LIFE SKILLS A GOOD ADDITION TO ELEMENTARY CIRICULUM

It's not a new concept, but local schools are incorporating more and more
programs that encourage and teach young children to develop healthy attitudes.

The Irvine School has a new program called positive playgrounds that
teaches the elementary children playground games that encourage
co-operation and discourages bullying.

The positive playgrounds program in Irvine also had the older students
instructing the younger children.

Those children look up to the older students and having them teach the kids
to play nice and share will make a bigger impact than any teacher could.

In Seven Persons a course that was offered last year in I.F. Cox, a
Redcliff elementary school, takes small groups of children and teaches them
how to build self-esteem and positive thinking. From very a young age,
children are influenced by their surroundings.

They mimic and absorb attitudes and by the time they get to grade one are
starting to cement their personality.

Because they spend so much time in school, it is a great opportunity to
influence and instill healthy behaviours like co-operation and being kind
to others.

The small town children do have the advantage over children who live in the
bigger centres because they don't have the same influences.

But in this day and age, even small town kids can't completely escape the
bad influences like drugs and peer pressure.

Across the street from the Irvine School is the wall of a shed that has
been covered with graffiti.

The adjoining fence has loser spray painted on it.

It's clear that even in the smaller communities, children need positive
school programs to teach them positive life values.

While the negative influences may have gotten worse, schools have been
teaching kids the importance of healthy values for a long time.

For example, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) is a well known
program that has been running in schools for years.

As a pioneer in teaching ethics, the D.A.R.E. program was the first and a
large step towards teaching elementary children more than just times tables
and provinces.

The amount of influence schools have on today's youth should not be
underestimated and it's inspiring to see the schools taking the initiative
to teach the children these positive life skills.