Recently, the Drug Policy Alliance held a back-to-school teleseminar called "What ParentsNeed to Know About Drug Use and Drug Education." As an educator who regularly works with adolescents in school, juvenile detention, and community settings I was eager to learnsome new practices to better engage young peoplearound the topic of drug use.
It turns out that effective drug education is just good youth development practice. The principles that practitioners have utilized to engage young peoplein healthy decision making are thevery same methods that are necessary for high school students to understand the consequenceso f drug use and apply their knowledge to make informed decisions.
Open, non-judgmental, interactive dialogue creates the kind of space for students to test out their assumptions and receive accurate feedback on the realities of drug use and abuse. Furthermore, when students violate school drug policies rather than further alienating them.from the school community they learn to understand the consequences of their actions.
"Restorative practices are beneficial in the school environment because essentially they allow educators to respond like educators," explains Ted Wachtel, founder of the International Institute for Restorative Practices. "If we assume that young people are going to make bad choices, school ought to be one of the places that allowsthem to learn from their experience."
ChucksRies, founder of the Oakland-based Upfront Program creates an open voluntary space for students to convene and talk about the issues that are important to them.
"One of things we find from talking to students isthey say they are more than willing to talk about theissues that they face if they havea space where they feel safe," Ries says.
Zero Tolerance policies that focuson suspension and expulsion don't make students feel safe. Upfront'sopen engagement model isstudent centered with eachgroup collaboratively organized withthe students. While most members of the group will not require referrals for treatment those who do can work with Chuck and his staff to identify a supportive course of action.
Educators must take a stand against zero tolerance policies that penalize and alienate young people in schools. Theconsequences if we don't can be devastating. Zero tolerance approach to drug abuse invites the drug war into our classrooms and allowslaw enforcement to disappear our young people.
Catherine and Doug Snodgrass' autistic son wasthe target of an undercover drug sting on hisschool campus.
Their son was the target of an undercover agent known amongst students as Deputy Danwho pressured the Snodgrass' son into bringing him marijuana. The Snodgrass' had no idea that their son had been arrested and interrogated without a lawyer until he didn't come home from school later that afternoon.
Similar stories abound across the country as schools open their doors to drug enforcement agencies and allow undercover agentsto sit intheir classrooms. But stories like the Snodgrass' reinforce the notion that the real menace on high school campuses are law enforcement agents who use peer pressure, and manipulation to ensnare young people who otherwise are not a threat to themselves or anyone else.
DPA's publication Beyond Zero Tolerance: A Reality Based Approach to Drug Educationand School Discipline by Rodney Skager, PhD is a practical resource for educators seeking an alternative to the outdated deficit based modelsof drug education.
It's vital that we change our approach. If we don't the consequences for our youth are way too high.
Piper Anderson is director of Educationat Young Audiences New York, one the leading providers of ArtsEducation in thecountry. She is also a faculty member at the NYU Gallatin school.
Piper Anderson Faculty member, NYU Gallatin School Posted: 09/20/2013 12:41 pm http://www.huffingtonpost.com/piper-anderson/drug-education_b_3962646.html
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Carl Sagan - "Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people." --- Robert Pirsig - "When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion." --- Brian Cox - "[One] problem with today’s world is that everyone believes they have the right to express their opinion AND have others listen to it. The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense."
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