DARE

We began our DARE program in January, meeting once a week for an hour. One of the Waverly police officers joins our class for this hour time period and conducts lessons with the students. Although some of the lessons may be cheesy, I feel these lessons are very worthwhile. My students look forward to the DARE officer coming in and greatly enjoy interacting with him. Our DARE officer is phenomenal! He is funny, personable, but also a realist. He tells the students like it is and gives real world experiences that they can relate to. He challenges them to think outside the box and to be honest in their answers.

This past week we had DARE role models come in for the lessons. Our role models consisted of seven high school students who are actively involved in all areas of the school. I sat in on the lesson and listened to the questions and responses given by the high school students. I was quite proud of my students questions, but I have never seen them so speechless! They were either super intimidated by the high school students or just did not want to speak in front of them, because they were extremely quite throughout the entire lesson. 

Following the lesson, I asked my students what they thought of the entire thing and they discussed how much they enjoyed it. I began talking to them about how important their decisions are now and in the future and one student said, "You sound like you are sending us to high school!" It shocked me how soon my students will be in high school, and how soon they will be put in uncomfortable situations where they have to make a choice. Next year will be the first year where they have a plethora of extra-curricular opportunities available and they are going to have to manage their time. Next year will be the first true test of how successful they will be in high school! It is absolutely crazy how even in 6th grade, students really need to be thinking about the choices they make and how it will affect them later on.

I don't think DARE was meant to go quite as deep as I took it this week, but it definitely hit me hard! In six years, my students will be seniors! Crazy!