 Teaching Strategies For Drug Education Certain personality characteristics have been observed in young people who have abused drugs. These individuals have generally been described as showing or having shown problems in communications and in social development; as having a low frustration tolerance, qualities of emptiness and apathy, poor relationships with peers, impoverished inner resources; as being passive, exploitative of adults, and desirous of outside stimulation. Further, it had been noted repeatedly that the children resent adult failure to treat them with dignity and honesty. Accordingly, optimum teaching strategies should aim to foster development of the whole child through such precepts as the following: 1. Avoid producing guilt, which acts to reduce one’s sense of personal worth. Encourage free verbal expression of any emotion. 2. Accept emotion. Emotions are real and compelling. Suggesting alternate ways of handling crisis situations is preferable to suppressing or repressing vividly experienced feelings. Discussion of such feelings is advantageous. 3. Know the child. Efforts made to become personally acquainted with the child will be invaluable. Acquaintance with the parents of each child helps in this understanding. It is worth keeping in mind that older children complain repeatedly and bitterly that they experienced a loss of individuality in their school experience. 4. Encourage choices. The act of making decisions is something in which children could use much more practice than they get; opportunities for affording this are infinite. 5. Be self-aware. Awareness and acceptance of one’s own temperament and style sets a valuable example to the children. It is no more desirable for the teacher to be depersonalized than for the child. By being himself, the teacher sets an example—teaches by precept—a great lesson in self-acceptance. 6. Know your rights. It is a corollary to #5 (to teach by precept) that one can demand one’s own rights in situations. The child cannot take all of the teacher’s time, nor does he really want it, though he may try to get it. A teacher will help the child by assisting him in finding limits in his demands of the teacher’s time as well as by setting limits on behavior. 7. Imaginary adventures and excursions: Such activity is useful in developing inner resources as well as in helping children to distinguish between objective and subjective reality. 8. Learning to evaluate: This activity cannot be begun to early. Children need to become critics in the present-day world with its onslaught of stimulating experiences. Discussion of TV shows and their accompanying commercial messages is one method of encouraging evaluations. 9. Role-playing and creative drama: The experience of putting oneself in someone else’s shoes (and head) helps in the development of one’s own individualism. 10. Appreciation of learning: Reviewing with a child the things he has learned and their possible usefulness or relevance to his life helps him to place them in a meaningful and favored context. |
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