
But in general she and other experts recommend sustained and consistent efforts across campuses, and through all grade levels in school districts, rather than one-shot programs.
"The hardest part for educators to hear is that behaviors like foul language and hate behavior are always more about the adults who run the school than about the children," McLaughlin said. "They’re the ones who set the standard."
Contact Donna Jones at djones@santa-cruz.com.
"You’re told you’re going to see the truth and light, and you go through a ritual, part of which is exposing yourself," he said.'
I'm glad this got in print. I'm sorry to say that I think you'll have to keep a blowtorch under their behinds for awhile, though, before they perceive any resistance.
I just found this article on free republic.
My son is going to high school next year, and we’re debating between public/private. I’ve keep on going to the public high school website to see what is happening at that school.
This is one of the programs they are promoting, and I wanted more information on it. It sounds like something I don’t want my son involved in.
You definitely don’t want your son involved. The terrible news is that this course is probably the tip of the iceberg at your school. Are there other programs that concern you? There may be other articles to help you understand the nature of the schooling that your son will get.
"One, two, three, unnngh!"
I went to a drama play that was horrible (cussing, inappropriate sexual themes).
I’ve read excerpts from the recommended reading list, and only a very few are acceptable to me.
It’s just a lot of money for private.
No chance of homeschooling?
No. His sister is special needs, and I spend way too much time carting her around to therapies. I know he would be bored and end up on the computer toooooo much, and I wouldn’t have the time to take him to group activities.
We’ll probably end up in private school. We’re waiting to find out if he got in, and I think we’ll be able to afford it.
My husband doesn’t want to spend the money, but I’m making a list of reasons why it is better to go to private school.
??
Oh yeah. When do any of our public servants follow the rules?
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