|
Avoid Personal Bias
A teacher’s role is to help students identify problems and generate their own solutions, not impose their own biases.
Maintain an Atmosphere of Openness
Students will only feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and feelings if the responses back are non-judgemental.
Know Your Facts
Ensure that your information is factual, not just a perpetuation of myths.
 Drug Facts
Be Sensitive to the Ethnic and Cultural Backgrounds of Students
Families vary widely in their acceptance of drug use – especially drinking. Avoid being judgemental while at the same time encouraging students to make their own decisions about what constitutes a healthy lifestyle for them.
Be Aware of the Sensitivity of Children of Drug-dependant Parents
It is possible that there is a student in your classroom who lives in a home where a parent is drug dependant/alcoholic.
Include building school connectivity by:
-
creating a sense of belonging
-
providing support for academic achievement at all levels
-
providing opportunities for students to excel in their own ways
-
encouraging student empowerment
-
encouraging opportunities for students to exercise their own generousity
Include skill building in the following areas:
Acknowledge the value of delaying first use. Total prevention is the ideal, but we know that some kids will eventually try alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs. The later that happens, the better. Why?
- Because the younger they are, the more physiologically vulnerable children are to addiction.
- Because the older they are when they are first introduced to alcohol and other drugs, the better equipped they will be to evaluate the experience.
Prevention is about encouraging resiliency. Resiliency is another term for that foundation of inner strength that is sometimes referred to as self worth or self esteem. It’s that something that empowers kids to not only make the best decision forthemselves but the courage to act on that decision.
We cannot give youth resiliency but we can create the conditions in which it grows:
-
a sense of belonging
-
opportunities to build competencies
-
increasing room to explore their independence
-
encouragement to exercise their own generosity
We ALL do.
The Search Institute has identified 40 developmental assets covering a diverse range of supports, attributes, and activities. Research shows that the more of these assets a child or youth has, the less likely they are to engage in risky behaviours like drug/alcohol use.
We ALL have an important role to play in the lives of children and youth. Whether we smile when we walk by, coach a sports team, remark positively on their new tattoo or call them by their name, it all counts.
The efforts are cumulative and they all contribute towards building those assets that help keep kids safe.
Teachers express profound despair when they lose students who’ve made progress in the school setting but go home to environments where they are undermined by parents or caretakers who are struggling with alcohol and drug abuse, mental illness, stress, and other debilitating issues that affect their ability to parent appropriately.
The important thing to remember is that every effort we make to nurture a child’s resiliency matters. You may be the only person who actually calls that student by their given name, or admires their t-shirt, or expresses your belief in their ability to make it.
Influence is not restricted to direct interactions. The most powerful influence many of us have with youth lies in the alternative version of adulthood that our own lives demonstrate.
Living modest everyday lives, most of us don’t see ourselves as role models or our simple lifestyles as something to aspire to. But what students see in their teacher may be in stunning contrast to what they are seeing in their home, their community, and the media.
Stay clean, stay in school – and they too will one day have a good job and a safe home and camping holidays with the kids. It’s achievable.
Often, youth who look like lost causes during their adolescence overcome great obstacles later to live happy, productive lives. These achievers often testify to the memory of a special teacher who believed in them. That this belief is what they held onto in the darkest years. Just because we do not see immediate results does not mean our efforts are in vain.
Sometimes students are irretrievably lost to death. Grieve those losses knowing you gave it your best. Then return to the students who still need you.
Return to top
|
