An interesting week
This past week was long. I had lots of school work to do and tests to write, so that is pretty much what I did every night. However, we made did set aside some time to make a few really great meals. My favorite was a spicy satay stir fry with fresh green beans, peppers, onions and jalapenos.Anyway, this morning we took a trip out to Picachu- which is a huge statue of Jesus overlooking all of Tegus on a mountainside. It was really beautiful. Maybe I will post some pictures later. Tonight we are having lots of Hondurans over for a Super Bowl party. It should be lots of fun. There are two other Americans coming over and probably 10-15 Hondurans, some of whom haven't ever watched futbol americano. And most of them don't speak English either. Hopefully there are subtitles on tv.
This past week at school was interesting... one of the students ran away from home, so she isn't going to be coming back. One of the teachers (who isn't married) announced that she is pregnant, but our principal can't fire her because we are short on teachers as it is. And several of my students tried to convince me to smoke pot with them. (?!) We have a section on drug use coming up in Psychology, so I am going to be sure and lecture them on that. I was just kinda shocked that they would even think about asking a teacher to do that...
posted by Whitey @ 2:54 PM
4 Comments:
Wow...that's a heavy post, Dan. I'll be praying for you as you decide how to respond to those things. Glad to know you're going through it too, though! =)
I don't know what the makeup of your classes are like, but i can tell you my experiences with subbing. Same thing would happen to me--kids would straight up ask me if i smoked weed--then, when i told them no, they would never believe me. To be fair, i do look like i should be a stoner.
Anyway, I changed my tack. Since they interpreted my honest denials as covering my own backside (i.e. not wanting to lose my job), i stopped denying it. I would just say, "that's an inappropriate question" which would ALWAYS be taken for an admission of guilt. Then (and this really messed with their brains) I would get quite serious (and maybe a little pissed off) and say, "Actually, no, to be perfectly honest with you, I don't take drugs. I have a couple of friends whose lives and families got pretty fucked up because of drugs, so i have tried to avoid making those same mistakes." Then I would move the discussion back to history or math or whatever.
Anyway, I only did this a few times, but each time I could tell that the kids took it to heart a lot more than they would have if I had just told them the same "drugs are bad" crap their teachers always tell them. I'm sure you have a pretty high "cool factor" at the school, and you can (and should) use that to your advantage. When someone that they look up to tells them this it has more of an effect. And personal examples are always better than whatever the textbooks say.
Plus when i would use an intensifier, they took note because all of a sudden what they had assumed (that I was denying it to protect my job) got chucked out the window (since I could have lost my job for swearing, just as easily as i could have for admitting taking drugs.)
I don't know if any of this will help, but I will be praying for you.
Thanks for the advice. I feel like I have had some of the same experiences. We ended up talking about it in class and I feel like it was well recepted. I gave them all the facts about what drugs actually do to you, and then I shared my own personal opinion, experiences and "Christian" perspective. I don't know if I persuaded them to do anything differently, but I hope they have a different perspective now.
Yeah, I guess i figure there are the kids that will do it no matter what you tell them, kids that won't do it no matter what you tell them, and the kids that might do it, depending on the situation. This last group (i'm guessing it's the majority) is the one most easily persuaded either way, so a different perspective can't ever hurt.
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