Nothing much to say here that everyone doesn't either know or can find out easily. What I find fascinating, and sometimes depressing, is when I see grown adults encourage kids to experiment with alcohol and tobacco. Usually illegal drugs are out of the question, but so many adults and parents encourage what they call "responsible" drinking to their children. The news comes out with new stories all the time about parent sponsored parties for minors, where the parents provide boose without letting students drive afterwords. Teachers say to their students to "Don't drink, but if you do, do it responsibly." How can responsible adults behave like this?
First of all, as teachers, we are taught to hold our students up to high expectations. How is this doing that? We expect them to fail. We say to ourselves, "It is inevitable that they will drink underage, so lets help them do it responsibly." We don't just expect them to fail, we HELP them fail. We set them up to fail by our actions that say, "We know you'll do it anyway, its normal to do this, this isn't that important, this isn't WRONG." But it is wrong. We are encouraging them to partake in a pastime that is, at their age, damaging to their future health, addictive, dangerous, and ILLEGAL! That last one might not mean much to others, but it sure means a lot to me.
A responsible parent or teacher would not do this. We need to take a stand, make them know through are words and actions that it is wrong to drink underage. It will damage your developing body and brain, it has greater chance to cause addiction at this age, and you will be breaking the law. Take a stand as teachers. Let students know that underage drinking anywhere is not "responsible", it's the very epitome of an irresponsible person. Any adult that encourages it is not only potentially causing their children or students great harm, but if they provide alcohol they are breaking federal law and run the risk of losing everything in civil court.
When did we start treating the word 'illegal' as if it meant 'discouraged'?
ED460 Personal and Social Well Being is a course taken by college students in education during their student teaching semester. Topics covered include: poverty, child abuse, bullying, drugs, alcohol, and tobacco, counselors' role in school, adolescents and choices, and the use of technology.
I agree with Tom. I don't think that it is the teachers' job to teach students how to do something illegal but responsible, that doesn't even make sense. Teachers should never even bring up the face that underage drinking is ok or will be over looked because everyone does it. That's just ridiculous. It is not our place as educators to educate underage drinking.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I will say that I stand by parents who want to allow alcohol in their house and allow their 18 year olds to drink with them. I think that having a glass of wine with dinner or a beer with your dad while watching the game is perfectly acceptable. I think that some parents can teach responsible drinking. I also think that is there position and choice.
The difference is, teachers have no right to support underage drinking. But we cannot take that right away from parents.
I totally agree, Tom. Sending the message that students have no control seems to be a big problem now, in multiple areas. The idea that, "well, it's going to happen anyway" seems to permeate not only the issue of drinking, but also that of premarital sex and tobacco or drug use. It's no wonder that kids are getting into more trouble these days than they were in the past. We constantly send the message that we expect them to behave irresponsibly, so they live up to our expectations. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
ReplyDeleteWhile I got to see some of the parent sponsored parties the real issue is the mindset of the parents. While you want to help students out to the best of your abilitiy its going to be hard to help students when there own parents don't see the issues with parties for minors. Maybe as a teacher its important to preach to the parents and try and get them to think more constructively for their kids.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit, I am not totally on board. I am not for supporting illegal behavior, ergo I would never support underage drinking, but oh wait.... I drank underage. I still drink with people who are underage. I guess that means I support it? I have been around my brother, who just turned 20, while he is drinking. It is not something I have a problem with. I know that being a teacher changes everything about the way I handle situations, but I have a hard time convincing myself that once I have my license that I will not support underage drinking. I know that I would never, ever, in a million years support minors drinking in high school. That's ludacris and grounds for losing my license. However, as a undergrad, right now I support post-high school, responsible, underage drinking. I wonder if that will change once I am not "allowed" to support it.
ReplyDeleteI agree. With parts of the original post and with many of the comments. Overall, I believe that as a teacher I can definitely not support the underage drinking of students in anyway. As for the parents "setting kids up for failure" i'm a little bit fuzzy. For example, my parents always told me that I should not drink in high school BUT that if I was ever in a situation where I was drinking and felt the need to leave the situation because of being uncomfortable or whatever the reason and I needed a ride, that I could call them no questions asked. I feel that this is one of those things where they were like "Don't do it, but if you're going to do it anyway...here's for when you do" I do not think they set me up for failure, they were letting me make my own decisions and letting me know that they would be there for me if I made a bad one and needed them.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Margaret that if parents want to have a drink with their own kids at home, that is perfectly fine. I don't even think being 18 is necessary. There is no "magical age" when a kid automaticaly becomes responsible enough to drink. It is a growing and maturing process that should be monitored by the parents.
ReplyDeleteThat said, it is a teacher's job to help students to become good citizens who uphold the law. I will point out that a parent may give their own child a drink and that is legal. But the teachers need to guide students to obey the law.