https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2023/11/08/ljohnson-fentanyl-harm-reduction1_slide-6e97e7cfb8aeb8a86b60a299f927e86a821a0899.jpg
This week’s topic discussed the dangers of drug use amongst teens and young students. More specifically was the issue of vaping, as it has become very easily accessible and viewed as a popular trend. In order to address this issue, it is important that students are taught the dangers of drugs and how and why they should be avoided.
One of the provided websites for this week was the Stanford Medicine, Safety First site. This site includes 13 lessons that address the affects and dangers of drug use. I chose Lesson 2, “Keeping You Safe; Reducing Your Harm: An Overview”. I found this lesson to be very educational and thorough.
The presentation provided is organized and visually appealing. There are also three Google Doc links provided under the presentation. These are guides for teachers to use with their students as they go through the presentation with them. These guides are also thorough and organized and I found that they included a lot of information considering this was all free off of the website.
The three guides included were a Facilitator Guide (“SF [Safety First] Guide”), a “Talking Points and Slide Chart” Guide (“TPSC Guide”, and finally a Discussion Guide which teachers can give to their students to take home and further discuss the topic with parents or other trusted adults at home. They also include a Kahoot which is both a fun and helpful activity to ensure students understood the material that was just explained to them.
In the first guide, the Facilitator Guide, teachers are provided with a few notes on how they may further improve their lesson. They are informed of other resources that are also available on Stanford Medicine’s website, such as a pre- and post-lesson quiz to help instructors gauge how well their students understood the lesson. This guide is helpful to have before setting up your lesson and provides ideas and tips that may make your lesson more efficient and successful overall.
The second guide, the Talking Points and and Slide Chart Guide has notes on each and every slide of the presentation. It is a thorough guide that explains what teachers should tell their students on each slide and questions that teachers should ask their students in relation to the slide(s). This guide is extremely helpful. Many of the slides contains very few words so as to keep them simple and not crowded so having this guide is crucial. Beyond just explaining what each slide is about, it provides discussion questions and creates opportunities for students to be involved in the lesson and input their own ideas/opinions. Having the students be able to contribute to the lesson provides another way to improve their ability to grasp and understand the lesson. The presentation itself addresses reasons why someone may do drugs, reasons not to do drugs, and also discusses stigmas against drug users with one slide directly stating that “people who use drugs are not bad people”. It also provides a description of what a stigma is. It continues on by asking students how they would address someone who is currently using drugs and what advice they might give a friend in that position. It takes mental health into consideration. Other subtopics it covers are the affects of drugs and/or addiction on mental health, reducing harm while driving, and the overall message of how to avoid drugs and reduce your harm for those who may already be using.
Finally, the third guide, the Discussion Guide is meant for students to take home and talk to a parents about. One of the slides in the presentation is a spectrum or continuum of severity of drug use ranging from “Never Used” to “Substance Use Disorder”. Students have already learned about the continuum in the presentation and are asked to take the worksheet and describe each stage of use in their own words and provide and example or two for each. They are also asked to take this worksheet home and discuss with a parent or other trusted adult two to three other ways that the student could avoid and/or reduce harm. I like that students are asked to put the stages into their own words. I once again provides another way for students to ensure they understand the material.
Overall I like this lesson. It puts some of the dangers of drug use into the context of a young student (such as it may affect your academic performance). I like that it addresses stigmas that may be associated with someone who uses drugs. This may help a student feel more comfortable in reaching out for help. This is also especially important when some kinds of drugs are viewed as a trend or mostly harmless, like vaping. They are not bad students, they just are unaware of the dangers.
One way I would change this lesson would be one of the examples mentions MDMA, and the rest are things like alcohol and cigarettes. I think the use of a drug like MDMA would be difficult for some students to understand its severity or what it does to the body. I would replace it with what kind of drug it is like saying it is a hallucinogenic which means it makes you hallucinate or see things that are not there or real rather than using the name or slang for the drug. Otherwise I felt it was well done.
References
Halpern-Felsher REACH Lab. (n.d.). Safety First – Lesson 2. https://med.stanford.edu/halpern-felsher-reach-lab/preventions-interventions/Safety-First/safety-first-lesson-2.html
Links to Guides
Presentation
https://www.canva.com/design/DAFoRB4Ihpc/7WmQrJe_b0ps38SE7vlHFg/view
Safety First Facilitator Guide
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mAi34G-ziAQYMOuMLI1bmuOIVzzOakm-jjo3HbL6clk/edit?usp=sharing
Talking Points and Slide Chart Guide
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kKE6QMHG2nSoLgr61ze39KXSvb9tUhYKEE-RnOW7P-Y/edit?usp=drive_link
Discussion Guide and Activity
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KJ1ZTSpaOt-gLJl-BkZ4C5NNF_3jI8ZkPibdUgFxrkM/edit?usp=drive_link