| Describe some statistics on drug and alcohol abuse among US students from national surveys? (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, 2010a, 2010c; Johnston, O'Malley, Bachman, & Schulenberg, 2012) | 1. More than 40% of US high school students reported using alcohol, and nearly 25% of high school seniors reported binge drinking in the two weeks prior to the national survey.
2. Nearly 50% of adolescents reported using marijuana, and 1 in 15% high school seniors admitted to being daily, or almost daily users.
3. 20% of high school students have taken a prescription drug, such as Oxycontin, Ritalin, or Xanax, without a doctor's prescription.
4. Nearly 20% of high school students report current use of cigarettes. |
| What are the main dangers of drug and alcohol use? | Research has identified a link between long-term marijuana use and lowered IQ (Khamsi, 2013; Rogeberg, 2013).
In addition to cognitive factors, teenagers who abuse alcohol and drugs place themselves at risk for problems such as:
- damage to their health
- car accidents, and
- even suicide (Grilly & Salamone, 2012; Levinthal, 2013)
Alcohol and drug users are less likely to exercise, and they're less likely to develop healthy mechanisms for coping with life's problems. |
| Name an important protective factor against drug and alcohol abuse. | School connectedness - the belief by students that adults and peers in the school care about both their learning and them as individuals.
Young people who feel connected to their school are less likely to smoke, use alcohol and drugs, or initiate sex.
They also achieve higher, have better attendance, and are less likely to drop out of school (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010b) |
| What can we do as teachers to help with alcohol and drug abuse? | We can help students by developing their connections with the school through:
- getting to know them as individuals,
- calling them by name,
- creating classroom environments that are physically and emotionally safe.
We can also teach them use teaching strategies that involve students in learning activities, instead of expecting them to primarily listen passively to lectures (rote learning). |
