Teacher Draws Out Skills of Troubled Kids

Antonia Napolitano of Tujunga hated school when she was growing up; what better qualification for a teacher whose students are mostly teen-agers who are pregnant, on probation or in gangs?

“I used to run away after lunch, and my mother would have to chase me down and drag me back for the afternoon hours,” says Napolitano, an educator for 40 of her 61 years. “When I got older I decided that if I became a teacher, I should be able to make it fun.”

For the last 20 years, Napolitano has worked as a teacher with the Los Angeles County Office of Education. She has taught in the county’s independent study program for the last 12 years, working one-on-one with up to 20 students, the majority referred by juvenile courts or probation officers.

Napolitano spent the first 20 years of her career teaching kindergarten through eighth grade in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

As a tribute to her efforts, she was recently named Educator of the Year by the Court School Educators of California--Southern Section.

Ironic for a woman who said she always hated the structure of school.

“Read a book, answer the questions; that sort of thing,” she says with disdain.

Her approach is to individualize education.

“I start off with the students’ interests,” she explains. “I try to find out what their personal interests are, what their talents are, what goals they have in life. Then I try to wrap the studies around that. I really try to make each of the lessons in some way relate to something that they themselves are interested in.”

Napolitano says her students are just waiting for someone to come along and give them a chance--whether they realize it or not.

“I had one youngster, when I got him he was a serious alcoholic,” she recalls. “By working with him for a while I discovered that what he really wanted to do was to work in the medical field. He wanted to help Hispanic people try to understand what was happening when they were brought into the emergency room. This is a burly guy who was shot in the knee as a gang member. I never would have put that together.”

With others, Napolitano has tried to channel tagging talents in a direction that might make them employable.

“Some of them have great ability as cartoonists. They just do fantastic work,” she says. “I try to direct them to use it in a positive way and keep it off the walls.

“They don’t always agree with me on that,” she says with a smirk.

Whether they agree or not, Napolitano makes no bones about telling them that gang life is wrong.

“They have a basic understanding of right and wrong,” she says. “Most kids are very fair-minded, and that’s something that I start to work from.”

It all gets back to finding some seed of decency and hope and nurturing it, Napolitano says.

“It’s like a hunger being fed in them. I think they have it inside, and they’re looking for a light at the end of the tunnel, a way to get to it,” Napolitano says. “Of course, there’s not a lot of encouragement from their home buddies or homeboys, but there’s that side to a whole bunch of them.”

Napolitano subscribes to the “divide and conquer” theory when trying to get troubled kids on a better track.

“They can be tough as nails on the street; they can be actually vicious and violent,” she acknowledges. “But alone and one-on-one, they’re just charming young teen-agers.”

The effectiveness of her approach is evidenced by Stacy, a pregnant teen-ager from Panorama City.

Last March, while she was still involved with gangs but trying to get out, she was shot in the back while walking down a street. She recovered, but still has a bullet near her spine.

Two months later, still on probation for stealing, she decided to go back to school and was referred to Napolitano.

“Before, I didn’t think I would ever graduate and now I am (in December),” Stacy says.

Personal Best is a weekly profile of an ordinary person who does extraordinary things. Please address prospective candidates to Personal Best, Los Angeles Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, 91311. Or fax them to (818-772-3338).