FEATURE: Teaching them young

ROGER MORONEY
Educating children, of the six and seven-year-old variety whose view of the world is of a large and complicated place, is an exacting but hugely important task.
More so when it's the teaching of safety, and of awareness as to what is right and what is wrong.
They are in the 'sponge' years of their lives, when they are impressionable and curiously alert to new things. So I was delighted to hear the little ones from Room 3 at Reignier School in Greenmeadows chip in enthusiastically when asked a string of "what do you do" questions about embarking on a safe journey across a pedestrian crossing.
About 20 minutes later, out on the Guppy Road footpath just along from the school, I stood and smiled in admiration of the six and seven-year-old boys and girls as they practised what they had been preached.
Not so in the case of far too many motorists who barrelled along Guppy Road, seemingly oblivious to the sight of four little kids and a policeman waiting to cross the road on the zebra stripes ... and at one stage seven cars just bowled on by along the southbound lane despite 10-year-old school patrol 'warden' Sheldon Levet calling "signs out" and pushing his 'stop' side out on the northbound side.
"Amazing isn't it," Kevin said with a shake of the head. Educating kids is in good hands ... but the way I saw it it's a large number of big people who should know better who need educating most.
"What do you think of cars that don't stop," I asked some of the youngsters who sat in the shade waiting for their turn to cross.
"They're not very good," one replied. "They have to obey the rules," another said.
"Mr Marshall talks to them," the third added.
Kevin recounted an incident a week earlier when a man on a four-wheel-drive quad bike arrived at the intersection with a youngster, unrestrained nor helmeted, on his lap.
"I had to stop the lesson on that occasion and step in," he said.
The children at Reignier were attentive and had clearly taken in the classroom lessons, from both Kevin and their teacher Gary Nairn over the past fortnight, and were eager to put it into practice.
All the hands would go up when asked "what do you look at first" and there was a chirping chorus of "the driver's eyes' when asked what they should be looking at when vehicles stopped to let them cross.
"To make sure they are looking at you," Kevin adds with a smile.
Which brings me back to the crossing ... and one woman who never looked left or right or flinched from charging her four-wheel-drive through the crossing (where four children waited to cross) at what would have been 65km/h. More shakes of the head from Kevin who yelled across to me "see that?"
Road safety is a major part of his wide-ranging role as an education officer, something he's been doing for "quite a while now", he said with a smile.
The police are contracted to the Land Transport Safety Authority to deliver 1100 hours of Road Safety Education in Napier over a year, with 1860 hours designated for Hastings and Central Hawke's Bay.
It involves everything from pedestrian safety, training of school patrol and traffic wardens, bus wardens, bicycle safety, identifying potential hazards on routes to and from school, right through to the 'Dare to Drive to Survive' programme.
It's not every constable's cup of tea.
It is an involved and intensive field and is effectively a chosen career option ... almost a calling if you like. Kevin relishes the challenge it throws up. It is a pro-active slice of policing, and he works right across the youthful landscape from first-year primary children, through to intermediate age on into the senior stages of high school.
Trained though the Auckland College of Education, and with widespread liaisons with schools, community groups, service organisations and social agencies, Kevin has developed the skills to reach a six-year-old as effectively as he would a 16-year-old.
"You could have a primary school in the morning and a high school in the afternoon ... road safety, then perhaps keeping ourselves safe, abuse prevention education or social responsibility and values education."
Back in the 1980s he would have been a "school talks officer" with a fairly simplistic curriculum.
Today it is anything but ... the dozens of booklets, pamphlets, guidelines, leaflets, brochures and manuals spread out across the table back at his office which are produced by and for the New Zealand Police Youth Education Service outline a staggering number of initiatives and programmes.
He works with schools which operate their own programmes, and pointed out that in his "patch" there were some 21 schools and 222 classes.
"You just cannot get to every child in every class and cater for each individual's need," he said, adding that that was where it was important for the schools to have their own programmes in place, which police and social agencies happily advised on.
Years of experience had also created an insight as to where there was a priority - a stronger need for his input.
But it's not always a sea of nodding heads, or welcoming faces which spread before him on the mat.
Emotions can range from smiles through to contempt when he is introduced to children for the first time ... and that's at primary level.
Whatever the children picked up from siblings or parents about "cops" had become imprinted.
And some just don't show any interest in "getting it" ... well, not at first.
"Sometimes you beat your head against the wall, but then you start to see the skill level or changing attitudes develop."
He said after a couple of weeks children picked up what they had been told and seen, and began to model their own road safety approach accordingly.
That, Kevin said, was the best part of the job. To see the children automatically putting safety into practice, and every now and then one will approach and say "thank you, Mr Marshall."
The Keeping Ourselves Safe programme is the other big initiative within Youth Education and it is effectively a partnership programme between police, children and young people, parents, schools and other community groups. It is a wide-ranging and important slice of the whole learning pie.
It ranges from encouraging children to be confident and assertive in pursuit of their own wellbeing.
Of what acceptable boundaries and behaviours are. Who they can trust and who they can go to when something in their lives is not right. How to cope with bullying be it in or out of school.
They are courses about the reality of life, he said. Not always the pleasant side of life, but the awareness it raised was vital in keeping children safe, and knowing that there were people and places out there they could go to when they needed to talk or seek help.
Kevin said the courses were not compulsory, although few parents pulled their children out. On the few occasions they did it was usually a misunderstanding that the programme is that of sex education, which it is not, or about some of the audio-visual resources used.
"It's a great course to teach because it is pro-active and revolves around life skills."
The children, he added, were responsive.
The Decisions, Assertiveness, Respect and Esteem (DARE) programme, which began in 1990 (three years after Keeping Ourselves Safe) was another facet to the whole safety front. The workload for Kevin is such that he has already pretty well put together three-quarters of next year's calender already.
"You have to because this is something that is cyclical and ongoing."
Apart from the time in the classroom, and at the roadsides, there are meetings with social services, community groups, youth agencies, school boards of trustees and even matters relating to OSH.
"It's a lot of work but I love it."
It was when children approached him or a teacher in the wake of a programme, or just seeing them cycling and crossing a road using the skills he had instilled in them, that made everything worthwhile.
Even all the paperwork.
* Next time you're driving up to a pedestrian crossing be aware that the rules governing the zebra stripes have changed. It used to be that you were only required to stop should someone be stepping out on your side of the road.
Now, even if someone is stepping out on the opposite lane you are required to stop. The exception is when there is a solid, raised median strip in place where a pedestrian can stand. But on a plain road, where the centreline is indicated by a painted stripe only, you must stop if someone is venturing onto the crossing on either side of the road.