Navigating Life: a Class at Hollywood High , a stirring short film showing the changes in attitudes and thinking of students taking part in Forward Step's COMPASS program, made its public premiere at a special screening at Hollywood's Egyptian Theatre on January 15, 2004. COMPASS is a dynamic, experiential, self-empowering life skills curriculum that teaches ways to resolve problems non-violently and proactively. Bibi Caspari, Executive Director of Forward Step, produced and directed the documentary video with a production team of senior students from Hollywood High School's New Media Academy, a school within a school that seeks to integrate English, history, art, math and science with technology and digital art to help students achieve greater understanding in all areas of learning. Barbara Gordon, director of the New Media Academy and teacher of the grade 9 Life Skills class where the COMPASS program was used, was the Executive Producer.

Working at Hollywood High presents an exciting challenge for Ms. Gordon. Knowing that her students come from different social, linguistic and economic backgrounds, she was using the COMPASS curriculum to help get past the students' fear of appearing vulnerable in front of their peers and create an atmosphere of teamwork and cooperation. Standing in front of her ninth grade Life Skills class, introducing the "Vision" session, she stated, "The lesson for today is very simple. In order to solve problems, be it personally, within your community, within the state, within the world, first you have to recognize where you are, then you have to recognize where you are going. First you have to define the problem, then come up with a solution."

A favorite activity was the "Blind Walk." Each student led a blindfolded partner around Hollywood High. Back in the classroom, they shared their experiences and what they learned. Ms. Gordon observed that it "forced [the students] to depend on someone else [and] to become actively involved 100% in what they were doing . "

The Photo Justice video is another part of the COMPASS program. A modern, exciting, film noir type of morality tale, it is designed to generate emotional reactions and discussion. "It had a powerful effect.. They liked the dark story. It had an emotional pull for them.It caused them to think.They suddenly started thinking about the dark sides of people, and the bad things that could happen when you make poor choices.And they didn't like that because they saw suddenly that the world that they thought was black and white had a whole lot of gray in it, and that gray area is hard to deal with."

One activity the students didn't like at first was writing journal entries, but it was a critical part of the introspective process. When they reached the end of the course and looked back on their notes, they could see that they'd come a long way. It also helped them learn to express themselves in writing, an important skill for all future education and work.

Commenting on COMPASS Ms. Gordon said, "The other curriculums I had seen for this program were boring. Everyone thought they were boring-the teachers who used them, the students who endured them. This curriculum was different. The kids came in looking forward to each day."

By the end of the course, the students understood that they had personal responsibility and accountability throughout the different arenas of their lives. They had more self-confidence and were willing to stand up and say what they thought in class. When interviewed about what they learned, one commented, "You learn how to trust people, how to trust others [and] yourself." Another stated with a wisdom belying her age, "It's better to open up to other people, to see their points of view, not only to see yours."

Ms. Gordon remarked that before she introduced her students to the COMPASS activities, "they were twenty-four individuals who would come into class and they would sit a little apart from one another and they were very careful about who said what . after doing the activities, they're talking all over one another. The boundaries between ethnic groups have gone away. The boundaries between male and female have gone away. So there was a big difference. A big growth in 30 days."

To learn more about Ms. Barbara Gordon and the New Media Academy at Hollywood High, go to www.hollywoodnewmediaacademy.com