<Begin Segment 13>

MN: Any recollections about Stevenson junior high school? Is this when you had a influential gym teacher?

RO: I think it was the teachers who just said, "You're a leader," or, "You got potential." If they think so, then you definitely embrace that. But I loved Stevenson junior high school. When I graduated UCLA, I had student taught at Uni High, which was a very fine high school. And I was offered Paul Revere, Brentwood junior high school as a demonstration school for UCLA.

MN: What is a demonstration school?

RO: It's a place where you could test different techniques, bringing the best teachers to become building models. And I turned it down, and I wanted to go back to Stevenson junior high where I attended. But there were no openings, so I went temporarily to Montebello for about four years. And then when there was an opening, I had to compete and take all the tests in order to get selected for Stevenson. And I wasn't a tremendous all-around athlete, but for whatever reason, you have to dance, swim and do everything, I came out number one in the city. So when Stevenson had an opening, I got it. And Stevenson is right there in Indiana, and your, many of our students are first-generation or second. But my favorite teaching experiences come from Stevenson junior high. I had this one class, the third period, where they bring all the students and they put 'em in the gym. And the teachers, they take their registration card. And in front of the students, they say, "A, B, B, C, C, C, D, D, D, D." And then when they were done, they gave me the D and F pile. The new teacher, they gave me the F pile. And those students saw what was going on. They're not D because they're not athletes or in any way impaired, it's because maybe they don't like gym. Maybe they don't like to get dressed. Maybe, whatever. And they saw what happened, and on top of that, they gave me locker room duty. So those students, to this day, I don't want to know what they did to their classmates, but they were hundred percent dressed, they're all lined up, they did their exercises before I even get out. And then they had this little tradition that if you were hundred percent dressed, you would yell, "Gold star." So this group, I come wandering out, and there's the A group and the B group and the C group, and my group would say, "Gold star." And they did this every day. And those teachers, they didn't... they would give me no softballs, no basketball courts, no space, no gym. So now I got thirty, forty, fifty students, I have nowhere to go. So I just decided I'm gonna teach them marching and some dance steps. And we would just go around the edges. And I'd teach 'em little dance steps where there were some songs, you know, "I left my wife in New Orleans with twenty-four kids and a can of beans." So now, they make up -- this is before rap -- they're making their own songs. Now, the steps aren't good enough for them. They're going, cha-cha-cha, and step and kick and whatever else and all. And now the A's and the B's and the C's, they all want to be in my class. But I'll never forget that. Because there's something about East L.A., it's team spirit, pride, loyalty, and those are things that I really admire and value, and so that was my favorite class.

MN: And how did you get your class to go out there, get dressed?

RO: I don't have to -- they decided. They saw what was happening, I didn't have to do a thing. They were insulted personally for themselves and for this new teacher. They don't like unfairness, and they could smell it a mile away.

MN: And then earlier, you said Uni High, and I just want to make sure, it was University High School you were talking about?

RO: Yes.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.