Pupils Find Some Lessons Not in Books

The school year is half over, but the seventh-graders at Balboa Middle School are just now starting to digest some of the most valuable lessons of the middle grades.

Of course, classwork remains at the heart of the middle school schedule. And since the opening bell last September, seventh-grade students have tinkered with the basics of algebra, honed their punctuation skills and studied ancient civilizations at a clip of about 25 years a week.

But some of the most important lessons have been learned away from the classroom.

For seventh-graders at the bustling east Ventura campus, those lessons included workshops earlier this month aimed at battling discrimination and teaching kids how to get along with each other.

There was a lesson last month on school pride when students, teachers and parents gave up a Saturday to provide a much-needed face-lift to Balboa’s homely facade.

And soon, the lessons will include the school’s first peer mediation program, designed to train sixth- and seventh-grade students to settle conflicts before they turn violent.

Then there are the lessons driven home by parents every day, exhortations to study hard and do well, to stay away from drugs, stay in school and stay out of trouble.

“That’s pretty much the whole thrust of the seventh-grade experience,” said Beth Pallares, who has taught seventh grade longer than any other teacher at Balboa, the largest of the four middle schools in the Ventura Unified School District.

“The seventh grade really is a make or break time for students,” she explained. “There really is a scramble to get to these kids, and there is no rule book for parents or teachers on how that is done.

“It almost has to come together magically. And that’s too bad, because it leaves an awful lot to chance.”

AN ADULT-SIZE LOAD

There are some things Ramon Rodriguez would rather not leave to chance.

That’s why his stepdaughter, Carmen Silva, rises early, bundles her younger sister and pedals her on a bicycle through the morning cold to the baby sitter a few blocks away.

She then rides to the family business--a newly opened Mexican restaurant in downtown Saticoy--and helps out in the kitchen before catching the bus for school. After a full day of classes, she returns to do homework, straighten up the family’s cramped one-bedroom apartment and help out in the restaurant until closing.

Five days a week, that is the drill. Rodriguez figures that keeping Carmen busy will help keep her out of trouble. He knows it is an adult-sized load for a 12-year-old girl, but better that than letting her run wild.

“This is the time where she could go a good way or a bad way,” Rodriguez said. “I’m trying my hardest to put her the right way. But I wish she were 18 already so she wouldn’t have to go through all this.”

Rodriguez, 24, knows the odds better than many parents. He and Carmen’s mother come from Mexico, and they have struggled to scratch out a living in a place that can be unfriendly to immigrants and inaccessible to people who have difficulty with English.

“I’m trying to do the best I can,” he said, adding that his most pressing mission now is to keep Carmen away from kids who are up to no good. “I hope I can convince her to go to college so she can get a good job.”

So far, it’s working. Carmen is a solid B student, one who Pallares says drives herself to do well despite the heavy load. For her part, Carmen knows her stepfather means well, but wishes he would learn to relax.

“I always tell him not to worry about it, that I’m not going to do anything stupid,” she said. “I’m a big girl and I know what I’m going to do. I want a good education, I want to go to college and I want to graduate.”

A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE

But for many parents, such middle school anxieties are common. And with good reason.

The Balboa campus can appear to be an entirely different world than the one students left behind in elementary school. Counselors and others say this is a time when some students begin to wrestle with real life issues of sex and drugs, a time when they start to get weighed down by self-doubt and low self-esteem.

It is a time when the search for independence can translate into unruly behavior. It is also a time when students begin to fully recognize racial and cultural differences, when things such as skin color start to matter and can erupt in conflict.

Disciplinary action at Balboa Middle School reflects the struggle. During the first semester of this school year, officials suspended 80 students--nearly twice the number suspended during the first semester of last year.

October was a particularly bad month, with 44 suspensions--the most in any month during the past 2 1/2 years--most stemming from fights and the defiance of authority.

While school officials say there is little racial tension at Balboa, a handful of those suspensions resulted from a fight that erupted after racial slurs were exchanged between a group of whites and Latinos.

“The reality of middle school is something that is new to a lot of them, and that’s scary to kids and to parents,” Pallares said. “It is beyond the scope of what has been reality to them in the past. It’s operated differently, it’s at a different school site and it involves different children than they’ve ever experienced before.

“All of the sudden,” she said, “it becomes a thing to be feared.”

Scrambling against the tide of middle school madness, Balboa officials recently launched a program to help students explore this new world and find their way.

Earlier this month, most of the school’s seventh-graders were funneled through a workshop sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League designed to battle intolerance and break down those differences.

Called “A World of Difference,” the program is being run in schools across the country. Thirty workshops were offered to the Ventura Unified School District’s four middle schools, but so far only Balboa has signed up. With 1,214 students, Balboa is the largest of the middle schools. The campus’ ethnic makeup nearly mirrors that of Ventura County as a whole at 68% white, 25% Latino, 3.1% Asian and 2.5% black.

Only seventh-graders--434 students, representing the largest group on campus--received the training.

“This is the time to get them so they don’t fall into that peer-pressure trap,” said Carmen Morgan, who runs the program for the Anti-Defamation League. “We wanted to work with this group of kids because they will be around awhile to make a difference.”

Sitting in a half circle in a room best suited for home economics, seventh-graders were asked to share their views on racism, sexism and discrimination.

“People shouldn’t be judged on how they look and dress,” said Katie Scroggins, a 12-year-old student in Pallares’ first- and fourth-period classes.

“When you make fun of someone because they look different, it’s mean and it feels bad,” added Jaime Arizaga, 13.

Several students talked about being brought up to believe that blacks and Latinos were inferior, even dangerous. Others said their parents told them that they were destined to split from friends of other races, explaining that is just how the world works.

There was no snickering, no nervous laughter. This was serious stuff.

“It’s hard when our families tell us these things,” Morgan told them, impressed by the displays of raw honesty. “Any discrimination is wrong, and that is not negotiable.”

Several students later said that the program provided valuable insight into their diverse middle school world. And they added that it was good to share their own views on those differences.

“I wasn’t afraid of anyone knowing who I am or how I felt,” said 12-year-old Diana Miller. “They got to know me better this way and I got to know them.”

“I liked it,” said Lindsey Howery, also 12. “It was good to talk about stuff that we don’t normally talk about.”

In Ventura, the program is being paid for out of a trust fund established in 1988 by Milton and Adeline Weiner of Westlake Village and Stanley and Marion Gartler of Seattle. The fund initially was used to sponsor Anti-Defamation League programs in Los Angeles city schools.

But after learning about a Ventura school’s program aimed at building moral character, Milton Weiner asked that the money be directed toward a workshop to compliment that effort.

Supt. Joseph Spirito, who launched the district’s moral character program, said he is thrilled that the workshops have come to Ventura, but was at a loss to explain why other middle schools haven’t signed up.

“This to me is critical,” Spirito said. “This is the age where you’ve got to teach kids how to get along with each other. What the hell good is a kid who gets A’s, but who can’t get along with anybody? To me, this is what middle school is all about.”

MOVING WITH THE TIMES

It would be wrong, however, to think that Balboa is plagued with problems, officials say. As middle schools go, Spirito and others say, it is as good as any in Ventura County.

But like any middle school, it has its rough spots. And nobody knows those better than Assistant Principal Lane Jackson.

He is the law at Balboa. When the bell rings and more than 1,200 students flood the east Ventura campus, the 20-year educator grabs his walkie-talkie and marches through the halls looking for trouble.

From the head of the school’s sprawling courtyard, he keeps an eye on a handful of rival gang members who stand within earshot of each other but who cause little commotion. He also keeps tabs on another group of kids who have no formal affiliation but who need looking after nonetheless.

“I’m seeing less fighting,” said Jackson, a big man with the kind of big, booming voice that can instantly paralyze a student with fear. “I will not put up with it. This is going to be a safe place to be.”

There are other areas on campus that merit attention. Young lovers try to stash themselves in the uncharted nooks of the school grounds. Jackson says they are joined in the shadows by a clique of kids--maybe 15 to 20 regular drug users, and their friends--who also try to get through the day unnoticed.

“That to me is more out of control than anything else on this campus,” Jackson said. “There are some parents who are in denial that their kids have a drug problem, and those kids set a bad example in dress and attitude for the rest of the students.”

Bowing to the reality of middle school, Balboa offers programs aimed at getting students off drugs. And next month, administrators hope to launch a conflict resolution program designed to teach students to steer clear of troubles.

“Balboa Middle School is not in trouble,” Principal Helena Reaves emphasized. “But it gets back to whether we are preparing students to deal in the real world. I guess it’s called being visionary, and I hope that we are.”

Still, academics remain at the core of what Balboa is all about. But even in that framework, there is plenty of room to squeeze in larger lessons about life.

Physical education teacher Bill Bragg, for example, drives home one of the most valuable lessons of the year when he lets students know that showers are optional in his class. As a result, not one of his students--no matter how sweaty--braves a bath when the bell rings.

“Some of the kids hated showering so badly that they spent all their time hiding from the teachers,” the coach said. “The thinking was if it’s that horrible, maybe it’s overriding what we’re trying to teach them. Times are changing, and if you don’t change with them you’re going to go the way of the dinosaur.”

Many of the lessons in Beth Pallares’ world-geography class are geared the same way. Part of the idea is to learn history. But she also wants her students to learn something about different people.

That’s why Khaled Hassan dropped in recently from the Islamic Center of Northridge. Pallares first invited him four years ago as part of a lesson on the Middle East, but found it just as valuable to have him in the class to expose the students to a different religion and culture.

“I think the ability to see other viewpoints is something that is really important at this level,” she said. “This is probably the most fertile ground to develop their ability to explore differences and value those for what they can bring to their lives.”

PARENTS HOLD THE KEY

So far, the school year has progressed much as Beth Pallares had planned. She would like to be a little further along in her lessons, but she says that every year. She said this is the brightest group of kids she has had in 15 years.

Among the brightest is Christine Nguyen, 12, who is in her first year at Balboa. The straight-A student had attended Santa Clara Elementary, a private school in Oxnard, until her family moved to east Ventura last summer.

She said she worried when she first showed up at the sprawling Balboa campus that she might have trouble fitting in.

“I was a little bit nervous,” she said. “I just thought I wouldn’t have any friends.”

Now, she hangs out at breaks in the school’s courtyard with classmates Stacie Fry and Michelle Donner. And she meets with another group of friends every Sunday at a Camarillo church where dozens of Vietnamese, from across Ventura County, gather to study their language and culture.

Already, Christine says, there is talk about college and career in her home. She remains focused on school work, friends and playing street hockey with her brother after classes.

“My dad says an A is average and a B is bad,” she said. “But he thinks I’m a good student.”

Ultimately, Pallares knows parental involvement is the key to kids doing well in the seventh grade and beyond. And she knows that despite her prodding and pleading, her coaching and coddling, it’s the one thing she can’t control.

Luckily, her classes are filled with students whose parents care deeply about their kids, parents such as Carol Schliecher, whose 13-year-old son, Jason, is a top student in Pallares’ class.

“This can be a nasty age, so of course I have some concerns,” she said of Jason, a regular on Balboa’s honor roll who dreams of playing professional hockey. “But so far, so good. I’m pleased with the choices he is making. He’s really something: He’s got the whole world open to him right now.”

It’s that kind of world view that Pallares wants to drive home to all her students. Glasses slipping halfway down her nose, the 26-year teaching veteran led them through a lesson recently on working together and getting along.

“It’s nearly the second semester of your seventh-grade year, and you’ve learned what sorts of behavior I expect,” she told the students. “You are going to be responsible for keeping each other on track. Group work is very important because that’s the kind of work you are going to do mostly when you go out and get a job.”

Pallares knows that not everyone gets it. There will be some students who fail the first semester, and some who go on to fail the seventh grade. But there won’t be many, and they won’t detract from her mission to prepare kids for real life.

“These kids are going to be judged by whether they sink or swim next year, in high school, in college and out in the workplace,” she said. “My kids are going to swim, by golly. They will swim.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

About This Series

“Coming of Age: Learning the Lessons of Middle School” is an occasional series tracing the progress of a group of students at Ventura’s Balboa Middle School through their seventh-grade year. This installment provides an overview of the first semester, including a workshop aimed at teaching kids how to better get along with each other and the anxieties faced by students, parents and teachers in this pivotal academic year.