This documentary explores the lot of teen-aged hard cases from San Francisco who have been given over to the innovative teaching techniques of California Teacher of the Year Reno Taini. What they learn is survival, beginning with survival outdoors, and then survival lessons in handling the details of everyday life. One of the teacher's bywords is that survival is only possible when you tell the truth to at least one person, yourself. His goal is to get his kids to do that, to be true to themselves.