DARE PROGRAM AIMS TO SET YOUNG PEOPLE ON THE RIGHT TRACK

Children Learn Life Lessons By Working Through Possible Scenarios And
Formulating Their Own Conclusions

This is the problem that four students in the back of Mrs. Leblanc's
Grade 5 class are tackling: What do they do if some popular kids come
to their house and brought with them some wine coolers.

The exercise comes out of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE)
program handbook.

The Grade 5 Hubbard Elementary School students are being lead through
the DARE program by Cst. Marie Dumont of the District 2 RCMP.

At this point in the morning the students and Dumont have gone over
the dangers of alcohol abuse and are putting what they've learned to
use.

The current exercise, with the wine cooler example, has four
parts.

Troy Glover explains the first part as defining the
problem.

"We have to say what the problem is and this one is the popular kids
brought wine coolers over," Glover said.

The second step is to assess what the kids could do in the
situation.

Karley Charette said the two options she came up with are to say yes
or no to drinking some of the wine coolers.

Mickey Brown handles the third aspect of the problem, which is how to
respond to the situation based on the assessment.

"I would say no to the kids with the wine coolers," Brown
said.

Now for the final part of the exercise - the evaluation process -
where the students look back on their decisions and decide if they
made the right choice.

All four kids in the group decided to say no to alcohol and Tiffany
Glover has decided that was the right choice to make.

"You should always say no to drugs and alcohol," she
said.

If you didn't notice the first letter in each of the different steps
spell out DARE.

While the concept of saying no to drugs and alcohol ha s been around
for years, Dumont stresses the importance of getting the message out
to students at an early age.

For the past couple of years Dumont has been spending time in
different schools teaching students about the DARE program and making
positive choices in their lives.

The students seem to be enjoying having a police officer teaching
their class and many hands go up whenever Dumont asks a question.

The way the course is taught to students involves a lot of interactive
methods such as class discussions, true and false questions and some
of Dumont's own observations and stories to reinforce the lessons to
the students.

Take for instance the story she tells the students about peer
pressure.

"Your friends can sometimes get you in trouble and peer pressure you
to do things you shouldn't," Dumont said.

She talks about the former skateboard park that was located behind the
community centre.

What started off as a place for skateboarders to have fun ended up
with some people pressuring others to drink and do drugs.

This lead to a whole host of other problems, including assaults and
some people selling drugs.

The skate park was eventually closed because of the actions of a few,
she said.

The students in Dumont's DARE class also learn a whole host of facts
about alcohol and when she asks which fact is the most important to
the students all the hands shoot up and a variety of answers are given.

So many answers that it's obvious the students are absorbing what
Dumont is trying to teach them.

Eventually recess rolls around and the students' time with Dumont is
up for this week as she moves on to another class.

However, she'll be back next week ready to talk with students about
another aspect of the DARE program in an attempt to get the message
into their heads now, hoping it will stick.