The children in third through fifth grades could touch, hold, smell and take a close look at the products, but not taste or smoke them, as they learned about consequences and worked through a process to decide if they really wanted to put them in their mouths.
Homework was assigned for another lesson. The children were supposed to ask an adult if he or she regretted smoking. Almost every single person said they wish they had never started, Forshee said.

“We want them to have that information now,” Forshee said of a life skills curriculum that begins at grade three and builds on content through high school.

At the elementary level, the emphasis is on tobacco and making healthy choices. Smoking has been identified as the number one preventable cause of death and disease, taking 430,000 lives each year, Forshee said, quoting from the research-based curriculum. In addition, smoking increases the risk of developing problems with alcohol and other drugs.

Visual aids notwithstanding, many of the lessons are less graphic, focusing on self esteem and decision making, taking what Curriculum Director Suzan Patton describes as a “back door” approach to substance abuse.

“It all boils down to making good decisions,” Patton said. “If we get that the other (smoking, drug and alcohol avoidance) will take care of itself.”

She supports starting early to help children learn to make healthy choices. Even third grade is not early enough; the life skills curriculum that is new in USD 382 this year builds on a series of lessons provided by Lions clubs that start at kindergarten.
Decision-making and healthy choice lessons continue and expand in the middle and high school health classes.

Secondary students are asked to consider different scenarios, such as riding around with a person they know has been drinking, said Jeff Fuss, a coach and physical education teacher at Pratt High. Students discuss what they would do and not do and critique each other’s choices. They take the process seriously.

“One day they didn’t take it seriously and Coach Fuss was very upset. After that we didn’t have any problems,” he said.

The scenarios are realistic, representing problems the kids are going through at that stage in their lives. They might focus on cheating, skipping class or saying no to drugs. The kids have been offered controlled substances more than once, Fuss said.

The life skills series is a pretty good curriculum, emphasizing hands-on activities over note-taking, Fuss said. He believes that, as the students work their way through it from elementary to high school it will make a difference.

“I think over time it will have a positive effect,” Fuss said.


Tobacco:  local facts

• In 2007, 18 percent of Pratt County 6th, 8th, 10th and 12th graders and 13 percent of Kansas teens reported using tobacco products in the previous 30 days.

• 22 percent of Pratt County and 15 percent of Kansas teens reported binge drinking (5 or more consecutive drinks) in the two weeks before the survey developed by the Southeast Kansas Education Service Center and administered in schools statewide.

• 10 percent of 12-17-year-olds reported using illicit drugs, with marijuana being the most predominant drug. Non medical use of pain relievers is increasing, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration.