Students at Haines High School got a lesson in self defense this week. The Haines Borough Police Department visited the high school on Thursday to teach a self defense class. It is part of the school’s healthy choices program. One day a year, the program teaches students about life outside school and work.
Eight students and three police officers are gathered in the small gym at the Haines school. The students will soon go on to college or a job, and the officers have come to give them some tips for moving safely through the world.
Getchell: “I am Avery Getchell, I’m a senior in high school, I’m 18 years old, and I’m here to take the self defense class. I just think in general it’s important to know how to defend yourself in situations that can be dangerous, and I hope to carry all that we learn with me when I go to college and into my life.”
Long-Godinez: “My name is Grace Long-Godinez, and I’m in grade 12, Kenzie’s dad who is a cop came into the classroom and told me I wasn’t allowed to skip.”
Travis Russel is an officer with the Haines Police Department. He introduces the purpose of class.
Russel: “The whole goal of this course is to give you a basic understanding of body movement, but also it’s to give you some options as situations are changing. The other thing I want you to understand, in this course you are going to be redirecting the energy of an attacker.”
Russel directs students to draw on their experience.
Russel: “Those who’ve taken dance, actually if you understand how somebody else may move, that will give you a basic understanding of how when you step they are going to step, so it sounds silly but if you’ve taken formal dance, you’ve taken wrestling, you are already two steps ahead. Any type of dance really that goes beyond a high school mosh pit.”
Russel tells the students how to decrease their vulnerability by acting confidently. He stresses the importance of staying with friends who have their best interest in mind, and what that means. He goes over parties, and how to stay away from unwanted substances. He tells them to trust their gut feeling.
Russel: “If you are like ‘Man, I’m not comfortable with this, I can’t put my finger on it’, follow those instincts, you have to do that. When you have those thoughts or something that tells you that’s not right, you need to stop and be like ‘OK, what do I need to be looking for?’”
The group moves to the center of the gym and lines up.
They first learn individual movements, then pair up to practice some self defense moves.
Kristen Blumfield is a counselor at the school. She organizes the healthy choice program and has arranged for the officers to be part of it.
Blumfield: “I had really been wanting to get some self defense in the school, how do you protect yourself, what are some of those moves, and I had been asking around and the police department offered to come provide their expertise on this.”
She says it is important to get young people familiar with the police.
Blumfield: “I like to get the police department involved in aspects of the school in any way we can, just because I think it’s really important for kids starting at age five to start seeing policemen as humans and as generally safe people who they can go to and they are not just the big tough guys for when you are in trouble but they are also here to help you learn other things.”
At the end of the class the students return to the activities of the day, a bit better prepared to face the world outside.
