Interactive Learning Not Passive Advertising: Learner and teacher engagement through interactive dynamics are the primary educational strategies used in "Snappy™, The Safety Educational Program for Children and their Families." Children in grades K-3 are involved in the educational process through a series of exercises and games as they listen to the CD with 20 poems and songs. Children proceed through a 40-page book with a hierarchy of learning activities and games that require cognitive, synthesis, and creative engagement during the educational process. The creator of the Snappy™ program, who has written more than 100 action learning modules, was the first educator in the United States to advocate the use of learning modules. In 1968, he endorsed interactive learning that included experiential "Search Out And Relate (SOAR)" activities and "Learning In Field Experiences (LIFE)," as the most important part of every module that he developed.

Creative Learning Games and Multiple Positive Reinforcements Are Used to Advocate Fire and Gun Safety, the Hazards of Tobacco and a Unhealthy Health Life Style, and the Benefits of Traffic Safety: Motivated behavior is internally activated, but behavior can be modified by external conditions in an individual's social environment. Operant behavior is the behavior that operates in one's environment to produce effects . All of the educational materials in the Snappy™ program advocate self reliance. Also, successful completion of the learning activities requires children, teachers, and parents to send multiple positive reinforcements to all family members and friends.

The creator of the Snappy® program has conducted extensive research on human relations. Because of lessons learned in his research, he uses the behavioral approach to help people change old habits. His approach in teaching human relations is to create safe learning environments. One does not change the old attitudes and behaviors simply by attacking values. Thus, unsafe behaviors aren't ridiculed. Instead, educational strategies are used that are safe and fun to advocate a positive approach to learning and internalizing a wide range of behaviors related to traffic, fire, and gun safety and to dangers associated with the use of tobacco, alcohol, and an unhealthy life style.

Success Reinforcement Strategies Are Used to Reward Learning Why Safety Matters: Success and positive reinforcements are used throughout the Snappy® program to help students value and internalize safety behaviors. The Snappy® program can be implemented in twelve classroom sessions of about 30 minutes each. The free and on-line teachers guide includes numerous strategies that teachers can use to reinforce safety behaviors. (Download and print "Snappy's® Lesson Plan for Teachers."

Also, Need Theory Is Used to Reinforce Behavior Change Behavior: Abraham Maslow was the first psychologist to advocate the relationship between human needs and human behavior that he explained in the following hierarchy: (1) physiological needs; (2) safety needs; (3) social needs; (4) ego needs; and (5) the need for self actualization. All of the Snappy® program's learning activities, games, the songs and poems, and the communication devices emphasize the basic need for safety and the need to help others be safe.

Snappy's® multiple messages about safety appeal to different emotions: (1) Mom loves me and keeps me safe; (2) I like my safety seat [pleasure]; (3) Dad wants me to be safe. He buckles me up and drives safely [approval]; and (4) Good parents buckle up their kids [guilt]. Snappy™ avoids the use of power or authoritarian messages, such as "Buckle up, it's the law," because power messages are only effective in the short run.

In summary, the goal of the Snappy® program is the help children, teachers and parents internalize life style behaviors that will enable them to be self reliant and responsible in a wide range of areas related to safety, i.e., traffic safety, fire safety, gun safety, and wellness.

For more information, contact Jerry W. Robinson, Jr., WellWay Publishers, 1401 Highway 84, West, Suite 200, Brookhaven, MS 39601. Phone: 662-588-4359. Fax: 601-823-5676, or, E-mail: jrobins@deltastate.edu