Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Diary of an Inner City Teacher II

I guess people wonder why a teacher would be concerned about addiction. I empathize with the children sitting in my classroom whose lives have been negatively impacted by drugs and who suffer daily from the repercussions of having strung-out parents.

Drug addiction is a serious problem in the United States. It doesn’t matter whether they are prescribed or from the streets. They’re taking people out of here right and left. Drugs know neither racial boundaries nor economic walls. They’ll whip the mess out of the rich and famous as well as the economically disadvantaged; then move on to the middle class and anybody else who thinks they’re big enough or bad enough to beat them. The difference in outcome though is that the wealthy and the insured go to various rehabs and the less fortunate eventually end up in jail…money talks in this country loud and clear.

How many of you have loved ones, friends, or acquaintances struggling with this demon? If you don’t know of anybody personally have you heard about someone’s struggle through the grapevine?

As teachers we’re suppose to teach our students to say no to drugs yet when many of them go home there are folks getting high. Then children listen to their various electronic devices as rappers glorify the head trip or put on a DVD where characters are rolling up getting ready to get wasted.

How does a teacher separate society’s romantic image of getting stoned from the reality of addiction?

No comments:

Post a Comment