With Computers, the Best Teacher May Be a Student : Next L.A. / A look at issues, people and ideas helping to shape the emerging metropolis

It’s not immediately apparent to a visitor, but the first-graders tapping away at keyboards in the Alexandria Avenue School computer lab are part of a clever no-cost effort to help teachers adapt to the Information Age.

When the 6- and 7-year-olds hit a snag, as they often do while, say, typing in a poem about frogs and using a graphics program to illustrate it, they turn for help not to adult teachers but to classroom aides not much older than themselves.

The aides are known around the campus north of Downtown as Wizzy Wigs, for the inscrutable acronym of WYSIWYG, or What You See Is What You Get. What the school gets is an enthusiastic cadre of young computer-canny mentors. The mentors get a boost in self-confidence and the admiration of other students.

Wizzy Wigs take up the slack for teachers whose computer skills are not yet up to par. “It took the pressure off the teachers,” says Principal Carol Labrow, who is not above asking for help from a student when she gets stuck on the school’s word-processing or E-mail system.

Labrow thought of utilizing the children after she realized--as other school administrators have--that untrained teachers were one of the main barriers to using new technology in class.

Now, 12-year-old Kathy Olivas helps test software, produce the school newsletter and install memory chips when not tutoring pupils in the computer lab. “It makes me feel good to know that they are learning something,” Olivas says of her work with fellow students.

But, she adds, it’s confusing when teachers seek her assistance. “I count on them, and now it’s switched and they’re counting on us to help them.”

Teachers see the Wizzy Wigs as valuable resources. Students--who must have good grades, recommendations from their teachers and computer skills to participate--clamor to be chosen. In exchange, they get almost unlimited computer time after their other duties are finished.

David Gonzalez, who teaches a combination fifth- and sixth-grade class, says the Wizzy Wigs shoulder many tasks that would otherwise require him to interrupt his teaching. “They know as much as I do, which is, I guess, OK,” he says.

The hint of ambivalence in Gonzalez’s comment is understandable: Wizzy Wigs’ facility with computers has redefined their relationships with teachers.

As schools across the country spend billions updating their computers, it’s becoming clear that those who know how to operate the equipment will be in great demand--whether they are teachers or students. Books do not have to be rebooted, but computer software does. And teachers won’t have time to help every student who gets marooned out in cyberspace.

Plus, students love to contribute, especially if they are learning at the same time. Mario Cruz, 11, says that if he weren’t a Wizzy Wig he would spend his school breaks at home, watching TV all day. “I’d rather be here,” he says.