The Radical’s Blog: DAREing to Make the Right Choice

My oldest son is graduating 5^th grade shortly and making the transition to middle school. One of the rites of 5^th graders at his school is participation in the DARE program offered by the Gloucester Township Police. Last week was their “graduation." Part of the ceremony is recognizing the award winners per class for posters and essays. The overall school winner for the essay read hers for all of the students and parents in attendance, and two rows of public officials sitting behind her. A young woman named Brelyn took the microphone and found the courage to speak publicly about how DARE helped her make good decisions in two situations.

One of them involved a trick involving salt and ice that she found the good sense to make the right choice about. I was not familiar with the trick or how bad it can injure someone until I Googled it while writing this blog. While an example of the thought processes DARE taught her, it did not leave the same impact with me as her other story.

She told of a situation where an older “friend” was trying to talk her into stealing candy from a local store. This 5^th grader, facing the “don’t chicken out on me” line from an older friend, found the courage to tell her that stealing was wrong. She told the story of how she put the candy back and walked out, seeing her friend do the same a few minutes later. She realized this older girl was not a friend at all, because a true friend would not ask her to be part of something wrong. She spoke for a few minutes about the lessons learned in DARE and the impact it had on her, including the strength to find her moral compass.

At 10 or 11 years of age, she learned that it takes more strength to stand up and take a stand against something wrong than to do something she knew wrong. It is weakness to “not chicken out” because someone is pressuring her. It is a sign of weakness to allow someone to wrong. I hope that somewhere in the audience were a set of proud parents and family. Not many kids that age can apply lessons learned in the real world. Many adults still do not have strength or ability to make the same choices she made. Making a stand is hard. Standing up to your friends is even harder.

To Brelyn and others like her who made it through DARE, please never forget what you learned from Officer Belcher. There will always be people pretending to be your friend trying to get you to do bad things. There will always be people counting on you not saying anything when they do bad things. Be a leader among your classmates and continue to lead by example.