Day #1

My morning began with a tour of 'the farm'. A healthy walk from the main lodge (two or three hundred yards) through the parking lot and down a somewhat paved road brought my student escort and me to a defunct farm. A large barn stood on one side of the road; on the other side lounged a large shed-like structure surrounded by stacks of firewood.


A twenty-young staff member named Joel stood watch over 15 or so students who were busily chopping up enormous circles of wood; these wooden cookies, it seemed, had once made up a huge tree. Now, students were dissecting them with sledgehammers and metal spikes. Others were stacking the manageable pieces into neat stacks.


Joel informed me that these students were part of "Discovery"--the label for new students--and that this current project was called "Work Ethic". Evidently, Work Ethic oocurred almost every day, and it was a time for kids to learn how to work hard--and to learn the pride that comes with completing a difficult job. Joel did not do much talking with the students. Instead, student leaders controlled "teams" of students. Joel pointed out different student leaders--and what appeared to me before to be a bunch of kids on work detail began to take shape. One team was cutting wood; another team was stacking, and still another was cleaning the areas of debris. The efficiency was impressive; even more so was the fact that students were guiding the entire process.


While Discovery worked, other students were taking academic classes--core classes like English, Math, Sciene and History. These classes were taken in rooms which were located in the main lodge.


I was taken on a tour of the student dorms which were situated in two or three buildings nearby the main lodge. Each room contained four beds and a bathroom. Each bed was made with military like attention and the room was cleaner than any dormroom I'd been in. And these were boys!


Later, at lunch, I visited the dining area where students ate buffet style meals, full of protein, fruits and vegtables. Students waited at tables until they were called; then they quickly moved through the lines and piled healthy food on their plates. I noticed that students bussed their own tables--and that in the back kitchen students were waiting to clean all the plates, pans and utensils which were used to cook and eat the meal.


After lunch the students gathered around the large firepit area, gathering on the cushioned seats within the "pit" area, sitting on the carpeted floor area surrounding the pit, or taking seats in the various chairs and sofas bordering the walls of the main room. A staff memeber stood in the pit to call off "raps". He read a list of student names and then shouted energetically that these kids would meet with a certain staff member in a certain room. Then everybody applauded. The staff member read off another group of names, a staff member's name and then a room--and then repeated the process for 3 or 4 more times. And the applause kept coming. I felt like I was in the middle of a party game but had no idea what the rules were--or even what the goal was. But it seemed like everybody was excited to play.


A student escorted me to my designated "rap" in the Emerson building, a square room with twenty foot ceilings and windows that looked out over the falling slope of the backside of CEDU, the clouds melting into the scrub-brush below us. A "rap", it turns out, is a hold-over term from the 60's. Generally, "rap" means to talk, to "get real"--and in this sense that is exactly what I experienced--a bunch of students getting real.


Students formed a circle of chairs and the facilitator, a staff member named Martin, included himself in the circle (I, too, was included). Martin welcomed me and then told the students to "get down to business" and suddenly, the room burst into motion. Three or four students immediately got up and walked to another side of the circle--and students on that side stood up, giving up their seats to these students (the giver-uppers moved to the empty seats). These student proceeded to "grill" a sullen looking student named Marcus who sat across the circle from him.

"What the hell are you doing Marcus? Why did you run away?"

"I don't know," replied Marcus.

"That's such a load of bullshit," answered the interrogator, an angry looking 16 year old male whose name I learned was Bryan.

"You could have died!" A young girl joined in. "People have run away from here and been killed!"

Before Marcus could answer another student said, fairly calmly, "If you want to go just get out of here, but don't play this game. Just go. Or if you stay, you better start working. I know you're pissed at your parents and all that, but this is your last chance to do something for yourself. And you're gonna throw it away? Where the hell are you gonna go? You know I've also been honest with you--and I'm not gonna sit here while you play this friggin game."

Marcus didn't say much, but it was obvious that what these students were saying was affecting him. And just as obvious was the fact that these students meant what they said. Other students stood up and replaced students across from Marcus, and I begin to see that students were moving so that they could talk; they wanted to get into a position where they could see and speak directly to him.

Martin spoke up after about twenty minutes of students talking to Marcus; he still had said very little. "You know Marcus, all of these folks here are showing you a lot of care, and all you are giving back is disrespect. First, you run away which you know hurt your friends here. Then you come into this rap knowing that you have some work to do, you have people here who care about you, and you just sit there giving nothing."

Some of the more active students nod their heads at this. Marcus just stares at the floor.

"After this rap, we're going to talk about some writing assignments," said Martin. "Let's move on."

More movement: a teenage girl moves and talks to another girl across the room.
"Rachel, what happened yesterday on your call home? It looked like it went bad?"
Rachel starts to answer but starts crying. The demeanor of the students has completed changed. Students are watching her, but with an intense compassion.

"Rachel, I know what it's like..."

"My parents are bastards too..."

"We're here for you..."

With the assistance of Martin and the students, Rachel is able to work through a phone-call she had with her mother; on the phone her mother was abusive, probably drunk again, and Rachel had hung-up feeling more alone and lost than before she dialed the number.

More movement. A boy talks about his father leaving the family. A girl talks about how hard it is to be sober, the cravings. Two hours passes like it was nothing and Martin begins to close the rap.

He does so by asking everybody to "get close" and all the students move over to him, some laying down at his feet, some gather about each arm. All of them--even sullen Marcus finds a place to snuggle into, and I am reminded of a litter of puppies huddled together for comfort, brothers and sisters. Martin lets his arms move out to find as many heads as he can; it is as if this man has been suddenly draped in children, a tree with ornaments of lost, helpless, hoping kids. They all lean against him and each other, silently staring at the ground, at me, at nothing. I awkwardly move to the floor, push closer to this pile of children but I stop well short of contact. Something sacred is happening which I am not a part of.

Martin asks me to share.

I say something about how incredible these kids are, that they are empowering themselves. The truth is that I am holding back tears, that I have never known this to be possible, a school where kids really speak to each other--that the image of a man draped with children will forever be with me, that I never knew how truly lost I was until entered this room...I say something about hoping to hear more later.

Martin catches me after that rap, knowingly, smiling, "What did you see? What was going on?"

I try to find the words, but fail. It will take me four years to find the words.

"You have to let me work here."

Interviewing at an emotional growth school

In the summer of 1998, I had a Master's degree in English, an abandoned girlfriend milling about Boston wondering what she'd done wrong and little conception of what I was going to do with either.

I clearly needed to leave sun-starved Boston and return to California where I'd spent most of my life. That would enable me to make a clean break from the girlfriend (sorry, honey, I know you love me, but I've got to be movin' on, I just got to find myself, I just got to ramble). As for the career part, I could try to land a job in a private high school or possibly get a part-time college gig and take a year figuring out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

Teaching high school, in my mind, was simply a rest-stop on the highway of vocational choice, filled with gangly people and vociferous smells and pimply adolescents who pissed on the toilet seat. It was not a career choice.

I had driven over an hour from Burbank to the San Bernardino Mountains after interviewing at an elite high school in the Los Angeles area. There a mousy, languid man in spectacles informed me of the brilliance of their students, the rigors of their rigorous curriculum. When I told him I liked to teach through games he reacted as if I had just farted. And when I didn't say "Excuse me" the interview was pretty much over. I expected more of than same at the "alternative school" I was driving towards.

I almost couldn't find the place. Having scurried up the 6,000 feet to Running Springs (a quaint, Tahoe-like town), I followed my directions down a dirt road through isolated cabins and untouched plots of pines until I reached the school--an enormous mountain lodge. The "receptionist" was located in what appeared to be a small wooden tract home. As I waited, I flipped through a binder containing letters from parents of students.

Thank you CEDU for saving my son's life

I want all of your staff to know that we came to you a broken family. Now, we have hope. We have a daughter again.

Words can never say how much you've given us. Before CEDU, my son was in darkness. Now, I can see my son--the joy, the light in his eyes. He talks about doing something with his life. We can never say thank you enough

As I read, the receptionist told me I'd be seeing the headmaster, Will Rodgers, and a student escorted me. He was friendly, and asked some questions which I answered absent-mindedly as I walked into the strangest looking "school" I'd ever seen. The main lodge was gigantic. The entry way ran off down to what appeared to be a wing of classrooms. But we walked forward, into the main lodge--a huge room with a stone fire place as tall as a student and just as wide. I could tell because one was standing in front of it. The stone chimney rose up 30 feet until it hit the ceiling, a massive beamed structure which sloped upwards on both sides giving the feeling that this could have once served as a massive barn. The dark, smoothed oak felt like winter; even though it was a hot august day, it seemed that everybody should be wearing ski gloves and sweaters. Built around the fireplace was sunken stone floor and a cushioned "U"--3 steps on either side of this enlongated couch gave you access to the lodge floor (on which I was walking)--the room was probably 60 feet long and 30 feet wide. There were chairs, sofas, small tables and bookshelves--and there were students milling about, talking, many glancing up curiously at me as we passed by and walked up an oaken staircase to a landing overlooking the lodge. Passing through what must have been the library, we came to the headmaster's office. His door was open and Will told me to come on in and grab a seat. I put on my most charming smile and did a quick mental check-list of "How to succeed in interviews" and sauntered in.

He sat in a simple chair, and two students--girls--sat on a couch nearby. Evidently, or so I thought, he was finishing up a discussion. They didn't seem apologetic, so I figured they weren't in big trouble. Will asked me a few preliminary questions, friendly: where are you from? What's your education like? One of the girls asked a question.

"Why do you want to work at a school like this?"

I was taken a bit off-guard. "Well, I'm not sure I do yet. I mean, I haven't really seen the school yet." I laughed. She didn't.

"Aren't you scared to work with kids like us?" asked the other one.

I smiled--I think condescendingly. Cute kids, but I was getting a bit annoyed. When was the headmaster going to get these kids out of here so we could start the interview? "Um...why should I be scared?"

"Well, we're the screw-ups," said the first. I noticed the girls were huddled close together, arms interlocked. Not like they were a couple...just huddled.

I stumbled through an answer but then another question came. I was charming, I joked a bit--but neither one of the girls cracked a smile. It felt rather warm.

"Did you do anything bad when you were our age?"

"Why do you teach English?"

After a few minutes, it finally dawned on me that this was the interview. After about twenty minutes of the toughest, most pointed questions I have ever been asked during an interview, Mr. Rodgers dismissed the girls.

"Interesting interview," I said, once they had gone. Mr. Rodgers just smiled. Looking back, I think Will was ultimately assessing how I viewed adolescents through my responses. The answers didn't matter. Could I talk with kids? That was the important thing.

He asked me a few pointed questions himself. Was I married or did I have a significant other? If hired, could I commit to working for at least a year? Did I use drugs? But we only talked for a few minutes before he said, "I'd like you to come back for a full day at CEDU and see what we're all about."

So I did.