Critical Reflection: Drug Education

Sitting at the teacher’s desk of my ninth grade classroom with a stack of projects in front of me while my students undergo drug and sex education, I am suddenly startled by the speaker: “Ms. Nealon, do you mind if I take out my blunt?” I look up wordlessly perplexed by Mr. Stone’s* request. I am involved in a role-play that I am not prepared for. He asks again. “Go ahead?” I say slowly, all but rolling my eyes at the man. Mr. Stone dramatically takes out a fat Sharpie pen from his back pocket. He brings the pen to his lips with his eyes closed and inhales a long puff. After his triumphant exhale, Mr. Stone mimics someone who is high by contentedly stumbling around the front of the room with his eyes half closed, and asking a student in the front row for some Cheetos. End Scene.

Almost all of my students laughed at Mr. Stone’s display, but what did they learn? His four-day stint in my class was focused on answering forty true/false questions on high-risk behavior. Sitting at the front of the room, Mr. Stone would read the question, elicit a response from a student, and then provide an anecdote related to the question. Watching Mr. Stone, coordinator of the SPARK program for Substance Prevention, Abuse Rehabilitation, and Knowledge, “inform” my students about drugs led me to wonder what purpose his presentation was serving, and what would be an effective way to teach drug education. Several central questions come to mind when considering drug education: should we teach about drugs, what should we teach about drugs, and how should we teach it? These questions apply in general to what Tupper calls “vice education,” which includes alcohol and sex education (Tupper, 2008).

In regard to whether or not it is the educator’s responsibility to teach drug awareness, I believe it is. If we are concerned with the well being of students’ minds, then we must be concerned with their holistic well being, including their physical health and safety. Teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted infection, drunk driving, and overdosing are all realistic consequences for actions our students may engage in. To keep our students in the dark, or worse yet, to misinform them about high-risk behavior would be negligible. I agree with the tenet of progressivism that says that, “the school, to become an important social institution, must take on the task of improving society” (Johnson et al, p. 328, 2008). In an explanation as to why the burden of drug education ultimately falls on schools’ shoulders, Tupper interestingly suggests that the government uses the school system to essentially clean up their messes (Tupper, 2008). Tupper writes, “Since governments derive considerable fiscal benefits from the taxation of legal psychoactive commodities, one might suppose they have at least a fiduciary responsibility to educate young people—in a credible and honest way—about the risks and benefits of psychoactive substance use” (Tupper, 2008). Society and media have certainly sent the wrong messages, which is why it is even more frustrating when the designated Mr. Clean, otherwise known as the SPARK coordinator, makes an even bigger mess. I don’t want my students to follow his twisted logic that you should not rape a girl because, after incarceration you will end up a homosexual. There are too many troubling points to his statement to name, which leads us to the next fundamental question.

What to teach as a part of “vice” education in the schools has been a highly contested question. Strong proponents of abstinence-only sex education are gratified by the recent boost in federal funding for abstinence education. The government has provided more than 1.3 billion dollars for abstinence-only programs throughout the country (Wire, 2008). Proponents of abstinence-only education, such as teacher Elizabeth Bradley argue that there is hypocrisy between how we teach; regarding sex, children should be taught to “just say no” as they are taught to say to drunk driving (Johnson et al, p. 239, 2008). I agree that it would be hypocritical to be pushing condoms on one hand while touting “just say no to drugs and alcohol” on the other. It is this inevitability of hypocrisy that supports my belief that sex education should be as purely informational and factual as possible. But what exactly is our goal in educating? Tupper points out that we must recognize “the conceptual difference between prevention and education” (Tupper, 2008). I believe that you can’t have the latter without the former. Preaching, “just say no” to all high-risk activities will only prevent the undesired behavior in those students who actually listen to you; students who choose to ignore you are left without any information or tools on how to intelligently proceed on their alternate route. Despite the abundant abstinence-only funding in the past eleven years, teenage pregnancy rates increased in 2006 for the first time in fifteen years (Wire, 2008). By educating students, my hope is that we can prevent students from engaging in high-risk behavior, and those who are not deterred will be informed decision makers.

To be clear, I found it refreshing that my school does not have an abstinence-only program, and I appreciate an unorthodox approach to drug education that includes a candid I’m-telling-like-it-is approach; however, when the educator, like Mr. Stone, is either misinforming the student or employing the shock factor for an experience void of meaning, I am concerned. I support drug education that is factually sound, neutral, and engaging. Another ineffective approach would be my own drug education. Thinking back to my experience with Officer Randy, the local policeman who lead us through the DARE drug prevention program my eighth grade year, it seems creepy. The year culminated in my class gathered in the auditorium, dressed in DARE t-shirts, with all of our families looking on as we sang, “Dare! To keep a kid off drugs. Dare! To keep a kid off dope!. . .Dare! To give a kid some hope,” complete with choreographed fist pumps. In addition to the gung-ho anti-drug attitude DARE tried to inculcate, the program had other faults. Tupper points out, “police officers engaging in drug education is akin to nuns doing sex education: the systemic values they represent cannot help but undermine their authority and credibility” (Tupper, 2008). Yet, DARE and other such programs have remained favorable with educators and parents (Tupper, 2008). Woolfolk notes that “’scare’ tactics seem to have little positive effect and may even encourage curiosity and experimentation” (Woolfolk, p. 144, 2007).

How to teach instead? When involved in “vice” education, students should receive information on their rights, the law, accurate statistical data, diseases and risks, and precautions. The presentation should be accurate, engaging and authentic, which could include a spoken-word performance by a recovering drug addict., for instance. Woolfolk suggests interactive teaching methods, role-playing and skills training (Woolfolk, p.144, 2007). Indeed, problem-solving training is as important as information giving. Asserting the progressivist model in which “human experience is a basis for knowledge,” I feel that students should role-play, problem solve and hear firsthand accounts to facilitate their understanding (Johnson et al, p.328, 2008).

In keeping with progressive ideology, educators in a public school should not tell students what to do in their lives (Johnson et al, p. 328, 2008). A good teacher tells her students how to think—critically, strategically, analytically—but hopefully not what to think. We can approach drug and sex education the same way: don’t tell children what to do with their lives, but how to live their lives evaluating and judging situations that arise.

References

Johnson, J.A., Musial, D., Hall, G.E., Gollnick, D.M. & Dupuis, V.L. (2008). Foundations of American education: Perspectives on education in a changing world (14th ed.). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.

Tupper, K.W. (2008). Teaching teachers to just say “know”: Reflections on drug education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(2), 356-367.

Wire, S.D. (2008, April 24). Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 14, 2008, from http://articles.latimes.com

Woolfolk, A. (2007). Educational psychology (10th ed.). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.