|
Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
|
|
UK: Drugs message to be taught in every lesson
Glen Owen, Education Correspondent The Times
Saturday 28 Feb 2004 Heroin sums, Beatles songs and cocaine geography to teach risks PUPILS could be calculating the street price of heroin in maths classes, under a new approach to drugs education. The guidelines have been embraced by head teachers but have outraged parents and MPs. The plan is to remove drugs education from the 'ghetto' of health lessons and extend it across the curriculum in imaginative ways. Maths classes could include calculating how many kilos of poppies would be needed to manufacture a gram of heroin; geographers could explore the drugs trade of Colombia; and drugs could be raised in religious education lessons which examine 'morals, values and cultural diversity'. Music lessons could examine the subtext of the Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. The proposals, announced a month after the Government downgraded cannabis from a Class B to a Class C drug, are included in a booklet from the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) which will be sent to schools next month. English, drama, physical education, science and computer technology lessons would also incorporate the issue. Ministers emphasised yesterday that the aim was to widen appreciation of the danger of drugs, but opponents argued that by turning drugs into a subject to be studied alongside the periodic table or geography field trips, pupils would be more tempted to experiment. The booklet says that the cross-curriculum approach 'should be explicitly planned as part of a cohesive and progressive programme. Both teachers and pupils should understand the connections between the different aspects of the programme.' The advice follows a week of controversy over the issue. Tony Blair sowed confusion among head teachers and his own officials when he told a Sunday newspaper that the guidance would empower heads to carry out random drugs tests. In fact, the booklet only notes that some schools are already deploying drug testing and sniffer dogs, and urges others to exercise 'extreme caution' before doing likewise. Within 24 hours of Mr Blair's comments, the DfES had admitted that head teachers had no powers to compel pupils to provide urine or blood samples. Teachers' leaders said that he had spoken off the top of his head: random testing had not featured in discussions with ministers because it was simply unworkable. Tim Yeo, the Shadow Health and Education Secretary, said that the proposal to drag drugs into a wide range of subects risked removing a necessary taboo. 'I think that the discussion of drugs in maths is ridiculous,' he said. 'There is no justification for that. There is the danger that widening the study of them will simply stimulate curiosity and make people more tempted to experiment.' Margaret Morrissey, of the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, said she was concerned that pupils would become overfamiliar with the issue. 'Parents agree to drugs education in schools as long as it is kept within the realm of personal and social education,' she said. 'The danger of this approach is that it could turn the issue into an everyday matter for pupils. Just for once, they could consult parents.' Officials drafting the booklet express concern about the impact of teachers' advice on children whose parents are drug abusers. The guidance states that schools 'should be sensitive to the very real possibility that the parents/carers or relatives of some pupils may be problem drug users'. It says that 'care should be taken . . . so that drug education does not heighten pupils' anxieties about their family member's welfare'. Heads are warned that pupils from cultural minorities might also react badly: 'Teachers need to be sensitive to the fact that pupils may have varying attitudes towards drugs which are influenced by their cultural and religious backgrounds and their life experiences, values and beliefs. 'The stigma attached to drug misuse within the South Asian, Chinese, Roma Gypsies and traveller communities is particularly acute, and parents may have concerns about their children discussing such matters or bringing drug education materials into the home.' Teachers are urged to emphasise that cannabis remains illegal and damaging to health, despite its downgrading. A spokeswoman for Drugscope, an information and policy centre, said that a 'whole school' approach would help to prevent children from falling into drug addiction. 'Lack of information is one of the main reasons why pupils experiment with drugs,' she said. 'If they are given clear information, enabling them to make informed decisions, they will delay the age of experimentation and are less likely to become users.' John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, supported a broad drugs education. 'If a teacher is doing a lesson on the geography of South America then he should bring up the subject of the drugs trade,' he said.
After you have finished reading this article you can click here to go back.
|
This page was created by the Cannabis Campaigners' Guide.
Feel free to link to this page!