Higher Learning : Youths From Vastly Different Backgrounds Get Lessons on Rock Climbing--and Life

Sixteen-year-old Cesar R. is the type of young tough that Philip Burgers, 15, would not dare look in the eye on a normal day.

With his close-cropped hair, tattooed hand and baggy clothes, Cesar is what people in Philip’s Rancho Palos Verdes neighborhood would consider a scary-looking Latino, someone whose presence on their streets would be cause to call the police.

Yet last month, Cesar, Philip and eight other youths spent five days camping and rock climbing together at Joshua Tree National Monument in an effort to break down stereotypes that tend to keep people like them worlds apart.

The trip was part of an unusual cultural exchange program that brought together teen-agers from two disparate places--Chadwick School, a private K-12 day school on the Palos Verdes Peninsula that lists Maureen Reagan and Liza Minnelli among its alumni, and Rancho San Antonio, a residential treatment facility in Chatsworth for troubled youths.

The boys learned more than how to climb rocks and rappel down them. They also participated in organized discussions in which they probed their feelings on everything from fears to career hopes.

“What I really liked was meeting these kinds of people,” Philip said later. “It wasn’t the first time I’ve talked to troublemakers, but never anyone who committed major crimes like these guys did. I was expecting them not to talk to us and to think we were lower than them, but they were treating us like their equals.”

Cesar said he gained a deeper understanding of people from a more privileged background.

“My idea was they would be different than me--you know, goody-goody types, always doing good stuff, like snobs,” he said. “But what I really know now is that we’re really the same.”

The program was conceived in the wake of last spring’s riots by Chadwick’s outdoor education director Max Lyon, who had watched dozens of fires blazing throughout the Los Angeles Basin from the campus’ hilly vantage point on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Although a small group of Chadwick students had met some residents of Rancho San Antonio for a day of rock climbing last year, Lyon said the riots prompted him to expand the program.

“When we were up on the hill looking at the smoke and flames . . . I started to get this almost hopeless feeling that nothing is ever going to change because our kids would never have an understanding of what the lives are like of people living in South-Central Los Angeles,” Lyon said. “I thought that there just could be no solution without some empathy, and that there could be no empathy without contact.”

The sophomore camping trip Nov. 11 to 15 would become “an opportunity to bring together kids whose paths normally don’t cross,” said Jeff Moredock, Chadwick headmaster. “I think it’s good for our kids because this is a pretty protected and insulated world we live in, and I think it helps them to understand the bumps and bruises (that others experience).”

Chadwick upper school director Mark Wiedenmann added: “I also think it helps the Rancho San Antonio kids to know that socioeconomic differences don’t create unbridgeable gulfs between people.”

Some stark differences between the two groups of boys were nevertheless apparent on a recent evening, when four of the five Chadwick students traveled to Rancho San Antonio to eat dinner with their new friends, tour the facility and share pictures of the desert rock climbing trip.

While Cesar, an expectant father, talked about how he once assaulted a police officer, Chadwick student Dion Beuckman, 15, had stories to tell about what it was like to spend two years of his life sailing around the world.

After rancho resident Sean F., 15, spoke about his hopes to stay off drugs with the help of Narcotics Anonymous meetings, Chadwick football player Brian Sabino, 16, talked about his plans to study theoretical physics in college.

The Chadwick boys were initially uneasy about the visit, in part because some of the Rancho San Antonio boys had described their detention facility as “a hellhole.” But the visitors said they were pleasantly surprised as they drove through the gates to see a collection of Spanish-style buildings separated by wide expanses of trees and grass.

“It’s pretty nice,” Philip commented.

Because they arrived earlier than expected, the Chadwick boys were taken to the facility’s intake area, a small room with a pool table and table tennis setup, until the Rancho San Antonio boys had finished with their afternoon program.

While the Chadwick boys played pool and Ping-Pong, Cesar--who had some free time in his schedule--thumbed through rock climbing pictures and talked about what he learned on last month’s trip.

A gang member since age 11 who entered Rancho San Antonio last summer after he was arrested for alcohol and drug use, Cesar said it was not easy to trust the Chadwick youths during the rock climbing expedition.

“When Brian was bringing us down, I was afraid he was going to let go of the ropes,” Cesar said. “I kept yelling at him: ‘Don’t let go of the ropes.’ By the end, I felt I could trust him and the other guys not to drop me.”

Cesar said he also liked the discussions they had while camping.

“When we talked, it wasn’t about doing crimes, it was just about being yourself,” he said. “That’s what I was doing out there--just being myself.”

Cesar later accompanied the Chadwick youths to the dining hall where the rest of the Rancho San Antonio residents were lining up for dinner. The Chadwick students waited awkwardly in line to spoon potatoes and chicken steak onto their plates. But once they sat down with their camping colleagues, they seemed more at ease.

Rancho San Antonio resident Charles R., 15, reminisced about the camping trip, the food and how cold it was at night.

“There were some of the sickest combinations you have ever seen,” Charles declared. “Cream cheese and tuna fish, that was the worst.”

“You ate those together?” Dion asked. “No wonder you thought the food was so bad.”

When dinner was over, the Chadwick boys toured the dormitories.

Sean F. brought them into his dorm, a large room with eight beds and eight cabinets for the boys’ personal belongings. With the Chadwick youths gathered around his bed, Sean pulled an electric guitar out of his cabinet and tried to tune it before handing it to Dion.

Dion strummed the guitar until it was time to leave. Cesar handed Rancho San Antonio T-shirts to the Chadwick boys, who had earlier given their counterparts T-shirts bearing the Chadwick logo.

The Rancho San Antonio youths said they were glad the Chadwick boys had come for a visit, but that they hoped they could return the favor with an outing to Chadwick later.

As the Chadwick boys walked back to the van that had brought them, Philip admitted he had felt “pretty intimidated during dinner because all these guys were looking at me.”

But he said, Cesar helped put him at ease. “He said the only reason they were staring at us was because we were new.”