What Works: Schools Without Drugs Part 10

_SPECIAL SECTIONS_

TEACHING ABOUT DRUG PREVENTION

Teaching About Drug Prevention: Sample Topics and Learning Activities

_An effective drug prevention curriculum covers a broad set of education objectives. This section presents a model program for consideration by State and local school authorities who have the responsibility to design a curriculum that meets local needs and priorities. The program consists of four objectives, plus sample topics and learning activities._

OBJECTIVE 1: To value and maintain sound personal health; to understand how drugs affect health.

An effective drug prevention education program instills respect for a healthy body and mind and imparts knowledge of how the body functions, how personal habits contribute to good health, and how drugs affect the body.

At the early elementary level, children learn how to care for their bodies. Knowledge about habits, medicine, and poisons lays the foundation for learning about drugs. Older children begin to learn about the drug problem and study those drugs to which they are most likely to be exposed. The curriculum for secondary school students is increasingly drug-specific as students learn about the effects of certain drugs on their bodies and on adolescent maturation.

Sample topics for elementary school:

The role of nutrition, medicine, and health care professionals in preventing and treating disease.

The difficulties of recognizing which substances are safe to eat or touch; ways to learn whether a substance is safe: consulting with an adult, reading labels.

The effects of poisons on the body; the effects of medicine on body chemistry: the wrong drug may make a person ill.

The nature of habits: their conscious and unconscious development.

Sample topics for secondary school:

Stress: how the body responds to stress; how drugs increase stress.

The chemical properties of drugs.

The effects of drugs on the circulatory, digestive, nervous, reproductive, and respiratory systems. The effects of drugs on adolescent development.

Patterns of substance abuse: the progressive effects of drugs on the body and mind.

The drug problem at school, among teenagers, and in society.

Children tend to be present-oriented and are likely to feel invulnerable to long-term effects of drugs. For this reason, they should be taught about the short-term effects of drug use--such as impact on appearance, alertness, and coordination--as well as about the c.u.mulative effects.

Sample learning activities for elementary school:

Make a coloring book depicting various substances. Color only those items that are safe to eat.

Use puppets to dramatize what can happen when chemicals are used.

Write stories about what to do if a stranger offers candy, pills, or a ride.

Discuss options in cla.s.s.

Try, for a limited time, to break a bad habit. The teacher emphasizes that it is easier not to start a bad habit than to break one.

Sample learning activities for high school:

Discuss the properties of drugs with community experts: physicians, scientists, pharmacists, or law enforcement officers.

Interview social workers in drug treatment centers. Visit an open meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous.

These activities should be open only to mature students; careful preparation and debriefing are essential.

Research the drug problem at school, in the community, or in the sports and entertainment fields.

Design a true/false survey about drug myths and facts; conduct the survey with cla.s.smates and a.n.a.lyze the results.

Develop an accessible lending library on drugs, well stocked with up-to-date and carefully chosen materials.

When an expert visits a cla.s.s, both the cla.s.s and the expert should be prepared in advance. Students should learn about the expert's profession and prepare questions to ask during the visit.

The expert should know what the objectives of the session are and how the session fits into previous and subsequent learning. The expert should partic.i.p.ate in a discussion or cla.s.sroom activity, not simply appear as a speaker.

OBJECTIVE 2: To respect laws and rules prohibiting drugs.

The program teaches children to respect rules and laws as the embodiment of social values and as tools for protecting individuals and society. It provides specific instruction about laws concerning drugs.

Students in the early grades learn to identify rules and to understand their importance, while older students learn about the school drug code and laws regulating drugs.

Sample topics for elementary school:

What rules are and what would happen without them.

What values are and why they should guide behavior.

What responsible behavior is.

Why it is wrong to take drugs.

Sample topics for secondary school:

Student responsibilities in promoting a drug-free school.

Local, State, and Federal laws on controlled substances; why these laws exist and how they are enforced.

Legal and social consequences of drug use. Penalties for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. The relations.h.i.+p between drugs and other crimes.

Sample learning activities for elementary school:

Use stories and pictures to identify rules and laws in everyday life (e.g., lining up for recess).

Imagine how to get to school in the absence of traffic laws; try to play a game that has no rules.