JOSEPH N. BELL -- The Bell Curve

Two Fridays ago, I attended a box lunch at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian

Church that was equally divided between enthusiastic Newport Harbor High

School juniors and assorted adult professionals who live in this school

district.

I was there pretty much on a pass. Most of the adults had served during

the past school year as mentors of the students attending the lunch. I’d

been at it for only two months.

The occasion was the third annual Mentor Thank You Luncheon for the

Newport Harbor High School Da Vinci Academy -- so named because Da Vinci

was a man for all seasons who integrated a whole spectrum of passionate

interests into his creative life. And from the testimonies I heard at

lunch that day, Da Vinci is alive and well at Newport Harbor.

There was, for example, student Rob Robinson, who was “feeling lost” at

the beginning of the school year and even thinking about dropping out

when he met his mentor, actor Mike Villani.

“For the first time, I was able to talk with someone who was doing what I

want to do,” said Robinson. “He not only helped me with my passion, but

to become a better person, too. I owe him the world because he helped me

lose my fear and my troubles.”

To which Villani added that in a family of a wife and three daughters, he

had acquired a son -- and a chance to “do the guy thing.”

An impressive number of similar comments were offered up as Newport

Harbor history teacher Joe Robinson worked the room with a portable

microphone. Student Melissa Scharfe will be campaigning this fall for her

mentor, Superior Court Judge Sheila Fell, who “took me into her chambers

and taught me so much about our justice system -- and our political

system, too.”

I got involved in this program when its dynamic director, Mary Anne

Robinson, called and asked if I would take over the mentoring of a

student named Tom Peter, whose passion was writing and whose original

mentor had to bow out. I said I would, and did.

Tom and I had a limited time together, but I think we both learned from

the experience. Tom has some excellent writing skills, especially in the

area of satire, which the Newport Harbor newspaper would do well to make

use of next year -- a year in which Tom and I are going to get better

acquainted.

After this brief -- and highly positive -- brush with mentoring, I needed

to know how this program works. Mary Robinson -- whose efficiency and

enthusiasm spill all over it -- complied happily.

Mentoring, she explained, is the junior year focus of a four-year academy

program for which students sign up at the start of their freshman year.

The Da Vinci Academy, created in 1995, was the first on the Harbor

campus. A second followed in 1996, two more a year later and the final

two will be launched next September.

Then, nearly three-fourths of Newport Harbor’s incoming freshmen will

likely be enrolled in a four-year academy -- each with a different focus,

but all embracing the mentoring program during the junior year.

The academy idea came out of Sacramento about a dozen years ago as an

effort to make the public school experience more meaningful. Interested

public school administrators can apply for a grant to start such a

program in which its enrollees share the same teachers and focus the

first year on the integration of their chosen group of subjects (for Da

Vinci, it is science, math, history and English). The second year,

students focus on a single large group project illustrating that

integration; the third year on relating to and drawing from a

professional mentor; and the fourth year on pursuing their college

entrance requirements.

The program was started at Newport Harbor when then-principal Bonnie

Maspero wrote a successful grant application six years ago.

It is neither focused on nor restricted to students who are high

achievers or come from homes with a strong parental educational

background and support. Directors of the program work with teachers and

administrators in elementary and junior high schools to identify at-risk

students with promise who often need to learn the discipline required to

make mentoring work.

One such student was Juan Gonzales, who didn’t show up at the mentors’

luncheon, then phoned his mentor -- inventor-engineer Jack Heiser -- two

days later to apologize. He followed up with an appearance at the Heiser

home with his mother and a tray of homemade enchiladas.

Since then, wrote Heiser to Mary Robinson, “Juan has visited my office

and I’ve been to one of his soccer games and watched his AP physics paper

boat trials. ... Juan is a great kid and has given me insight on some of

the unfortunate divisions between the haves and have-nots at Harbor and

many interesting factoids about Latino culture. We’ve had long

discussions about college, and I have encouraged him to seek

opportunities outside the area.”

One of the student requirements is to write a brief summation of their

mentoring experience. Browsing through a pile of this year’s entries, I

was astonished at the almost universal enthusiasm expressed by the

students.

One example will illustrate: Student Jenna Booth wrote of her mentor,

pediatrician Cara Todd, “I have always been interested in becoming a

doctor, and I thought that this program would be a way for me to see what

it was really like. That was only the tip of the iceberg. I learned so

much more. For the first time in my life, I was actually in full contact

with an adult who was not a teacher, employer or family friend. I was

friends with an adult, and a really cool one at that. This has been the

most educational thing I have ever done.”

I hope Tom Peter will feel that way at the end of next year. Because he

was shortchanged last year, we’re going to stretch the rules a little and

carry his mentoring into his senior year. Then maybe I will have earned

the oversized engraved paper clip given to each of the mentors at the

Thank You lunch.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column appears

Thursdays.