Conference for Black Student Leaders Focuses on ‘Good Kids’ : Youth: Workshop seeks to help those who are often ignored. Topics include dating, college admission and racism.

It isn’t easy being a teen-ager in urban Los Angeles these days.

There are the same anxieties over careers, college and growing up that students always have faced. Then add the stresses created by a fast-paced city torn by rioting and racial strife.

A conference Saturday convened black student leaders from high schools across the county to grapple with everything from dating to racism to conflict mediation. The African-American Student Leadership Conference at Cal State Dominguez Hills was designed to focus on teen-agers who are rarely in the public eye--the good youths--and help them understand and handle an increasingly difficult world.

“All the focus seems to be on the troublemakers,” said organizer Wesley Mitchell, who heads the Los Angeles Unified School District Police. “But the good kids need help too.”

On Saturday, several hundred learned the ABCs of college admissions, heard a motivational rap song by the Crenshaw High School choir, and sat through sessions such as “Who Are You and Where Do You Come From” and “Making the Right Moves: Dating and Social Etiquette.”

Dr. Michael Scott, urged the young people to understand their ethnic history as a way of understanding themselves. Self-hatred among African-Americans, he said, is the root of many problems in the community.

To show the difficulties black males face in society, he asked all the black men in the room to stand up and then told the class that statistics show that one in 10 of them will be a victim of homicide and that one in three will be sent to jail. Young people must try to end that cycle of destruction, he said.

“I’m a doctor. I’m relatively well off. I could be on the golf course this morning,” he said. “Instead, I’m here trying to get your attention.”

School psychologist Billie Thomas taught relaxation techniques for the students to use when chaos takes over their lives. “When you’re feeling tense, don’t go home and yell at your mom, kick your cat and hit your brother. . . . Learn to relax.”

Setting concrete goals, Thomas said, is the best way of moving life in a positive direction.

“It’s hard being a teen-ager. It’s real hard,” she said. “But let me tell you this--it’s even harder being an adult who has not set some goals and priorities. If you do not prepare yourself, you’re setting yourself up for even more stress than you have right now.”

Participants gave the conference high marks, saying the regular classroom gives them little time to step back from academics and deal with real life.

“I learned how to introduce my date to my parents,” said Shannon Lawrence, 15, a sophomore at Gardena High School who wants to be the first black President. “They told me how to fold my napkin and conduct myself. Where else am I going to learn that?”

Michallene Hooper, 14, a freshman at Markham Magnet School, said the conference will help her resist peer pressure aimed at leading her in the wrong direction.

“A lot of times you go to school and your group of friends says: ‘Aw, don’t go to class. Come hang out.’ And a lot of times you go with them. This (ideas put forth at the conference) is giving us an alternative. We feel like people are behind us.”

Members of the Council of Black Administrators, the conference sponsors, said its effects cannot always be measured immediately.

“Some of these students might have decided to go to college today,” said Bettye White, assistant principal at Porter Middle School in Granada Hills.

“Maybe they learned a tip on dating that would have taken them years. Maybe they saw some role model that will inspire them. Some of them might not even be sure what they learned, but I’m sure something, one little thing, will stand out.”