Suggestions stemming from student-teacher consultations
Following
are suggestions received during consultations with a small
sample of teachers and students conducted prior to
development of the supplement.
Suggestion
1: Place a
greater emphasis on alcohol throughout the entire
supplement.
Suggestion
2: Identify
and profile the drugs that junior high students are most
likely to encounter, using the prevalence data from the
most recent Nova Scotia Student Drug Survey.
Suggestion
3: Provide
opportunities to foster critical-thinking skills in the
higher grades by looking at broader social and economic
issues surrounding substance use, including beneficial
prescription use and possible misuse, international drug
trafficking and local markets, community attitudes towards
alcohol use, and international and cultural differences in
alcohol use.
Suggestion
4: Incorporate current material on
cannabis that addresses the proposed (as of February 2005)
reduced penalty options for simple possession, increased
penalties for grow operations and trafficking, and the use
of marijuana for medicinal purposes.
Suggestion
5: Make each
lesson plan as complete as possible to minimize teacher
preparation time.
Suggestion
6: Ensure
that drug education lessons can be delivered through
in-class activities, using overheads, videos, or DVD
resources. (Computer-based learning could be included as an
option, but don’t assume this technology is
sufficiently available for core lessons.)
Suggestion
7: Incorporate group and
peer-to-peer hands-on activities for the students wherever
possible.
Suggestion
8: Incorporate visual resources
into the supplement. This may consist of web links to
existing materials rather than the development of new
materials.
Contextual
suggestions
Suggestion
9: Post the
curriculum supplement update on a website that teachers can
access to download materials. Use the website as a means of
adding to and adapting the supplement as new materials
become available.
Suggestion
10: Provide
all materials in French and English to support
French-language and French immersion junior high students
and teachers.
Suggestion
11: Develop
an annual distribution process for the resource so that
first-time teachers are as likely to use it as their
predecessors. Providing web-based access to the materials
will facilitate the process.
Suggestion
12: Provide
professional development opportunities to equip Healthy
Living teachers to deliver the alcohol and other drug
education. In the longer term, a teacher self-training
component could be part of the previously mentioned
website.