A Blue-Ribbon Exercise in Self-Esteem

It sounded like the start of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting--but these were junior high school students, apologizing publicly at an assembly and asking for help.

One by one, the 13- and 14-year-olds approached the microphone at the front of the auditorium full of their peers.

“Hi, my name is Luke, and I’d like to say sorry to all the people I’ve ever hit, and I’d like to say thanks to all my friends for helping me out,” said Luke Underwood, a seventh-grader at Diegueno Junior High in Encinitas.

Others were more emotional in reaching out to others.

“I get teased a lot for the way I look and the way I dress, and I don’t understand why I get made fun of, it’s just the way I am,” said a seventh-grade girl who was in tears as a flood of students, mostly girls, came up to hug and console her.

That’s the way it went Thursday, student after student making public peace with others--or themselves.

Through it all, Helice Bridges beamed.

Students at the school had been so impressed by Bridges at an assembly last year that, on their own, they raised $2,500 through dances and magazine sales to bring her back for what has been declared Blue Ribbon Week at the school.

Bridges, through her nonprofit Difference Makers Inc. of Del Mar, has been speaking to “kids of all ages” for 11 years, pinning blue ribbons on them and telling them they make a difference.

“Sometimes you’re afraid to say what you feel because you’re afraid of what other people are going to say about you,” said Jorli Baker, a ninth-grader who was involved in bringing Bridges to the school to hold three assemblies.

“After you’ve been through this assembly, it makes you feel a lot better about yourself, and you see things differently,” Baker said.

Bridges starts her assemblies with comments geared to get the students’ attention and tells them she knows what is going on in their lives.

“About one out of every four children in San Diego County have been abused . . . and what I am here to tell you is that I am not going to allow another child in this community to be hurt again, and neither should you,” Bridges said in opening her presentation Thursday, the third one of the week.

“At the end of this assembly, you will take responsibility for caring about ourselves and one another. . . . We are going to bring this school together,” Bridges said, amid cheers from the auditorium full of seventh-graders.

“Most people will tell you what you are doing wrong. . . . I want to tell you that you make a difference to me,” said Bridges, who claims to have tagged more than 90,000 people with the blue ribbons bearing the phrase: “Who I Am Makes a Difference.”

Bridges then offered the microphone to any students who wanted to apologize for transgressions, praise others for contributions, or affirm themselves.

“If you have ever hurt anyone or abused anyone, put them down or whatever, get up here and tell the truth. If you want to be loved or forgiven, ask for it,” Bridges said.

And they did.

Immediately, a line of about 40 students formed, 13- and 14-year-olds who took turns at the microphone in front of their peers.

“I don’t know what happened, but we lost our friendship, and it’s all my fault, and I’m really sorry . . . and I’d like to thank Alicia and Chermaine and Stephanie for helping me out. I’m sorry,” said Christie Hoffman, sobbing.

“It’s like an old-time Baptist revival meeting for teen-agers,” said Principal Penny Cooper-Francisco. “She releases something in them that they were fearful of releasing before.”

Difference Makers Inc. is one of several successful organizations trying to boost the self-esteem of children and teach them to express themselves, said Carol Pugmire, assistant superintendent at the county Office of Education.

“She doesn’t let you off the hook in the crowd. She has had a real good track record, and rather than textbooky stuff, she’s talking to them,” Pugmire said.

“You’re not used to going up to your boss on a daily level, and you’re not trained to say very sensitive, interpersonal things, and you don’t touch or hug, or all those things,” Pugmire said.

“That’s very difficult for children, particularly in middle schools,” she said.

But schools need to be ready for what happens after Bridges and other self-esteem lecturers come and go, said Patrick Mitchell, assistant principal at Chula Vista High School, where Bridges spoke last year.

“When Helice gets into something, she’s digging into deep stuff: divorce, sexual abuse and the like. There had better be some follow-up, and your teachers had better be prepared to talk about it with their students,” Mitchell said.

“If you don’t do that, I think you’re asking for trouble, and really it’s unfair to the students because of the kinds of issues and problems that are going to be raised.”

Chula Vista High did prepare for Bridges by training its teachers and counselors to talk with students afterward.

Mitchell said he is skeptical of the self-esteem movement because he feels that so many of its promoters are just in it to make a buck.

“When I saw this presentation at a workshop, I thought it was a little corny, but I went through it. In spite of the fact that it seems somewhat manipulative, it was effective,” Mitchell said.

“Yeah, it is packaged, but it works,” he said.

“You never know what goes on inside each child, but I do know we had a lot of students who said they went home and talked to their parents for the first time,” he said. “Parents were getting up there in front of strangers and saying to their children, ‘I was wrong.’ . . . It’s a very cathartic type of thing.”

But some students at Diegueno Junior High said that, although it works, it doesn’t last.

“How many people do you see wearing blue ribbons today? It might work for a couple of days for some people, but then it’s back to the same old routine,” said Eric Schumacher, 14, an eighth-grader.

Bridges, 49, was a real estate agent, rich but miserable, before she got into the self-esteem business.

“The more money my clients made and I made, it didn’t seem we were getting any happier,” she said. “So I just said stop the world and let me off.

“It’s not as hard as it looks to build good relationships. It just takes openness and vulnerability, and the will to do it.

“I am focused on the end result that every single young person in that room walks out knowing that they are unique, special and cared about.”

She gets a lot of people who call her crazy and on the far side of eccentric, but she doesn’t mind.

“It’s the societal model that says it’s not right to show your feelings. Everything I do is about opening your feelings,” she said.

Bridges said her lectures do not cure the spirit, but rather provide the opportunity for a cure.

“If you’re going to do something well, you’re going to have to work at it. I’m not saying it’s a one-time shot, but it’s an opening.”