During circle time on the rug, Mrs. Pam Martocci leads her 3’s Play Group in a sing-song lesson designed to help students learn their home addresses and call for help should they ever need to assist in a family emergency.
After reciting their addresses, each child is handed a pretend cellphone and shown how to dial 9-1-1.
“Do we ever call this number to order a pizza?” Mrs. Martocci asks.
“Nooooo!” comes the reply in unison.
“We call this number when we need help,” she says.
On cue, a familiar face walks through the door.
It’s police officer D.J. Martone, who has worked for the City of Glen Cove for 10 years and is a frequent visitor at Friends Academy to help children learn about people in their community. Officer Martone spends 20 minutes reading to the class, answering questions about his gear, and shaking everyone’s hand at the end before going back on patrol.
“It’s important for kids to see a police officer reading them a book and not as some scary figure who is dressed darkly with a bunch of gadgets that might intimidate them,” he says. “If I can go to the school and show kids I’m a normal person, then it’s a positive interaction.”
Officer Martone, 35, isn’t just a familiar face who visits once a year at Friends Academy. This is his second visit with the same class in a matter of weeks. He previously joined Play Group dressed head to toe for his other job as a firefighter.
“I put on everything, including the full mask,” he says. “And I told them, ‘Hey, for whatever reason, if you're stuck somewhere and you can't get out, this is what a firefighter looks like. If you see me coming, don’t run away. You’ve seen me with and without my gear on. I’m the same person, and my gear allows me to come help you if you need it.’ ”
For Mrs. Martocci, these community-based lessons are a way to build confidence in her young students.
“They need to know where they live and they need to know that they can always be safe,” she says. “In today’s world, kids are all over the place — going to this, this, and this. I feel really strongly that even the little kids should learn how to advocate for themselves and know how to call 9-1-1.”
Play Group is where the youngest students at Friends Academy begin their academic journey, and these community lessons are part of a social studies curriculum that aims to help children develop a healthy sense of self and belonging in their family, school, local community, and the world.
Says Lower and Middle School Principal Alfred (Rik) F. Dugan: ”As our youngest learners begin to discover their sense of self, they are also learning about community by forming relationships and learning about those around them — ‘Who am I? Who are you? What makes me, me? What makes you, you?' Understanding how helpers in our neighborhood keep us safe enables children to realize that they are part of a greater good and belong to something larger than self.”
Mrs. Martocci emphasizes safety — and teaching how to be safe — because it’s akin to planting a seed.
“As they move forward in life, it'll help them feel confident,” she says. “When you get to the later stages of social pressures and kids not always being nice, they've got that self-confidence and self-esteem behind them that they can carry themselves in any situation.”
With the people in their community ready to assist as needed.
“D.J. is one of our community helpers,” Mrs. Martocci says. “He brought us the firetruck the other day. Now he's here as a police officer telling us what we can do to keep ourselves safe. I want them to look at him and be like, Oh, there’s our friend.”
Photography by Alvin Caal / Friends Academy