This is an unfortunate topic to have to discuss in an education blog, but schools have long been a prime location for the gathering of all aspects of life, good and bad. It is reassuring to see that administrators are moving towards a new drug education system. As with all subjects in school, whether it is math, history, or drug education, teachers and administrators adjust the level of information and the level of thinking depending on the age. What is tackled in a 9th grade English class is very different from what is taught to a senior, because these age groups are, on the whole, working from two very different cognitive levels and from two very different sets of pressures and attitudes. I hope that administrators are taking this difference into account when they re-work their drug education program. While alerting and informing 9th graders of the effects of drugs may be appropriate, 12th graders, who are much more likely to have an awareness of and an access to drugs, need to be educated differently. We must remember that our classrooms are places where students seek to be educated about much more than traditional academic fields. When we promote education on issues outside these customary fields, we must not forget that students need the same, appropriate progression of information as they do in their regular classes.

My brother is 21 and his girlfriend is 19, and when they heard of a boy they knew that died from an overdose they had some interesting things to say. They told me the child use to come to class high and/or drunk all the time. I know it's unrealitic to think teachers could catch this everytime, but how is this happening ALL of the time? How is it we have become so distant from our children and "their world" to miss this all of the time?? I will pray that all this talk of drugs will open our eyes and be a tool to educate us more to what's going on around us.