CORONA DEL MAR : Students Get Lesson in Lifestyles

The 30 tiny 5-year-olds from an ethnic Long Beach school stepped off the public bus and immediately became shy as they were greeted by 30 bubbly kids from wealthy Corona del Mar.

“They’re here! They’re here!” the Corona del Mar students--all sixth-graders from Harbor View Elementary School--yelled happily as their younger counterparts drew back.

“Will you be brave? Who will go first?” called out kindergarten teacher Francie Hansen to her class from Robert E. Lee Elementary School in Long Beach, who huddled on the grassy park at Shoreline Village in Long Beach. To avoid being the first one to meet a big kid, some ducked low, others covered their faces with small hands and a few asked the Cambodian-speaking bilingual aide for an explanation.

Finally, a slim and courageous child named Frank raised his small, black hand, which within moments was held by the big, freckled hand of a sixth-grader named Franklin, and the two became inseparable buddies for the day.

The morning meeting, arranged by the two teachers from the two schools, looked like an exchange between different countries--rather than counties--as the children rode the historic Shoreline Village carousel just a few miles from Robert E. Lee Elementary School.

About 90% of the children from that school qualify for free government lunches because their annual family income, for two parents with one child, is under $8,600. Most of the students from Harbor View Elementary School live in homes costing more than $500,000, and none of them qualify for free government lunches.

“We were chatting once about the places I can take my kids and how she (Hansen) can’t take them hardly anywhere,” said Sharon Harrington, the Harbor View teacher. “To go on a bus trip is a big deal, a big expense (for the Long Beach class). My kids can pretty easily come up with the money if we ask them.”

The Corona del Mar students, in fact, raised about $150 through a bake sale and aluminum-can recycling to give to the Long Beach class to help pay for this trip and future ones.

And most of the Long Beach children went home wearing beanie hats or candy rings or carrying squirt guns that were bought at the park as souvenirs by the Harbor View youngsters.

Despite the kindergartners’ initial shyness, eventually all the younger pupils were paired with a sixth-grader, and in no time, some of the poorest children in Long Beach and the offspring of some of Orange County’s wealthiest couples were quickly becoming friends.

“He likes Ninja Turtles. Cool!” said sixth-grader Andrew Simon about his buddy, kindergartner Derek Henderson.

“Hey, check this guy out. He’s good,” added sixth-grader Cameron Conover about his new-found friend, Deon Stephens, as the two played a few quick rounds of the palm-slapping reflex game called “hot hands” or “hand slaps,” depending on the school.

The preteen Corona del Mar children also had a crash course in kid-sitting as they hoisted the smaller students onto carousel ponies and gave them piggyback rides.

At lunchtime, the Harbor View students spilled meat-and-cracker sets, quart-size Evian jugs and Yoplait yogurt from fashion-colored sacks. No one seemed to notice that most of the smaller children were eating government-issue, plastic-sack lunches of identical turkey sandwiches, boxed milk and red apples.

Few ever really seemed to grasp the magnitude of the difference in their lifestyles, even after prolonged goodby hugs made the Long Beach students so late to the bus stop that they missed their bus. By contrast, the private, yellow Newport-Mesa Unified School District bus stayed close by all morning.

“Our purpose is to provide them with some of the amenities we take for granted,” Harrington said, “and to help our students better understand other cultures and lifestyles. It’s a real eye-opener. And (kids) need to learn to be sensitive.”