Sanford Weinstein - The Educators Guide To Substance Abuse Prevention

Sanford Weinstein
New York University

Copyright 1999 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in
any form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any
other means, without prior written permission of the publisher.

First published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.,
Publishers
10 Industrial Avenue
Mahwah, New Jersey 07430

This edition published 2013 by Routledge

Cover design by Kathryn Houghtaling Lacey

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Weinstein, Sanford.
The educators guide to substance abuse prevention/ by
Sanford Weinstein.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8058-2594-7 (cloth: alk. paper). ISBN
978-0-8058-2595-4 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Drug abusePreventionStudy and teaching (Elementary
and Secondary) 2. Substance abusePreventionStudy
and teaching (Elementary and Secondary) I. Title.
HV5808.W45 1999
372.37-dc21

99-22619
CIP

This book is a guide for teachers in preparation, practicing teachers, and other school personnel whose present and future students may raise issues about drug education, substance abuse prevention, and drug control. Students usually raise these issues in response to community events, because of personal or family experiences, to challenge the teacher and the curriculum, or because of their own drug use or that of peers. This book was written so that teachers can help children cope with drug-related events and experiences that relate to these issues.

Therefore, the primary goal of this book is to help educators work effectively within their classroom management practices, the school curriculum, and the provision of pupil-personnel services. In these ways, teachers of all school subjects may rely on their own interests and capabilities to help students in need and especially those who are at risk.

The book addresses teachers concerns in several ways. It provides a guide through which teachers may resolve personal and professional concerns about the commitments and limits and boundaries of their working relationships with students. Also, it describes tasks that teachers can perform and mental hygiene issues they can address in creating policies, procedures, and rules to promote healthful learning activity in the classroom. And, it summarizes past and present theory about substance abuse prevention to integrate all the preceding concerns into professional teaching practice.

Furthermore, this book helps teachers explore drug-related issues from within the context of their own curricular specialties. These curricular contexts, which are subsumed under the broad themes of policy and culture, include art, music, language arts, literature, social studies, history, government, economics, science, technology, and culture. The narrative refers teachers to relevant biography, historical events, and social issues, and it suggests ways that teachers can respond to problems such as disillusionment, alienation, and dangerous trends and fads of popular culture as they relate to the problem of drug use. In these ways, this book guides teachers to better use what they already do, know, and are in order to respond competently, responsibly, and with sensitivity to the needs of their students.

examines the very serious problem of school violence in relation to drug use.

describes social influences on drug-using behavior.

addresses historical and political curricular contexts for drug education and substance abuse prevention. Chapters 7 through 10 examine social and drug policy, and social and political disillusionment.

addresses cross-cultural and international comparison.

I thank Naomi Silverman, education editor at Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers for her enthusiastic support and wonderful assistance throughout the duration of this project. Also, I acknowledge the contributions of Dr. Peggy Ishler of the University of Northern Iowa. Her review and suggestions regarding the initial prospectus shaped its development in many important ways. I express gratitude to Dr. Norma Wilkerson of the University of Wyoming School of Nursing for her very thorough review of the initial draft of this book. Her comments and suggestions added elegance and polish to the final product. And finally, I thank Dr. John Sumerlin of Medgar Evers College-CUNY for his excellent review and editing suggestions. These were the finishing touches of this project.

Sanford Weinstein

This textbook is about substance abuse prevention in the schools. It is primarily a guide for teachers who do this educational work, but it also may be of interest to researchers and scholars who study prevention. Therefore, this volume emphasizes the inspiration and intuition of teaching, and the teachers clinical proximity to children. However, it also seeks to strengthen the teachers art with the scientists clinical distance, objectivity, and theories.

A clinical emphasis is important to substance abuse prevention because teachers practice in complex and fluid environments, and teaching is action-oriented work. Teachers must manage the processes of education as they occur and respond to many unexpected events. Recurrently, circumstance forces teachers to make quick judgments and take immediate action with little time for forethought or planning. The seamless transitions and subtle responses of skillful and sensitive teaching are the most important elements of substance abuse prevention in the schools.

Furthermore, teachers work in diverse settings. Many teach in classrooms, but many others teach in rehearsal rooms and auditoriums, art studios and technology facilities, laboratories and kitchens, and in gymnasiums and on playing fields. Some educators work in school health clinics, and in counselor, social worker, or administrator offices. Therefore, this book presents theories, ideas, and strategies that teachers can use to perform the formidable tasks related to substance abuse prevention in these many differing settings.

Although the narrative contains vernacular and slang to capture the clinical feel of good teaching, it offers precise language and definitions, too. The definitions guide the readers understanding and help educational curriculum developers, policymakers, and researchers who decide to test this books theories and strategies.

Generally, the definitions reflect perspectives of adversaries in the drug debate because of the fierce policy and moral conflict that forever surrounds the drug issue. The drug debate includes the drug control perspective, diagnostic or functional perspective, and the drugeducation perspective. From the perspective of drug control, substance abuse is any illicit or illegal use of a controlled substance. Therefore, drug control advocates aim substance abuse prevention