Local Teacher Will Participate in Festival of Books at UCLA

Physical education instructor Janet Goliger will be a featured author at the LA Times/UCLA Festival of Books this weekend.

A teacher for almost 30 years, Goliger has spent many hours talking to students and parents about the need to be proactive in protecting their child against the harsh world. As a black belt in Okinawan Shorin-Ryu karate, she knows the empowerment this knowledge has given her and wanted to share that with her students. In 1999, she tested a basic program of self-defense at Mountain Avenue Elementary School. The students not only thrived in this new program but found self-confidence. She now teaches the program in the other Glendale Unified School District schools. Goliger then turned her classes into the book "I Need to be Safe: I'm Worth It!" so others could share in that same empowerment.

"Many of my students have used the techniques they learned in my class and book to help protect themselves," Goliger said.

According to Goliger, she knows of at least three separate incidents where her training program has saved children.

"A young boy was abducted in the Glendale Galleria a few years ago," she said. "He got away by remembering the techniques I taught him."

Two Mountain Avenue Elementary students also used her training when they were being followed by a van, she said.

The program is not about hitting or fighting an attacker off, it is about what a child can do if an adult grabs them. Many times children feel they have no power because the adult is so much larger, Goliger said.

She trains the students on how to yell, not scream, at their attacker and then how to get away. One of the first lessons is called, "Two steps back, turn and run."

In this exercise, if the student notices a stranger approaching. They are to be cautious.

"There is no reason a stranger should be speaking to you," Goliger told her Lincoln Elementary students at a recent P.E. class. "Remember to keep your distance. If they walk toward you, take two steps back, turn and run."

Goliger demonstrated the practice, first without taking the two steps. She captured the student quickly. Then again with the two steps back, the student got away.

"This just gives you extra time to get away."