Focusing on What Students Must Unlearn : Programs That Tackle Stereotypes Are Gaining Popularity in Schools

You may not be able to legislate tolerance, but schools are beginning to believe they can teach it.

At a time when politicians are demanding back-to-basics curricula and stern discipline on campus, more and more Orange County schools are trying a program that seeks to reach students at the deepest, most personal level. Bringing back old-fashioned teaching will be futile, they say, without first dealing with old-fashioned bigotries that can make campus hell for kids who do not fit in.

To fight prejudice in students, many schools have started “inter-ethnic councils,� task forces of students, teachers and parents with the ambitious goal of destroying stereotypes. The result of the programs, which tend to include seminars and daylong retreats, has been reduced violence and tensions on school grounds, administrators said.

After a program was set up at Ensign Intermediate School in Newport Beach six years ago, then-Principal Scott Paulsen said, racial problems that had been created when the district changed attendance boundaries seemed to melt away.

“It was as if a magic wand was waved over the school,� said Paulsen, who retired last year but now promotes the program to districts around the state. “It was wonderfully successful. We needed to respond to problems, and we decided to make students part of the solution.�

He is not alone in his enthusiasm for a goal that might strike some as out of reach. In January, 27 schools had one of the councils or some form of the program on campus. By year’s end, 46 will have joined the ranks.

The idea started in 1988 as a brainchild of the Orange County Human Relations Commission, which contracts with schools to help them get the councils started.

At that time, the commission was asked to help control racial animosity at Orange’s El Modena High School after white student leaders and cheerleaders put on a show in blackface that offended many on campus. After mediating the immediate crisis, the commissioners decided schools needed a long-term program to increase sensitivity among students.

“That was Martin Luther King Jr.’s message and that message is just as important today,� said Rusty Kennedy, executive director of the commission. “We’re trying to make that community a safer place for everybody to succeed. It’s a public safety issue, and it’s profound what we’re able to accomplish.�

Kennedy said he was surprised to read a recent national survey showing that the population of Orange County has nearly the same percentage of foreign-born residents as New York City.

But while New York continues to make headlines with harrowing racial incidents, the city at least has the cultural heritage of being a gateway for immigrants. Orange County’s population boom, on the other hand, was born largely from suburban white flight away from urban tensions.

“Orange County’s diversity has been a factor for only about 20 years,� Kennedy said. “It’s a newer one and in some ways it’s a changing one. That makes it a challenging one. You do see fearful, xenophobic tendencies here. But all in all, it’s quite a good place for social diversity.�

Don Wise, principal of Garden Grove’s Santiago High School, recalled the seminars that districts held in the 1970s to help teachers deal with the cultures of their diversifying student bodies.

Now, Wise supports instilling this acceptance in the student body itself.

Students at the school have written their own statements about tolerance, not just for racial diversity but for students who are poor, fat, gay, disabled or different in any other way.

Like colleagues in other districts across the county, Wise believes that the campus is calmer and students no longer let hurtful jokes slide. Clutches of kids still tend to separate by race at lunchtime, but more interracial groups spend time with each other and there are fewer pockets of isolation, he said.

“Any time you have respect for people, it’s going to cut down on violence,� Wise said. “Orange County is starting to address an issue that should have been addressed a long time ago. I’m sure it’s a shock for many going through demographic change, but Orange County is no longer white with orchards.�

*

Administrators who have joined the program reject the notion that schools should not delve into social issues, and the specialists who help create the councils said they are careful not to let the work intrude on classroom time.

“We see this as a benefit for back-to-basics,� said Danielle Nava, a specialist with the Human Relations Commission. “Typically, I hear a parent or teacher saying that if a child feels he doesn’t belong or is alienated, that child is not going to function in school. Many of our educators find that the whole-student approach is very valuable.�

Dennis Evans, director of credential programs at UC Irvine’s department of education, said that administrators simply cannot ignore tensions outside the classroom.

“You understand the prime purpose is an educational one, but you can’t have a campus suffering a lot of tension, with kids walking around feeling frightened and intimidated,� he said. “There are a lot of [claims] that you can’t teach morality. But that’s not a good reason not to try.�