Westlake High Students Spill Tears in Name of Self-Esteem

Tears flowed soon after the start of an assembly on self-esteem Thursday morning at the Westlake High School gymnasium.

And, with students by the dozens coming down from the bleachers to reveal to teachers and classmates their secret loneliness, fear, embarrassment, grief and pain, the flow became a torrent.

Urged on by motivational speaker and youth worker Jim Tuman, the students lined up on the basketball floor to thank friends and teachers for helping them through tough times.

“I’ve had a real hard year, and I just want to thank all of you guys for not letting me kill myself,” said one distraught girl. Seconds later, 30 students had embraced and kissed her.

Assemblies on Wednesday and Thursday that split the 2,000 students into two sessions launched the school’s three-year effort to raise students’ self-esteem by letting them know that someone cares.

Tuman, who has received national publicity for counseling young people and Vietnam veterans, is affiliated with Volunteers of America. He and his co-worker have held programs in more than 300 schools in Michigan and New York, charging from $2,500 to $3,000. A Westlake Village mother donated the fee for this week’s program, the first in California by Tuman and his associate.

Caring Environment

Although pressure is increasing for schools to increase student achievement, Westlake Principal Paris Earls said, educators must remember that students achieve their best “in a nurturing, caring environment.”

“I don’t want to see kids standing around outside and saying nobody cares,” said Earls, who came to the school this year. “All these kids were saying was, ‘Listen to me.’ ”

Some of the educators were shocked by what the heard: Several students said their parents beat them; a junior girl revealed that she was 4 1/2 months pregnant as the result of a Halloween-night date rape; and popular students, who teachers said moved in the school’s most prestigious social circles, confessed they had contemplated suicide.

“I have a lot of things in my life, but self-esteem is definitely not one of them,” said Matthew Lyons, a popular senior with movie-star good looks. “Every time I talk to someone and look in their eyes, I feel just like I do now, with 500 people looking at me. I wonder just what am I. It’s like I don’t have anything.”

In a scene that was repeated scores of times during the 3 1/2-hour session, Lyons went on to thank a special friend who talked him through a crisis and “. . . showed me who I was and what I was worth.”

Chuck Potts, assistant principal at the Conejo Valley Unified School District school, said counselors immediately responded to the students who seemed particularly distraught or who revealed that a parent had beaten them. The latter cases will be referred to police agencies for investigation, he said.

“We get statistics all the time,” Earls said. “But this was real. Endless streams of kids getting up there and saying what’s on their minds.”

The statistics are that 5,000 Americans between the ages of 15 and 24 killed themselves in 1986, according to data collected by the University of Southern California. Drug and alcohol abuse and teen-age sex are prevalent, and one in four California children lives with a single parent, the data shows.

Sidetracked by Emotions

Many more students achieve below their abilities because they are distracted by emotional turmoil, Earls said. One reason, Tuman said, is that families often are not the stable refuge they once were.

“The core family support group for kids is gone, and so school is becoming the only structured time for the kids’ day,” Tuman said.

Tuman, 46, and his co-worker, Roberta Synowiec, show teachers, administrators and students a variety of projects to continue the work begun in the assemblies. For example, telephone committees can be set up to contact absent students. Or small groups can be established so that students can continue talking openly about their troubles.

Earls said the school plans to invite other motivational speakers to appear.

Choral music teacher Alan Rose, thanked by at least a dozen students for supporting them and giving them a chance, said: “I love my kids. I’m a teacher first, and I have to keep that part, but I love them.”