Outdoor educator looks back on wrangling tough kids, leveraging diversity

Reno Taini has been a large number of things safari guide in east Africa explorer-biologist in Mexico rope-climbing instructor in countries as far-flung as Myanmar and northern Ireland Closer to home he s the educator who while looking down over a Peninsula graveyard from a school district office coined the phrase It s good to be alive in Colma the town where the vast numbers of dead people in cemeteries greatly outnumber those still walking the earth But what the pioneering educator remains preponderance proud of are his nearly four decades taking troubled and at-risk Bay Area youngsters out into the world mostly into nature for hiking backpacking trail-building and rope-climbing but also inside an infamous prison and carrying meals into the homes of people dying from AIDS Kids learned to surmount challenges survive discomfort collaborate and mitigate pitfall Highest on Taini s goals list were instilling confidence and compassion as foundations for their futures Taini now started a wilderness activity for students in at Jefferson High School in Daly City an initiative that continues to this day as the Wilderness School for students in the Jefferson Union High School District in Daly City Pacifica Brisbane and Colma Also remaining are rope-climbing courses he created in a redwood forest in La Honda and in eucalyptus groves on San Bruno Mountain Related Articles Trump releases plan to open California coastline to new offshore oil drilling Popular Lake Tahoe state park to reopen after being closed for three years Letters Allowing free speech at Berkeley is better than a brawl Earthquake swarm rattles East Bay Artificial intelligence sparks debate at COP environment talks in Brazil Taini has been retired from teaching since but his work with students is immortalized in the documentary Reno s Kids A minimal of the young people he helped guide to adulthood are dead but greater part still walk the earth carrying lessons from their time in the wilderness plan Taini shepherded more than students through the venture and his own lessons learned from them reverberate in his memory How lucky I was to have these kids Taini says They were connected to truth This news organization caught up with Taini in recent weeks at his home in Woodside The interview has been edited for length and clarity Q What attracted you to working with kids often struggling in school and life A I didn t have any brothers and sisters My parents were really old school Italian I went to an underdog school The nuns taught and the nuns weren t really qualified I had problems in my ears I was put in the section of the class with the slower kids They just put me in the corner and I looked out the window I watched birds making nests Q How did the wilderness effort develop A I didn t start it predicting it was going to go anywhere I just yearned to get kids out on field trips I went out every Friday I d take them anywhere in the county that had parks or something to see Back then there was a budget We got all kinds of federal money in the mid- s to develop development I used to take them over to San Quentin prison The main mission is to get these kids not only to come to school but to get something out of it for their future All of a sudden they start to feel I got a life here We were traveling the color line we were overcoming the gender line we were spanning all kinds of lines Q The activity first started at Hidden Villa in Los Altos Hills the ranch of Josephine and Frank Duveneck is that right A I had to get a place to take these kids from Daly City Daly City was kind of a rougher spot The kids that I had they were tough kids I can t take them to a regular campsite or something like that I ve got to have a few space I go up to the house there and I walk in I look on the wall there and I see a picture of a black baby and a white baby playing together I go Holy expletive this is different I was communicated that Josephine would be out in a while All of a sudden here she comes out on one side of her was Cesar Chavez on the other side was Joan Baez She goes out and wishes them bye and then she turns to me We hit it off really well Q How did the ropes unit in La Honda come about A I used to take the students down there to help clean the trails They d do all the trails in exchange for about an hour of outdoor guidance work being instructed about the flora and fauna and food Food was everything specific of these kids weren t eating very well We d go and have a huge lunch and get several instruction In La Honda you had particular of the biggest trees in the world I got permission to start building the ropes unit It was mostly about turning the kids loose to be able to build it We had a lot of disabled kids We had kids in wheelchairs we had ropes tied to the things All of our kids helped them We re teaching bravery we re teaching communications were teaching the ecosystem and of unit we re teaching the cohesiveness of people Q What were your goals with the wilderness effort for the students A Just getting them to have the confidence to use the life they have the best they can My goal was to get them to express a lot of the pure life force that they had to get a job to get a family to help themselves out to be brave It was all about compassion We were inevitably in a circle we were reliably talking with each other Inclusion was key These were diverse kids Q What s the value in that diversity A Everyone s got an answer it s like contributing to the stew They have different flavors different solutions of looking at stuff But you ve got to be able to communicate with them Q How do you do that as a instructor A They ve got to see you as vulnerable A lot of that is because of the outdoors You get thirsty you get hungry all this basic stuff and you re doing it together and you re cackling together Q Have you heard from any of the kids you taught A All the time Q What effects do you see in them from their time in the wilderness initiative A They care about each other All these kids got jobs I took a gang east side Daly City gang They all got jobs certain of them got businesses certain of them got kids and they worry about them like everybody else What really worked was putting those kids in an surroundings where they had to talk to each other and sit around a fire and just talk about who are you what are you where did you come from It was about respect real deep respect It was about just getting them brave enough to get up and talk from their soul Reno Taini Mentoring Biology degree and master s in instruction from San Francisco State University Age Lives in Woodside Family situation Married no children Five things about Reno Taini Loves to hunt edible mushrooms Flyfishes and likes to feed insects to trout Owns one of Gen George S Patton s Second World War jeeps Favorite books involve unexplained mysteries like The Lost City of Z Makes Italian grappa brandy from his home-grown grapes