Pulling Together : Camp Pupils Make Ethnically Diverse Friends

Sixth-graders Faustino Aguilar and John Yao are good friends at Boone Elementary School in Paradise Hills. Tom Healy, Anuyell Goodwin and Robert Rabello are classmates from Silver Gate Elementary on Point Loma.

Last week, the two groups met for the first time when their sixth-grade classes went to Palomar Mountain Camp, run by the San Diego city schools. Faustino became a bunkmate with Anuyell, John quickly got over some initial homesickness, and Robert and Tom found out that they weren’t nearly as uncomfortable meeting kids from different ethnic backgrounds as they had thought they might be.

Busy Schedule

Through a packed schedule of hikes, rock and wood crafts, stargazing and bedtime fright stories--all part of any all-American outdoor experience--the 235 students from Boone, Silver Gate and the smaller Muir Alternative School were pushed, challenged and cajoled to meet new people and learn that getting along with others is something to be enjoyed, not feared.

The time in the pine forests 70 miles north of San Diego, like the trips made by almost all of the district’s 7,000-plus sixth-grade students, culminated a special three-year program intended to promote better race and human relations.

Each week during the last four school years, schools with different ethnic mixes as well as special education and disabled students have been bused to Palomar Mountain, where the students bunk, eat, shower, hike and work together. The specially trained staff readily acknowledges their emphasis on instilling the ethics of pluralism and of conservation, promoted through a discipline system that emphasizes positive reinforcement.

“We let the boys and girls know that they are here to deal with people as people, to talk about citizenship, self-esteem and how to become better citizens, all while doing the many camp activities,” said camp Principal Helen Dillon.

“And you have to teach values to do that.”

Unusual Program

It is an unusual program, and Dillon and her staff worry about its vulnerability. Recent budget cuts eliminated some race/human relations staffers, and Dillon fears what she believes is a trend in American society toward de-emphasizing human relations.

“If we let go (of the issue) in society, then we might let go of the programs in the district,” Dillon said. Neither the school board members nor the superintendent has ever visited the camp despite repeated invitations, the teachers said. And at an open house last week, only the camp’s administrative director came up from San Diego.

“That’s what makes the work hard,” said teacher Karen McCulley, who taught for 16 years in various city schools before coming to work at Palomar this year. “In a way, you’re fighting (society’s) system and you’ve only got a week to instill different values.”

“Gentlemen, you must be on a bunk with a student from a different school,” teacher Alexis Dixon screamed over the din of 62 Critter Cabin sixth-graders scrambling to throw their sleeping bags or sheets and blankets onto crowded cots soon after their Monday arrival.

“Remember, you are here to meet new friends,” added Bob Forthun as a counter to the moans and groans that greeted the edict of colleague Dixon. Forthun also had the duty of collecting all gum and candy, the most serious contraband teachers find week after week. (Drug-related problems are almost unheard of because of strong advance warnings made at the schools.)

Boone student Eddie Popperwill hesitantly looked for a new face, and asked a Muir student if he would like to bunk with him. “Nah, I don’t want to,” the other kid replied.

New Matchup

As Eddie’s self-confidence quickly waned, Alvaro Santos from Silver Gate came over. “Hi. How about rooming together?” Alvaro asked with a smile. While that match was born, the Muir student ended up bunking alone, with no friend, new or old.

After getting set up in the cabin--one of four, two for girls and two for boys--the students assembled for their first interaction, a group dialogue to learn about themselves, about nature, and often about both.

“Remember, gentlemen, this is a school, admittedly with no desks or blackboards, where we hope you have fun while we learn about how we relate to others and to nature,” Dixon said. “And while we are here, you are no longer from Boone, or from Muir, or from Silver Gate. We are now Palomar School and you are Critter Cabin.”

Dixon, a slender native of Guyana studying toward a career in psychology, asked the cabinmates what they understood the term “civil rights” to mean.

“People’s rights,” Arnold Magpayo answered.

“Rules so we don’t get into trouble,” Paul Silva added.

“A way to avoid war, or things nasty or dirty,” Brian Anderson said.

“It means that you and I have a right to be happy and treated compassionately,” Dixon agreed with the now-serious group. “So no one should be treated unfairly because he or she is black or white, fat or thin. I don’t want someone calling me a toothpick, or saying, ‘Hey you, black guy.’ Go up to me or someone else instead and ask, ‘What’s your name?’

‘Talk to Us’

“And if you think we are being unfair, talk to us about it. You have that right. But it depends on how you say it.”

Later that evening, the group had the message reinforced as Dixon prepared them for the Palomar Olympics, a campwide after-dinner activity of games. A student slow of speech was greeted by laughter as he started to ask a question.

“Gentlemen, we will not tolerate anyone being made fun of or laughed at,” Dixon scolded. “None of us in here is perfect, and we can all be found fault with. We have to work together as a team.”

For more than a quarter-century, until 1982, the school district ran Palomar Camp as a week of outdoor experiences for sixth-graders, without emphasis on mixing students, in part because the school population until recently was heavily white and in part because no one had ever challenged its race/relations policies.

The camp closed in 1982 because of funding crunches, but the decision was unpopular. A year later, school planners conceived of a race/human relations program as a way to obtain special state monies for operating a camp, to satisfy further a court-ordered integration program begun in 1978, and to improve relations among its increasingly multiethnic student population.

“During the first year (after reopening), it was not uncommon to detest certain schools because we had some explosive, aggressive confrontations between schools, sometimes along racial lines, sometimes along the lines of ‘My school is better than yours,’ ” said Robert Butler, a camp teacher better known as “Animal” to legions of students for his woodsmanlike appearance and his flowing gray beard and hair.

Two years ago, the school district instituted two additional race/human relations programs: one at Old Town for fourth-graders that emphasizes history and a second in Balboa Park for fifth-graders. Students from two or three schools mixed on field trips and lectures during the school day for a week.

“I personally think the three programs in combination have made things easier,” Butler said.

1st Group to See All 3

The students at Palomar this year were the first to go through all three, which program administrator Lottie Hess said makes students more accustomed to meeting others. Also, more schools now participate in voluntary busing or have magnet education programs that encourage integration. “But (human relations) still need constantly to be re-emphasized,” Hess said.

“Problems are far less overt now than during the first year or two,” Principal Dillon said. “We had schoolkids telling us there were too many Mexicans, too many blacks. One white girl complained on a hike that the (Latino) girl next to her had a green card. (The teacher) Yvonne Conrad had to pull out her own card--she is English--and explain what it means.”

Faustino Aguilar of Boone School said that he recognized some students at Palomar from the Old Town and Balboa Park programs, even remembering the name of one girl who evidently had made an impression on her. Silver Gate students Robert Rabello and Tom Healy said the two prior programs made them more comfortable with kids of other races and kids who are less well off, giving them confidence to mix more easily at camp.

“Otherwise, I think we might have stuck together (among ourselves) more,” Robert said.

“One of the things I like here is that no one calls you names,” Arnold Magpayo of Boone said. “At some schools, they do. Here, people know they’ll get busted for doing that.”

William (Wild Bill) Stevens, like all of the two dozen or so camp teachers, is equally adept at teaching about nature and about human relations.

“Wild Bill’s the best camp teacher at Palomar, for sure,” John Yao said, crediting Stevens’ “sleep-out” in Critter Cabin on Tuesday for showing him that camp could be fun.

By Wednesday, half the students had been on an all-day hike of three to five miles led by Stevens or another teacher, while the other half had learned about rocks, woodworking, pond biology or conservation in various camp classes.

The sound of sandpapering echoed throughout the area--and throughout the day and night--as boys and girls busily continued sanding their wood and rock creations in preparation for a final buffing or waxing. John Yao’s jeans were weighted down with his multicolored gypsum rock, honed to a slippery smooth finish.

While leading his hike of 16 students into Lower Doane Valley, Stevens let the group crawl through what student Griselda Flores marveled was “a real-life hollow log.”

Later, in the middle of a meadow combed with deer grass, Stevens had the students fan out into its farthest reaches, asking them to stand or lie silently for a while and soak in the sights and sounds of nature. That led to a discussion about the unimportance of time in such a verdant setting, a concept that the group largely resisted.

“We just got to know what time it is!” said Jodi Baker, summing up the majority feeling.

Talking About Animals

Stevens later paired the students off to talk about their favorite animals and what they would name them, all while getting them to talk--however hesitantly--with someone new. And the strapping Stevens was right at home with the sixth-grade humor that followed, such as Dylan Roecker’s story about “Hairy the Baboon.”

When Stevens began the daily race/human relations discussion circle on Thursday, he asked Critter Cabin whether the students had carried out a commitment made during Wednesday’s interaction.

“Remember, even if you didn’t follow through totally, one of the important things in problem-solving is to recognize there is a problem,” Stevens reassured the group.

One kid said: “I tried to get used to this place because I didn’t like it at first, but now I think I do.”

Another said: “When someone makes fun of another person now, I tell them to stop.”

A third contributed: “I stopped ‘basing,’ ” kids’ slang for name-calling.

Then Stevens solicited compliments from one cabin student for another, something that had made the students visibly nervous in previous sessions. But not on Thursday. The effects of mixing had worked a change, particularly in the cabins and dining hall, where students who had sat quietly--even glumly--through the first couple of meals now chatted animatedly with others.

“I’d like to thank Anuyell for being so nice to me,” Faustino said about his bunkmate.

“I’d like to just thank the whole cabin for a good time,” Jon Abiva said.

Fight Averted

“I’d like to thank Arnold (Magpayo) for helping me avoid getting into a fight,” Nicholas Golembiewski said.

Stevens told the group that he hoped some would stay in touch with each other even after returning to San Diego.

“It’s good to make new friends,” Stevens said. “Maybe you can just call them up on the phone, go to the beach with them during the summer, and who knows, maybe the friendship could last a long time.”

How much of the week’s experience sticks with the students?

“I wonder some of the same things,” said counselor Ed Duenez, whose license plate sounds out to “Easy to Talk To.” A post-camp get-together in San Diego of the same schools that had been at Palomar was canceled a couple of years ago because of budget reasons, even though many students looked forward to it.

Duenez does have a thick file of letters from students thanking him and other teachers for teaching them about other people or getting them excited about some aspect of science or conservation.

“I don’t get a lot of negative feedback,” Duenez said. “I think parents like what we try to do. I think we’ve turned some kids around.”

Dillon said that the 24-hour-a-day experiences increase the chances for students to come away with something positive. “I think it’s hard not to have some sort of meeting with someone else of a different ethnicity or background.”

Students fill out evaluations on Friday morning, before the buses leave, and the majority are almost always positive, teachers say. In addition, many students exchange phone numbers and addresses.

“I liked being in a forest all by myself,” one student wrote last week.

Another penned: “This is the best time I have ever had and it changed my attitude about meeting new people.”

A third wrote: “I wish this was our school . . . camp was better than Disneyland. Thanks a lot.”

An informal sampling of junior high school students by a reporter revealed positive remembrances of individuals and activities at Palomar but some mixed feelings about the camp’s purpose overall.

“For me, it worked,” said Justin Secola, a seventh-grader at Wangenheim Junior High School in Mira Mesa. “I have nothing against new friends and made friends that I stuck with through camp whom I never knew before.” Justin said that one new friend kept in touch for a while after camp but, because the friend’s parents did not have a phone, he lost touch after a while.

“But if we were to meet again, I’d know him right away,” Justin said.

A Disabled Friend

In addition, Justin met a disabled student, with no arms and one leg.

“He was in our cabin and went around with us,” Justin said, “and I learned that they can do more than you think they can. . . . We would treat him just like everyone else.”

Roosevelt Junior High student Jason Siebuhr said that students know the camp is “for making new friends in a nice atmosphere.”

But classmate David Mendoza didn’t believe one week was long enough, and Kemble Crowder said new friends drifted away after returning to San Diego because they lived too far away to see each other very often.

Emily Yeast of Roosevelt didn’t like the way “they force you” to meet new people, “since we already have our own friends . . . and they make you do things you don’t want to do.” Jenna Butts agreed, but she admitted that one girl, “who gave me dirty looks on Monday, ended up becoming a friend.”

Teacher McCulley said that the program will never reach 100% of the students.

“But I have to believe that most kids do respond positively to what we try to teach,” McCulley said. “I think most are open to love and caring.”