Before he became M-A’s Food and Nutrition and Culinary Arts teacher, Earl Campbell Barbee was a student trying to find his place across three very different high schools: M-A, Redwood, and Mid-Peninsula.
Campbell spent much of his childhood moving around. “Menlo Park was the place I spent most of my childhood,” Campbell said. “But we lived in Redwood City and San Jose from 1970 until about 1978, and then we moved to West Virginia for a few years.” After his parents’ divorce, he returned to the Bay Area and moved into his grandparents’ house with his mother and sister.
He began his high school years at M-A, arriving without much of a social circle since he was new to the area. “When I got here as a freshman, I was pretty much on my own. I didn’t have a lot of friends that went here,” Campbell said.
He fit into the typical new kid archetype. “A little geeky, you know, your typical kind of freshman,” he said. Until he met a group of girls who helped him find his footing socially. “Then I met a group of girls and that transformed me that year. I cut my hair and I started dating. It was a transformational period.”
Academically, however, Campbell still felt out of place. He recalled feeling disconnected during his second year. “Sophomore year, I still didn’t fit in, and classes I didn’t like, I didn’t feel like I was ready, or I didn’t connect with very many,” Campbell said.
Everything shifted when he signed up for AS English. The class introduced him to teachers whose methods took his learning to a whole new level. “[I took] AS English sophomore year, and it was Mr. Schneider and Mr. Clements, and both of them were pretty amazing in different ways,” Campbell said. Schneider’s flexibility made a lasting impact. “[Mr. Schneider] kind of taught me a different way. He let me go skateboarding around the corner and was like, ‘You can go, but I need you to write me at least three paragraphs on the experience.’ He met me where I was at.”
That freedom helped Campbell lean into what he loved. “I ended up skateboarding more. I was part of a skateboarding team off campus, and then eventually I dropped out of high school, and skateboarded full-time. I didn’t get in too much trouble,” Campbell said.
Campbell also remembers how different M-A felt during that era. “M-A was a lot different. My aunt had gone here in the ’70s, and she had talked about when they integrated folks from East Palo Alto and the school system,” Campbell said. “It was melding people together from more socioeconomic backgrounds.”
He also recalled that the campus itself was a lot unlike today’s. “They used to have basketball courts. A lot of people playing basketball. I remember there wasn’t the PAC center. It was pretty old school. We also used to have driver’s ED in a trailer with simulators,” Campbell said.
After leaving M-A, Campbell transferred to Redwood High School and later to Mid-Peninsula. “Mid-pen was a school for unique students who were alternative, mostly like skaters,” Campbell said. At Mid-Peninsula Campbell noticed kids who fit into different crowds. “There was a stoner, a kind of crowd rockers, and mods. They deal more with students that don’t necessarily fit into regular high schools.”
Outside of school, Campbell found freedom in his hobbies. “Skateboarding was the number one, going to concerts. Really, it was a different time back then. I saw a lot of Grateful Dead concerts, [and other concerts for] a lot of all current bands back then, like rap bands, metal bands, pop bands,” Campbell said. “I liked writing. Writing was a big thing for me. I really enjoyed writing and video games, just the normal stuff,” Campbell added.
His best memory from high school came from one of his English classes at M-A. “My mom came to English class and we had to do a presentation, a small bit of Shakespeare, and we had to read the character,” Campbell said. Campbell recited Mercutio’s lines from Romeo and Juliet. “She got to see and she was very proud. And there weren’t a lot of memories like that for her.”
Campbell experienced some lows throughout high school too. “[It was hard] when they decided not to have me come back junior year,” Campbell said. “[My mom] was crushed, but not so much in the way that she was disappointed with me. She was disappointed at what my future might be like from that. She got me into Mid-pen. It was expensive then, and she’s a working mom, supporting two kids with three jobs. One of my biggest letdowns was doing that to her,” Campbell said.
Campbell didn’t officially complete high school until later in life. “I ended up getting my GED when I was 30,” Campbell said. “When I’m introducing myself [to the class] I talk about things like completing high school. What made me go get my GED was that I got tired of filling out job applications and saying ‘some high school.’”
Today, those experiences shape how he relates to his students. “I think I can relate to how hard it is, like what’s asked of students. I have friends from high school that are successful in different ways and and some aren’t around, and I can see what the pressure was like for them and how they turned out,” Campbell said. “I can put myself in somebody’s shoes at least, and talk to them.”
Reflecting on his high school years, Campbell rated his overall experience a 10. “I got to say 10, because it put me on the path to who I am today,” Campbell said.
“From being in high school here and living in this community where we have some of the wealthiest areas, and some of the poorest areas has helped me. It gave me empathy and understanding. It’s made me more patient with students, and I wouldn’t have thought in a million years I could do this, but I think I’m doing okay,” Campbell said.
His advice to students today is simple but important. “Talk to somebody about what you’re going through. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the worst thing in the world. You don’t necessarily have to be at the edge. But talk to find somebody, find a teacher and find a friend or a parent that you can just tell them what’s going on,” Campbell said.
