Dramatic Awakenings

In a circle the nine third-graders sit, their hands tucked beneath them, their legs swinging with nervous energy. Picture-perfect in their uniforms of blue and white, they watch each other with sidelong glances but remain silent. Their legs swing faster.

Three grown-ups sit with them, perched on the pint-sized plastic chairs, coaxing smiles before beginning class, not with the Pledge of Allegiance or a reference to last night’s homework but with Good Thing/Bad Thing. Round the circle they go, children and teachers alike, listing one good thing that happened since last they met, and one bad thing.

“My bad thing was that I had to do homework,” one boy says. “My good thing is that I got to go to the carnival.”

Some of the children, mostly the girls, only shake their heads, too shy to speak.

“Nothing at all?” asks one of the grown-ups. “Well, if you remember anything, just raise your hand.”

Then the rotation reverses, and each must deliver a compliment to the person sitting next to them.

“You did good,” says one boy to another.

“One of the many things I like about you,” says one teacher to the little girl on her right, “is that you have a kind heart and are always respectful.”

“Thank you,” says the girl, her voice hidden behind a smile so big it makes her wriggle.

If some of the compliments are little more than a mutter, the responses are buoyant with grins and giggles and squirms of pleasure. Hands appear, legs grow still and smiles are shared directly.

The effect overall is dramatic.

This group, gathered in one of the supplementary bungalows that squat in double rows behind Burnett Elementary School in Long Beach, is a session of Dramatic Results, a nonprofit organization that uses writing, storytelling, theater and other arts-based programs to help at-risk kids, although that term is a bit misleading. The children Dramatic Results seeks to help are often the quiet ones whose troubles at home or in school cause them to shut down as much as act out.

“We want to help the invisible ones,” says founder and executive director Christi Wilkins, “the ones who so easily slip through the cracks.”

The program is designed to give kids one-on-one attention to show them alternative ways to communicate, to express their feelings in ways other than shutting down or hitting someone.

Pilot Programs in

Oakland, San Francisco

Seven years ago, Wilkins, now 39, began a pilot program at Webster Elementary School in Long Beach; this year, she and her staff of 10 full-time instructors worked with children in 16 elementary and middle schools in Long Beach and Wilmington. This fall, they will open pilot programs in Oakland and San Francisco. Begun with a $2,500 seed grant, the group now has a budget of $300,000, almost half of which comes from the schools it serves, the rest contributions from corporations including PacifiCare and Ralphs/Food4Less, foundations and individuals.

Each hourlong class runs one day a week for 12 weeks, with three instructors working with 10 students. Some schools, like Burnett, contract for more than one class; the children, 8- to 12-year-olds selected by teachers and guidance counselors, are grouped by grades.

Mayra Fernandez, who until this year taught third-graders at Wilmington Park Elementary School, saw many of her students turned around in a way she calls “miraculous.”

“Children can just shrink themselves so you don’t notice them,” she says, “even if you’re really looking. And others, they would act out because they didn’t feel part of the group. After working with Dramatic Results, all of them, the very shy ones and the ones who caused trouble, were ready to participate. It was extraordinary.”

The idea for Dramatic Results evolved during Wilkins’ previous job as a grant writer for Stop Gap, an Orange County group that brings therapeutic drama programs--interactive plays and readings--to a number of venues, including local schools. Wilkins saw a need for smaller, more specialized groups.

Around the same time, Wilkins’ mother, Carole Rouin, an attorney and family law mediator, asked Wilkins to do some research into what support groups were available for children of divorce and troubled families. The overlap between the two women’s interests was readily apparent, and Rouin made a business proposition.

“She gave me $2,500 and said, ‘Do something.’ So I contacted a woman I had worked with at Stop Gap, and we put together a curriculum,” Wilkins says.

Rouin, who is now chairwoman of the Dramatic Results executive board, also donated space within her Long Beach World Trade Center digs, complete with a breathtaking view of the harbor.

“[The view] makes the long hours a little easier to take,” says Wilkins, combing through Everestian stacks of papers for a staff list--that and the building’s day-care center, where Wilkins’ 2-year-old, Daniel, hangs out, with visits from Mom and Grandma.

Most of the Dramatic Results instructors are, fittingly, members of the theater--working actors, writers, directors, some of whom have had experience working with children, some of whom haven’t. When hired, they receive 12 hours of intensive training and then begin as “active participants,” apprentices, for up to a year before becoming full-time team members.

All the instructors also receive salaries.

“I don’t use volunteers,” says Wilkins, “because the training and the commitment is so extensive. The kids are taught by the same team for the entire 12 weeks. Consistency is so important to our success.”

“Everyone got paid from the beginning except Christi,” says Rouin, with a laugh, “that was something she felt very strongly about.” (Wilkins did not officially become a member of the paid staff until 1995.)

The program’s success is measurable not only in lifted heads, direct gazes and smiles, but in numbers. Last year on average, 70% of students involved improved their reading levels, most by one or more letter grades; attendance improved on average by 34%; and 50% showed marked improvement in effort.

Its Preventive Nature

Makes Program Unique

“It’s a unique program because it’s a preventive program,” says Mary Castagne, program director for the Crail Johnson Foundation, which has made a $15,000 annual grant to Dramatic Results from its beginning. “We don’t usually support one organization for so many years, but we really believe in the program. It’s relatively small, but it makes a big difference.”

For Reymundo Acosta, having an adult to talk to made all the difference in the world. After an older friend committed suicide, the 10-year-old began withdrawing.

“Everything was affected,” says his mother, Elvira. “His school work, his friendships. He didn’t seem to love anymore.”

A teacher suggested Reymundo for the next Dramatic Results session, during which teachers encouraged him to write a book about his feelings.

“It helped me get it off my chest,” Reymundo says. “I stopped thinking about it all the time, and it helped me do my work. It’s a great class for kids who need help, who need someone to talk to.”

The problems underlying the students’ poor scholarship are myriad. Some, like Reymundo’s, are specific, others more chronic.

“We have a lot of single-parent family situations, a lot of low-income families; we have immigration issues, incarcerated parents, we have lots of violence in the home,” Wilkins says.

“These kids are not a ‘certain kind’ of kid,” stresses instructor Kate Noonan. “They get labeled too often; we don’t want to label them here.”

Some Children Need

Extensive Follow-Up

But the program won’t work unless the school is willing to recognize some of these problems and provide follow-up resources, Wilkins says.

“There have been about five times in the past seven years that it hasn’t really worked, and usually that was because the school would not recognize that some of these problems are ongoing. We aren’t a magic wand; we just try to help. And these kids need extra help.”

Wilkins knows exactly how they feel. Her childhood was by no means idyllic. She spent most of her early years in southern Iran, behind the walls of her stepfather’s family compound. When she was 7, her mother fled with her to Southern California. Life did not much improve for Wilkins, who spoke little English and knew almost nothing about Western culture.

“That was back when the state of California still gave IQ tests,” she says. “And I flunked. They categorized me as borderline retarded.”

Her mother tutored her in English, but family crises and her rebellious personality prevented Wilkins from truly fitting in to a traditional classroom setting. When she was 15, she dropped out of high school.

“It was a good year to drop out, as it turns out,” she says.

The mother and daughter were living in Davis at the time, and the University of California had just launched a continuation program for at-risk kids, “of which I was certainly one.” Students worked on individual contracts with individual teachers who often applied rather untraditional methods.

“It was the ‘70s,” Wilkins says, “and I was into weaving. So they said no problem, but I had to take it further. I sheared my own wool, carded it, dyed it, wove it--and that was my history, my science, my arts. It was a real beginning for me. The professors would work with us one-on-one and tell us we weren’t losers, that we were often the brightest kids.”

Wilkins got her GED and pursued a college education--hopscotching across the country before settling at Wilson College, a small all-women’s school in Pennsylvania.

“It was a 7-1 student-teacher ratio, and I just thrived,” she says.

She Knew How It

Felt to Not Fit In

In 1988, she began working at Stop Gap, and four years later, when her mother issued her challenge--to do something to help troubled kids--the answer came surprisingly easily.

“I knew what it was like not to fit, and I knew what had made a difference in my life,” she says. “And my thought was that if I also showed these kids examples of people supporting themselves as artists, that would help them use their own imaginations about their futures. I want to give them different role models.”

In the bungalow at Burnett Elementary, the children are making inside/outside boxes. On the outside of the boxes, they’re writing and drawing what people think about them. On slips of paper they then write what makes them special, what makes them sad, what they care about, what their dreams are, and put these slips in the box. When they are done, they return to the circle and share one thing from the outside, one thing from inside. Their choice.

“Some people think when they hit me, it makes me sad, but it doesn’t,” reads one little boy from the outside of his box. Then he pulls out his dream. “To be a movie star,” he says.

Mary McNamara can be reached by e-mail at mary.mcnamara@latimes.com.