Waimanalo School teachers learn a new substance abuse prevention curriculum. Project Alert uses student validation and interactive learning techniques to help students recognize and resist pressures and influences.
by Gregory Field
A handful of teachers from Waimanalo Intermediate School and Kailua High School, along with teachers from other schools in the Windward District, were trained in "Project Alert," a substance abuse prevention program for middle schools. The training provided the teachers with a curriculum designed to help youth resist substance abuse based on an understanding of the pressures faced by youth and a respect for their intelligence and integrity. The goals of the curriculum are to prevent non-users from experimenting, and to prevent experimenters from becoming regular users.
The curriculum is designed to help students resist the pressures on them. Louise Miller, trainer and co-developer of the program said, "It teaches youth not just to say `no,' but how to say `no' and why to say `no.'" The program uses techniques that allow students to come to their own decision about the use of drugs--based on information and the students' own experience. In an activity in one of the early lessons, students in small groups discuss reasons why people do and do not use drugs.
Other curriculum resources and techniques help to validate the students ability to make decisions and act on them. Short video tapes show youth saying in their own words why they smoked, why they stopped, and how they did it. In other parts of the lessons, students perform skits--and in Hollywood movie style, get to `take-two!' to re-do the action. This acknowledges that doing something like saying "no" for the first time is difficult, but that it will get easier with practice. A later exercise, "Making Changes in My Life," gives students an opportunity to perform a personal inventory and written reminders to use at home.
Concerning the Project Alert curriculum, Mariam Holokai, principal of Waimanalo School said, "the teachers like it--they get a whole curriculum, they don't have to invent it themselves. And since we have Kailua High School teachers here, it's a real good transition. The teachers have a team in the schools."
Project Alert was developed by the Rand Corporation, and the BEST Foundation provides the teacher training and support. Project Alert was recently graded "straight A's" in developmentally appropriateness, ease of administration, role plays, and program quality. The training at Waimanalo School for the Windward District schools is the first Project Alert training in Hawaii.