Small Town News

DARE to make good choices

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Chatfield Officer Miliander will teach students

It may be about 20 years since Chatfield Police Officer Aaron Miliander was in upper elementary grades. But recently he's taken a DARE -- and that's just where you'll find him.

Miliander recently attended Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) training in the Twin Cities to become Chatfield's new DARE officer. He'll be sharing his knowledge on how to make wise choices.

"It entails going over the curriculum, writing out lines for lessons to give to students and giving presentations. You give a 10-minute presentation for one lesson, a 20-minute presentation on another lesson, then you give the full lesson to a class of officers acting like they're fifth graders," said Miliander, "then you go to an elementary school and give your lesson there to the fifth graders."

The session he attended began Jan. 25 and ended Feb. 5, and he spent the entire two weeks at the Air Force base near the St. Paul-Minneapolis International Airport, learning how to teach the district's fifth and sixth grade students how to resist drugs and alcohol and foster confidence.

The DARE school day kept Miliander and his fellow trainees busy from morning to night, weekdays through weekends.

"They have a hotel right on the base. You stay there even if you live in the metro area or close by - you're required to stay there because at night, they had a lot of homework and some group activities to do because everybody is part of a group. We had to prepare skits and do them the next morning in class. That was a lot of fun we would do pretty much anything you could think of.

"One day, our topic was 'Minnesota,' so we did You Might Be a Minnesotan if...' They make you do it to start the day off with something fun, so you get going and up in front of a group, learning to talk."

DARE curriculum is typically presented to fifth and sixth grade students, but there's also lessons for kindergartners through senior high students. Since the officers who attend DARE training are most likely to have been out of school for at least a decade, law enforcement and DARE instructors conduct surveys and update drug and alcohol use statistics and prevention methods for the officers. "The way the curriculum is designed, it just gives all the updated information for you, and then they do national surveys which update every few years so that they get you the latest (all across the country).

"The big thing right now is the abuse of prescription drugs. All that's pretty new curriculum, so they go through that with us. We didn't have a lot of worksheets, but the kids have workbooks. We had to fill out our own workbooks as we gave our presentations."

The training culminated in the officers

going into the fifth grade classrooms to make their first presentations of DARE curriculum, and Miliander found it exhilarating to witness how important learning how to resist drugs and alcohol is to the children.

"It was the Thursday before the last day, and it just made it the greatest thing. You walk in there and those kids look up to you, they're excited to see you, and when you do ask questions, every kid's hand goes up. You're only in there an hour or less, and you just can't get to all their questions.

"They're so eager, they listen well, and they're excited that you're there."

Miliander initially turned down Chatfield Police Chief Shane Fox's request that he attend DARE training because he felt uncomfortable addressing young people. But he volunteered this time.

"I was offered to go a year ago, but I kind of turned it down. I didn't think I was ready, I just didn't know how I would relate to kids. I just wasn't quite ready. I did coach some sports with teenagers a few years back and really enjoyed that.

"At the start of the school year this year, the first couple weeks of school, I was going to the bus stops because there are new bus routes in town and parents wanted me to take care of bullying situations going on there. We had other problems with text messaging and Internet abuse at the schools, and all this other stuff going on."

He continued, "I was going to the high school and seeing these kids for the first time, thinking, 'I don't know these kids... I should get to know them when they're fifth and sixth graders.' I came to Shane and said 'I think it's time... I'd like to do DARE training."

He explained, "I wanted to do it, get in the schools and do public relations and community policing, get to know the kids and help them out. In fifth and sixth grade, you can develop trust with them, so when they do make bad decisions at an older age, it's easier to deal with it - they get along with you and trust you... you can help them out even if you have to write them a ticket."

Now that he's an official DARE officer, he's ready to go back to fifth, sixth or first grade, or even teach adults who are willing to listen to his message.

"Locally, I'm hoping to make a big difference. I really believe that if I commit to do it well, it will make a difference. You'll never know. Maybe 20 years from now, you'll have someone say, 'You were my DARE officer,' or you'll see some child who hasn't had the best opportunities in life, but has turned things around and gone to school, gone to college.

"You don't know who you'll affect or reach out to, but you're trying to educate them, get the community on board. I'd like to do some different things in the community - there's lots of opportunities through DARE programming to do stuff, like trips to Twins, Timberwolves and the Waterpark of America, or having the Air National Guard come down in a Blackhawk helicopter and the officers share how healthy choices can lead to success."

He concluded, "I'd like the community to understand what DARE's all about. DARE is helping children make healthy choices in their lives. It's not all about drugs and alcohol prevention. It is about that, because those things are the things we want kids to avoid, but it's also about how to be confident, assertive, learning differ-ent-ways.to.say .'jqq'_ and.how.to.da. that

"I'll do parent meetings, I'll answer any questions. If anybody has any questions, they can come talk to me about it."



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© 2010 The Chatfield News Chatfield, Minnesota. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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