Sebastian Z.

DARE

Dare was really fun this year!  I learned about alcohol, smoking, bullying and peer pressure and how to get out of a sticky situation.  Officer Mark made learning very fun by incorporating games like DARE baseball.  

In DARE I learned how to make good decisions. In DARE we used our DARE decision making model; define, assess, respond and evaluate.  The way we used our DARE decision making model was Officer Mark showed us a quick video and we would talk about what we would do.  For example, if someone was trying to get me to smoke a cigarette or buy cigarettes,  I would say NO! If that person was one of my friends pressuring me to try it, it is called peer pressure.  I could choose to try it or not. I would choose to say no and then walk away.  Do you know that there are 200 known chemicals that can harm you in cigarettes? I would not want to harm my body and be unhealthy.

In DARE we talked about smoking and how harmful it is to your body. People want to smoke because of the nicotine cigarettes contain. The nicotine makes the cigarettes addicting. It is illegal for people under 18 to buy tobacco. I think that they should raise the age to 20.  Every year many people die from cigarettes.  In the United States greater than 400,000 people die  per year from smoking. There are about 50,000 people who die from being around people that smoke.  Smoking is bad for your health because it can cause cancer and damage your teeth and skin.

In my DARE class I also learned about bullying and how it is bad to bully people. I learned  if someone is mean to me or another person I should get a parent or a responsible adult to help me.  Bullying is bad because it can hurt a person’s feelings and it gives a person a bad reputation.  To help stop bullying, I can stand up for myself and say STOP! I can also stick up for another person who is getting bullied.

 Another thing I learned about in DARE was alcohol and how it can affect you.  Alcohol can cause slow reflexes and coordination loss.   For example,  if you were driving and you had to hit the brakes fast,  you probably could not.  Another bad thing about alcohol  is that it causes 75,000 alcohol related deaths each year in the U.S.. You have to be 21 years old to drink alcohol and many young people don’t follow that rule.

Overall, in all of my DARE classes this year, I had fun, learned a lot and most importantly learned how to keep my body safe and healthy.  Thank you Officer Mark!