Item from the Smart
Marriages Archive, reproduced in the Divorce Statistics
Collection
Marriage course is a child of Redlands
By NELDA M. STUCK
Our Town Editor
REDLANDS
A portion of the Redlands High School curriculum is going nation-
wide all due to the Charles Dibble Fund; its president, former Redlands
resident Kay Miller Reed of Berkeley; and Char Kamper, RHS psychology
teacher/author.
Kamper's three week curriculum titled "Connections: Relationships and
Marriage," is now being taught in 32 states and in 162 California high
schools.
The program has been accepted for use thoughout the state of South Dakota
and
Kamper will travel to Pierre, S.D., in August to train some 60 teachers
who
will implement the material.
She has just returned from a conference in Chicago on "Religion, Culture
and
Family," meeting with writers, professors and medical researchers who
are
active in marriage education. She travels this weekend to Washington, D.C.,
asked back for her second "Smart Marriage, Happy Families" conference
presentation. After South Dakota, she will stop on her way home for a day
of
teaching the curriculum in Utah.
"Learning important skills can still be fun and interesting for kids,"
said
Kamper who teaches two Advance Placement and three regular psychology classes
in the RHS Social Studies Department.
"Most people will say, 'Here's something you should know; read this
book." But
that doesn't work with teenagers. There is wonderful information and
literature out there, but if that is the method they use in teaching it,
it's
going to stay on the shelf.
"I was just trying to find a fun and interesting way to teach some
very
important concepts. The kids do learn things about their relationships and
their readiness to marry, but they have fun at the same time doing it."
It all started with "Charlie" Dibble's dream of a program to develop
skills
necessary for happy marriages.
Dibble, a longtime resident of Redlands who died in 1991, established the
Dibble Fund for Marital Enhancement with his wife Helen, who resides at
Plymouth Village, hoping to incorporate a program into junior and senior
high
schools to head off potential problem marriages before they start in these
years of disintegrating marriages, family life and society.
Kay Reed oversees the fund and learned about Kamper, who had been teaching
a
marriage project in the RHS classroom for three years.
"She came down, sat in my classroom and watched me teach," said
Kamper. "She
called three weeks later and asked if I would write out the marriage unit
I
taught my students. It took nine or 10 months.
"She started to market it, mainly through phone calls and sending out
copies
to people. We were listed in some brochures and catalogs and she contacted
conferences that we had a curriculum, and a teacher and can we come tell
about
it.
"Nobody was doing this but us," Kamper said as the two women began
to attend
conferences in San Francisco and Sacramento. "Teachers here in California
started using it and liked it. Last year we were invited to speak at the
Smart
Marriage Conference in Washington. By that time they were looking for school
programs and there were not very many available.
"It's just been amazing," Kamper said of her curriculum's acceptance.
"I'm
more overwhelmed than anything else. I knew there was a need for this with
my
own students and maybe there were some other teachers who might be interested,
but the result has been more than anybody, including myself, has anticipated."
Last year, the American Bar Association in Oklahoma used her "Connections"
curriculum as the basis for a video program they sponsored on communication
and marriage skills.
"The state of Florida in April signed a bill in their legislature that
marriage training in their high schools be mandatory," she said. "They
will be
attending the Smart Marriage Conference and will be looking at the program
which they might want to use."
Kamper said "the various programs now available are each different,
and I
wouldn't say we are competing with one another. In fact, in Washington,
the
school programs people will meet to see how we can work together. We're
more
partners than competitors."
The Dibble Fund made possible the professional printing of all materials,
with
the teacher's curriculum running less than $100 for a school to purchase,
and
each student workbook about $2.50.
Kamper said that she has been informed by USA Today newspaper that a cover
story planned for their July 14 issue includes information on her RHS program,
and interviews with RHS students.
"My class is not a replacement for premarital counseling, which they
still
need," she said. "It's an awareness for understanding the dynamics
of
relationships better - with your parents, your friends, your dating, whether
you are mature enough to handle a relationship as important as marriage.
"This 'Connections' sort of walks the kids through different types
of
relationships and gives them opportunity to build skills in certain areas."
After two weeks and 10 class sessions on understanding basic relationships
and
self esteem, healthy dating relationships, effective communication and
conflict resolution, Kamper takes her students through marriage.
"The first day they are married, going through the wedding where many
of the
boys want something simple at the beach and the girls see ceremonies with
lovely flowers.
"The following day they get children," Kamper said. "It's
a very short
honeymoon. They draw from the bag the number of children. It's one to six;
you
don't know what you're going to get. They have to decide the ages, names
and
genders. But my one stipulation is the children must be at home. None of
this
out of the house and self supporting. No! you're feeding them."
Kamper said the students draw their jobs, including salary, from her bag
the
following day. They have to construct a family budget that includes their
children, housing, food, car insurance, and baby sitting.
The fourth day the card drawn from the bag is a problem. "Every marriage
has a
problem, and that is the time the family struggles the most," Kamper
said. Her
cards list in-law, loss of job, a spouse going back to school, a wife getting
a job or leaving a job etc.
"Some of them are quite significant such as the death of a family member.
Nobody is ever thinking about that when they get married, only that it's
going
to be wonderful. One time the 'minister' drew the problem of an extra-marital
affair.
"Marriages that survive have learned to work together, to walk shoulder
to
shoulder. I am not going to leave just because things get rough. We have
to
work through a problem.
"The next day, we can't leave them in crisis, so we plan family fun
- a
vacation, and I have them use monies from their budget to have a good time.
Where would you go? What would you spend?
"In the end they evaluate what they have learned."
About 2,000 students have been through the 'Connections' experience at
Redlands High alone, and Cal State San Bernardino is now doing a statistical
study of the results here and in other school districts in California based
on
student testing before and after the program.
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