Seventeen-year-old Julia Deshler spent part of last week trying to get 9-year-old Abigail Storey in trouble.
“See this really cool pen? Let’s take it!” Julia said, grabbing a royal-blue marker and waving it in Abigail’s face. “My sister steals from this store all the time, and she never gets caught.”
But Abigail, a fourth-grader at Pine Hill Elementary School in Cottage Grove, knew how to respond: “No! Stealing is bad!” she told Julia in a loud and firm voice. “You could get arrested!”
That was just what Julia, a teacher with the 4-H Youth Teaching Youth program, wanted to hear.
For the past few weeks, she and Alex Pendar, 16, juniors at Park High School in Cottage Grove, have taught teacher Amber Harre’s fourth-graders at Pine Hill about negative peer pressure, Internet safety and the dangers of alcohol and tobacco.
Their lesson on smoking stuck with Otenidi Omot, a Cottage Grove 9-year-old who dreams of someday playing in the Chicago Bulls.
“No one in the NBA smokes cigarettes,” said Otenidi, whose favorite player is Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder. “Your career could depend on it. You couldn’t run as fast or jump as high.”
Kylie Palechek said she will remember Julia and Alex’s tip about avoiding troubling situations by imagining that her parents are watching. The 9-year-old from Cottage Grove said she would never want to disappoint her parents or make them feel as though they couldn’t trust her.
“I wouldn’t want them to think badly about me … because they’re my parents and I love them,” she said.
Kylie said she liked that Julia and Alex, who are in their second year of teaching the 4-H curriculum, “didn’t use any big words that we didn’t understand.”
Lessons included strategies on how to survive peer pressure and how to stand up for your beliefs without fearing rejection from others.
A few of the tips: Listen to your inner voice; talk to someone outside the group; and ask, “Is it worth the risk?”
“One of the great things about the program is that there have been a lot of Pine Hill kids (teaching in the program), so they have really walked in these kids’ shoes,” Harre said.
“They have seen them in the neighborhood, and they know that they are good role models. Based on their experiences, well, they can see that if I make choices like these high school kids, then I will have all these opportunities in my life.”
Harre said the program gives high school students valuable classroom experience and a chance to “see if they enjoy giving information to kids and that whole interaction with this age level.”
That was the case for Alex, a longtime 4-H member who wants to be a teacher.
“It gave me an opportunity to learn what it was like to teach and run a classroom,” she said. “It was fun to make sure that they know all of this stuff at a young age.
“The hardest part was making sure that they understand the points that we were trying to get across to them.”
Julia said she remembers an anti-drug and anti-tobacco presentation in the auditorium of Hillside Elementary in Cottage Grove when she was a grade-schooler. The 4-H program is better, she said.
“This gives them more one-on-one time, and you can make sure all their questions get answered,” Julia said. “I think it makes them more engaged. They’re like, ‘Hey, these are real kids from Park High School.’ They see us around town, and they’re, like, ‘Hey, I know you.’ They listen more than if it were adults just preaching it.”
The 4-H Youth Teaching Youth program, which includes three hourlong sessions, was begun five years ago.
The 60 teenage teachers who signed up this year will work with more than 2,000 elementary students in Washington County, said Emily Fulton-Fischer, 4-H program coordinator.
The teachers come from Park High School, East Ridge High School, Mahtomedi High School, Stillwater High School, Stillwater Junior High School, Oak-Land Junior High School, St. Croix Preparatory Upper School and Forest Lake High School.
“It is a service-learning project in its very truest form,” Fulton-Fischer said. “The teens are not only recognizing their own potential, but they are also being given the opportunity to remind themselves of the healthy lifestyle choices that they are making and how they can influence other youth.
“What it comes down to is, they can make a change in their community, and it starts with making a change in themselves, and that is so huge for them.”
Mary Divine can be reached at 651-228-5443. Follow her at twitter.com/ MaryEDivine.