Canada: Critical thinking, not fear, key to drug abuse education, teacher says

Canadá/Diciembre de 2016/Fuente: CBC News

RESUMEN: Un maestro de Sooke, BC, especializado en educación sobre drogas, dice que el miedo está en camino cuando se trata de enseñar a los niños sobre el abuso de sustancias. Jennifer Gibson dice que los educadores en B.C. No debe enseñar a los niños acerca de lo que su cerebro se parecen a las drogas más: en su lugar, el foco debe estar en pensar críticamente sobre el uso de sustancias. «Tenemos niños capaces de pensar cuáles son las razones que llevan a las personas a tomar drogas», dijo a Robyn Burns, anfitriona de All Points West.

A Sooke, B.C., teacher who specializes in drug education says fear is on the way out when it comes to teaching kids about substance abuse.

Jennifer Gibson says educators in B.C. shouldn’t be teaching kids about what their brains look like on drugs anymore: instead, the focus should be on thinking critically about substance use.

«We’ve got kids that are able to think about what are the reasons that lead people to take drugs,» she told All Points West host Robyn Burns.

We focus on building community in our schools, making sure they know there’s people they can talk to or if they’re feeling isolated or if they’re feeling traumatized by an event in their lives, really looking at what are the natural human relationships they have in their lives rather than just running to illegal drugs.»

She says by focusing on the factors that lead to substance abuse, they can also explore what leads to other addictions as well, like gambling.

Kids have questions about overdose crisis

Gibson says the importance of context is being recognized when it comes to substance abuse education.

She says as kids grow more aware of the fentanyl crisis taking place in B.C. and the resulting overdoses, they have lots of questions, especially when fentanyl and other opiates have legitimate medical uses.

«For example, with [one] student, he had surgery, and that was a positive reason to have drugs,» she said. «We talked about the drugs he was given during surgery so he wouldn’t have to experience the pain and have the memories and so on.»

She says drug abuse education is starting in Grade 4 and lasts through to Grade 12, but the amount of time spent on it largely depends on the teacher and the circumstances in a particular classroom.

For example, she knows of one situation where a student died in a car crash. The experience of losing someone then led the rest of the class into discussions about grief and stress and the relationship of those feelings to substance abuse.

Fuente: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/drug-abuse-education-1.3912172