I’ve told a few stories about the kids at the school I work at being surprised that my husband is white but yesterday, a couple of kids were surprised that I was married at all! So, we were talking about how the choices we make affect us long after we do the thing that we wanted to do. That we have to “suffer” the consequences whether good or bad (we were having a really good talk if you ask me).
Then, inevitably, the conversation took a downward spiral to the topic of drugs and the way they can make a person feel. Alcohol and how it burns all the way down.
“Mrs. Sam, what’s your favorite drink?” asks the student.
“None of them. I hate the way that alcohol tastes.”
“What?! You just haven’t had the right ones. You have to get a fruity drink.”
“Ya. But I can still smell the alcohol, which means that I can still taste the alcohol. I personally prefer to do things that I like to do so since I don’t like the taste of alcohol, there is no reason for me to keep trying.” I say.
“So, then, your first experience was sex was good one?” asks the student, “Wait, you have had sex before, right Mrs. Sam?”
“I’m married.”
“You’re married? How can you be married when you’re only a few years older than me?” What the heck?
“Ummm. I’m 27. So I am more than a few years older than you.”
I think that the students sometimes think that I am younger than I really am because when I tell them that I have never smoked a cigarette- or anything else for that matter- and that I have never been drunk, they just assume that I must be younger than my years since everyone gets drunk on their 21st birthday! And since they don’t have anyone in their lives who chooses to be above the influence of drugs and alcohol, they assume that people don’t truly live sober lives- that’s just a lie that grown-ups tell them so the teens won’t have any fun.
Makes me sad…
I don't really understand this blog to be completely honest. I don't understand what makes you sad; does the fact the kids don't have "anyone in their lives who chooses to be above the influence" make you sad? Or the fact that you haven't rebelled more against the idea of what's "good"?
ReplyDeleteOn the former there are really a few things which I can really say that haven't been told before, but on the later there is much discussion! In order to convince you that experience is the only way of truly learning something, let me ask you, what makes you think these kids are wrong? Is it not the experience that you have accrued on your 27 years of life? If you have answered yes, then why do say that all these peccadilloes which you enumerate are wrong if you haven’t experienced them? If you say no, then answer me what makes you 27? Rebelling against what’s good, is how the good changes, the idea of what’s good is ephemeral.
On the other hand, do the kids make YOU sad because you think they will never get over their current situation, rise above what influences them? I would argue that it is this act (this experience) that would shape them to become good. We all must overcome something at some points in our life, these kids may be idiots right now, but if they weren’t they couldn’t be wise later. To quote C.S. Lewis the job of a teacher is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts, which one are you doing???
What makes me sad is that some of my students think that a life without drugs and/or drinking is no life at all. Since they have no one to look up to that lives a fulfilled life without all the 'artificials' that drugs and alcohol bring. How can it be that nothing is fun without being inebriated?
ReplyDeleteSo, the challenge for me is to show rather than merely tell that there is more to life than getting high and drunk. What fun is all that if someone else has to recount what happened since the 'offender' was too wasted to know what happened.
Mind you, this scenario is not for ALL students at my school, only select group.