Yo! Youth OutLook

It’s a sunny day in San Francisco. Monty Cervantes adjusts his ropes before repelling himself halfway down the side of a Nob Hill apartment building. Monty washes windows for a living. The cash for this line of work isn’t bad, but it’s not the only reason he likes his job. “My boss hired me cause I’m a rock climber. I don’t really like washing windows, I just like hanging off the edge of buildings. I never thought I’d be doing this. Urban taught me the ropes, I took it to the next level.”

The Urban Pioneer academy was a San Francisco Public Charter High School that featured an entire semester of physical challenges such as rope courses, rock climbing, and wilderness excursions. Students received extensive safety and CPR training before embarking on wilderness expeditions. These were trips in which they saw the great Californian wilderness, many of them for the first time. They return to the city, for a career phase in which they hunt & gather employment. Urban took kids from all around the city that had a hard time in regular schools.

I attended five different high schools in the San Francisco Unified school district and I came to one conclusion: the wealthy state of California robbed me of an education.

Public School offered me very little. I was stuck doodling in my sketchbook to keep from passing out in an overcrowded, dysfunctional spitball-swear-word-fest of a classroom. No learning, no hope… nada. Dante and Principle Skinner couldn’t dream up a darker learning hell. When I got to college it was evident, I was SFUSD’s victim.

The school I attended, J. Eugene McAteer, now closed down, was in a beautiful location. Twin Peaks was less than a mile away. Juvenile hall was right across the street. If the classroom I was in had windows, I would’ve overlooked the beautiful Glen Park Canyon. These days McAteer shared its campus with Urban.

While I was doing my penance in class, the Urban students did real cool stuff. They climbed, hiked, went on trips and learned to live off the land– stuff I only dreamed of growing up in the city. The school, which focused on nontraditional outdoor education took SF youngsters from every walk of life, out of their comfort zone for the better part of three decades–before closing (in 2004), and kept hella’ my folks in school. YO! caught up with a few Urban Pioneers .

Founder Wayne MacDonald expands on UP’s teaching methods. “Urban put kids in situations where they would learn. Put a kid into an environment, it will teach a lesson. Urban Pioneers where tested first, learning came from the test. Not the other way around, in schools these days, they’ve got it backwards–it’s lesson first, then test.

Somewhere along the lines, public schools got it wrong. They teach kids everything but how to live. Young people get a diploma and don’t know what the f–ck they’re gonna’ do. You can get straight A’s in school, but fail in life. If you learn only in school, you don’t know the world around you.”

Wayne said, “We got the kids that scared teachers walking down the hall, they were just young people, you know? They didn’t wanna’ scare anybody they hated having that read into them all the time. They became Urban Pioneers.”

Steena Marigold, UP student who later staffed said, “All Urban did was give kids a handful of tricks and a little confidence. You can see the change in them. They hold themselves differently.”

II

While talking, Wayne told me the story of a custom the Aborigines in Australia have. It’s called a walkabout. It’s when young people in the tribe go into the wilderness and find food, water and eventually their way home– on their own– or don’t. Those who do, return to their tribes and make them better.

Veronica Escalona, class of 2000 said, “On my first trip, that’s when it hit me. There’s other stuff out there than just me. It was my first time outdoors, I had never had an experience like that.”

Steena Said, “The whole trip is a microcosm of the larger situation. All the problems you face in life, you’re isolated with them. You can’t run away. Kids had to make changes within themselves.”

Enter the concept of the the Savage (sav) Vs. The victim. In UP, you where either one, or the other.

Savages were always willing, they trudged on for days on end without a complaint. They were leaders, they took initiative.

Victims weren’t. I loved hearing stories of sh–t talking tough kids & gangsters, who had their blocks on lock, wining in the face of a huge mountain. Stripped of their game face, street reps and jiving where irrelevant. You either stood up to the challenge or you didn’t. You either Sav’d out or you didn’t.

Steena said the Savs are “ the ones who try to make it a pleasant time for everyone else …victims don’t give a f–ck, they spread their bad attitude like a virus and try to get everyone down in the mud with them, you know lazy people, whiners. They have to live with themselves.”

Monty said, “SF kids don’t get out to the woods even though they live in California, one of the best places to hike in the world. Going out there makes you realize that there’s more than the city. Kids know they did something hard, probably the hardest thing they’d ever done. It goes to show that if they can do that hard thing they can do other hard things. It’s empowering.”

III

Here’s the part I didn’t want to talk about. In March 2003, two UP students died while on an outdoor trip in Los Padre National Forest. The tragedy spawned a hail of criticism from the district and ultimately a resolution to close the school down.

Monty said, “It’s hard to say what happened that day. The kids were on solo patrol, where they spend the night together in a camp independent from counselors. Close to nightfall, two uninvited strangers came by and set up camp next to the kids. Two kids left the other to report about the strangers to their counselors. In the morning, the patrol of students headed towards base camp. On the way there, they find their two friends dead in a ravine.

Some say they where pushed by the strangers. The strangers turned themselves in. The only thing they got charged for was giving alcohol to minors. None of the kids had alcohol, none had drugs. It wasn’t until the strangers showed up that chaos happened. These guys where dangerous individuals. They told authorities they where out there training to be U.S. Marines.”

Les Lesinger, Urban teacher said, “It was a city thing, it wasn’t a wilderness thing. Outsiders coming in, it was something the kids should’ve been ready for. It was a city thing that happened to have happened in the wilderness.”

Monty said, “Those two kids were good kids, they died trying to get help. I hope, one day, people get over this whole fiasco and open a new Urban. Worse things happen in regular high schools and they don’t close them down.”

Wayne said, “ We were hit with a tragedy. Somebody harmed an Urban Pioneer, and the district tried to use that against us. Still, there’s something wrong about putting the term “Urban Pioneer” and “dead” in the same sentence. We taught them how to live. Outsiders came in, something happened out there, we still don’t know what went on, but we know two kids who came to our school are dead. I would sacrifice everything I’ve ever done, everything if they where still alive. And that’s from the heart man, that’s real. We may have saved lives, but those two lives are gone.”

IV

Veronica Escalona said “Before Urban, I was just about me. I didn’t care about anyone. I was on my way to being a drop out. I had problems at home. Urban taught me how to be aware, understand the earth and other people. I walked away with a lot. We were trained, like the U.S. Army, but not to kill–to teach. Now, I’m taking steps to become a teacher in the outdoors. I will continue it. I want to help others. I know there are hella’ kids out there, who are in trouble, who are about to become dropouts, or just having problems all around. I want to pass on to them, what also was passed on to me.”

This article is about an unorthodox school, perhaps one of the greatest in SF’s history. Though it’s closed, it still exists in all the people it touched, through all the victims it transformed into victors. It focused on kids no one gave a damn about.

Folks like Veronica who wants to start her own school. Lucky, who crossed the street from juvie with his probation officer to UP’s doorstep and is now on his way to med-school. Sam Rockwell who went on to star in a handful of Hollywood movies. Mono learned what he needed to know to live in a tree for over a year (“get the f–ck up out my tree, homie!”). Mark can walk a slack line like it’s no one’s business. Janet, Issa and others are parents. Lucho climbed the cross at Mount Davidson. Jason Mateo still writes. Repo man, Cfor, Iron, Kerbs, J-nut, Cutty Cesar, Booger, Ray, Doobie Dan, Gabrielle and all the countless others whose name I didn’t mention, but rep Frisco hard. It lives in all of them. It lives in the memory of those we lost.

It taught them to pack for life. Handy things like confidence, hope– courage to face hard situations– which they still carry. I didn’t even go through the course but damn, I’m grateful for what I’ve learned. Mind over mountain.

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