Mr Edler's Class (1971)

foreign I think on your stamped out of the mold of teacher training and the curriculum and student teaching you come out rather rigid many teachers go on through teaching tightening up the longer they teach I think to the contrary I've kind of loosened up at first I expected the children to be a particular point at a particular time as a result of what I did shortly after about the first year I began to look at the kids and they just didn't seem to fit the mold that I had set up for them so I guess as I got further along I began to look at the kids to see what things they seem to need to be happy and I guess that means successful but not in the classic material sense just able to be productive for themselves and that'll make them productive for society [Music] gentlemen I think you might have almost outdone the lady this morning we'll see what happens next time around what are we beginning today [Music] drugs and drug abuse before we go into a program I think it's important to find out what you know anything you want to talk about because this is kind of a beginning idea let's find out where we are in our knowledge now some people have talked and other people don't seem to get involved go ahead and get involved okay well some people are good and someday know exactly but they just they just take it because they have trust they don't have anything else to do because they have problems and they want to run away from and other people just do it back well some people think well if I have one trip it's not going to come back I probably won't even have it again then it does you have you might have it again and then you think well I better take some more just in case so that they take more they live their life dangerously like um and they're afraid to sleep because you know they're afraid they're gonna crash while they're sleeping and they won't be able to wake up and it's really dangerous if they can kill themselves okay you mentioned a crash some other things that you have heard about drugs whether true or not isn't important we have a family her daughter 17 and she started bugs and she started stealing from stores and everything and every day you know Dad had friends all that um Cape Cod and they were just take as much drugs as they could and she steal from her parents they give the first one you free so you get hooked on the first one and then they give you they try and sell you some more his wife is taking drugs and he didn't know about it and so she ended up in the hospital and she's in the critical mood that she's almost dead she didn't know who she was or you know where it was where she was or she didn't know um it was like her brain would be completely washed out all right with that comment I think she summed it up quite well would you ask Richard as our life instructor when I begin the film and it's running then we can click the lights off and we'll let you take a look what was the beginning of your program I mean just finding out what what they knew about drugs okay that was day one in the classroom presentation did they say more knowledgeable than you thought they might be I kind of heard that with a gas because I could hear you going hey they know more than you know they do know more and that's why you're getting hopefully one and a half jumps ahead of them they are well informed very often but very often they haven't gotten the whole picture they have just enough knowledge so that somebody will say hey I know they know what they're talking about did you feel the whole film was kind of a broad area as you mentioned over here it it's awful big it doesn't go into much detail and covers so much territory I think it will be valuable to us as a group and for your note-taking and for Gathering knowledge to break these down into big families of drugs what are one or two of the big families we could break it into to study a type of drug did you see any coming out of this [Music] um hey you say uppers and downers these are two of the families we're going to be studying does anyone know what an upper is actually called the chemical name stimulants or amphetamine oh my goodness okay you've got a lot of knowledge going for you before we even get going we won't go into the other families right now but I know a lot of you collected articles over uh the last week or so didn't you how many found drug abuse articles all right you know you know the gray bogus that we have at school you could fold over feet and slide all your articles in there keep Gathering them sometime during the week I'm going to have you as a group work on a bulletin board somewhere over here thinking back at the first stage is really it's the whole thing began with an interest in drugs from probation department when I was a probation officer and I when I'd gotten into teaching Let It Drop for those first couple of years in which I was trying to get my head straight on working with kids and then after that I began to look into the programs I wanted one was working in drug abuse I felt that it should start down at elementary and not much was being done at all in the city here and really not much was being done nationally so I called the only person I could think of and that was somebody at working for the county or the city involved in drugs and that was Dorothy Gildersleeve my background in elementary Ed and hers long time in drug abuse education so we spelled one priority should be a drug abuse class for teachers and for Community people teachers in particular so they could kind of see the area with programs because you're going to be asked every question that I might throw at you or Dorothy might throw at you they're going to ask you where do you feel you're going to begin the program I think the classrooms that I've visited I've seen lots of information given about safe habits a lot of humidity coverage take only medicines that are prescribed for you only with supervision these things are going on as a positive you know this is not a new program this is not anything uh dangerous it's been going on in various forms I think you might include that as part of your presentation initially the first step it's not new it's been going on in a fragmented manner in the schools what you're hoping to present is an organized schedule pattern of Concepts and growth and drug use and so you're just bringing it together in that way you tend to play Down the scare aspect if it's presented as a hot new potato you've got a problem right away because what is new is not always accepted very quickly I would want to bring them in to scare them into it I just would I would just want to show them what materials we have available to us and what we hope to show the children well a lot of the parents in the community had to be convinced if there is a drug problem that it does exist or what maybe show them the potential of what can happen because uh especially in the sixth grade they'd rather you know prefer that they stay sheltered and protected from it you'll have you'll be hard-pressed to convince them Dana has been talking with a lot of young people and she has had a drug problem in the past and she wants to share this she's done this because Europe for Valley College so Regina do you want to share some of the things with the boys and girls okay when I was in I did the seventh grade and they called an assembly the way they attend the whole school congregated and they talked to us about drugs and this now this goes back maybe 20 years ago and they really told us some funny things that they they were so ridiculous that we had to laugh telling a lot of lies this is telling the truth and see what happens you know let you make up your own mind about drugs and I can tell you what happened to me you know we all like to think that we're something special but we find out that we're really just one like a whole lot of them and I know a whole lot of drug addicts or one of my friends suggested I take a couple upper or Benny's amphetamines whatever we're calling them these days White and I found that if I took a few pennies it would it would give me a lot of energy and I perked through my homework I remember one night I I rest at night so that was pretty much the way I went along to smoke a little grass in the afternoon take a few uppers midnight take a few downers the next morning you need a few uppers again at that time it was mostly just you know when if you were a hard drug user I met a fellow when he was using heroin and I begged him just don't do it it's gonna hurt you poison it'll kill you and he ignored me as most drug users do and finally one day about two or three months later I happened to look at this boy and uh he hadn't Fallen apart it was you know I thought it was a very funny thing you know he was still looking fairly healthy looked good to me he hadn't disintegrated this deteriorated you know so I thought well I'll join him I don't know heroin is a life whereby if you get addicted if you get a habit thrown out whatever you call it you have to have that narcotic in you every day if you don't you get sick so usually you have to devote all your time to looking for that narcotic for looking for the money to get that narcotic you have to go to crime and in jail if you don't overdose in the meantime you know die somewhere in the meantime the first time you go to jail you can usually call your mother or your father or one of your friends if you still have any friends and they'll come and bail you out and if you have a good lawyer you might get probation but the second time or the third time comes when there's nobody to call that cell door claims shut and you feel it okay I know we don't have too much more time in class so uh does anybody have any questions they'd like to ask how young were you when you started I started smoking grass I was about 13. okay what what happens when you get busted you know you're in jail and you cannot get upset you get very very sick here and those tailors are cold-hearted they are yes [Music] thank God yeah [Music] it started for me and parents did bring up the point that one of the addicts of children children heard all right I don't know what showed how you sniffed loose and she was very upset about how and we finally her child down to pass the drugs so they weren't too happy with the program because it wasn't done by the LA cities and my husband got up and said it probably was better because it wasn't somebody else these reports that you've been doing are valuable to us because you're updating our research right on to this time you won't be able to find this stuff as readily as you might get it presented to you by the people in the class it provides you with real fast way of getting an answer and children are going to demand that you have an answer even if it's I don't know started about six months ago it's been a year and a half of taking it to open up and the lady that started it she said that she really shocked me she said that their biggest problem now is heroin and they're getting all kinds of calls from college people trying to either kick the habit or having a hard time I chose the subject of marijuana because I knew so little about it and I've heard so much about everyone else knowing more about it than I did so I thought I'd better know how to deal with it in the classroom and I was thinking I have a coffee habit and I tried and I really have cut down I'm glad you suggest that because it really brings home how difficult it must be for somebody who is really habituated to a drug to know how difficult it must be for them to overcome it what types of drugs have you used well over a period of about six or seven years I guess I've tried and used marijuana hashish some hallucinogenics including LSD and mess one one time one time let's say every six months and that's having a small small amount of basis I've heard of younger kids who have taken it taken hallucinogenics quite frequently like like two or three times a week within a couple months span and and uh it uh it does have some pretty pretty nasty effects but I think that if you uh got a loaded as you do behind a hallucinogenic with alcohol for the about the during the same amount of amount of time you'd have a DTS and be put in a hospital anyway maybe a person with that type of Personality this personality you might type try to try drugs in the first place maybe all we have to do is find some type of medicine and it will alleviate this I think that the only way you can effectively control drugs abuse in any school is to as if the administrators recognize that there is a problem it's so very important because a lot of people just assume children realize that these medicines are not to be taken that they are not candy well he showed me the rap sheet you know we saw that when we went to the jail uh narcotics are when we refer to narcotics family we're referring to Opium and drugs that are making opium such as heroin and within three hours all 12 rats were dead however it's as much the person as the content in our classroom and I think we often tend to forget it I know that I do and I have to remind myself to forget very often getting to a certain point at a certain time and remember that I'm working with people and growing kids and that their problems are evident by what they do right in the classroom and I think you're quite aware of that you can be reading to yourself what it is and then I'll explain it a little bit further would you pass out well these particular little things you're getting I'd like you to look over the directions just quickly as you get it see if you can figure out what it is and I'll read it to you in just a moment when everybody has a copy it's called the where I want to be ladder if this ladder represents all the things you've always wanted to be in your life or all the things that you ever expect to feel where would you think you would be on it in five years now the top of the ladder or ten this little ladder that you see is an interesting kind of tool because children love it you explain to the children that this is just for them and it's to find out on a scale of 10 where they hope they might be in five years realistically where do they think they might be if everything were on a scale of 10. and put an X down where you feel you'll be and they'll ask you well what do you mean where will I be and your response might be well I don't know what does it mean to you on a scale of 10 all your life all your achievements all your feelings where would you like to be realistically mark an X and the kids will Pond during their expressions will change and they're really fun to watch they'll work next somewhere let's think about what that ladder represents our whole life is there on the ladder on a one to ten scale okay in five years where do you expect to be in all your feelings about yourself or all your achievements on that ladder of ten at the top is the most one is the least I'd like you to think about it as you mark an X somewhere where you think you'll be in five years [Music] you see it's similar to what we were doing before similar but not the same it's where you expect to be in five years go ahead and make an X I'll kind of walk around is there anyone who has not marked the next now that you have marked an X for where you think you're going to be in five years I'd like you to put a zero where you think you are now you don't have to let any neighbors know if you don't want this it's just for you and doesn't work well try again spiritual where you think you are now and the expert was where you're going to be in five years you think you think would you pass all those forward now I'll give them back to you in three or four months how's that would you like to do another one three or four months okay if you're on when we come back as a science group in the spring we'll pick this up all right look back and see where you were way back in the dark ages of 1970s we do collect them all across is that hard does it make you think a little bit what did you think about it you did that [Music] maybe how you how you would progress in five years like let's say you're doing the same like in math let's see you're doing you know let them play maybe in five years you might be an expert in it you never know well it feels like how popular you are now and like how you're doing in school like Jerry said and how the people like you wrong well where you are right now like you might be a four and um you're thinking about how far you'll be up like when you're old I've had a lot of different things to different people here didn't it seemed that to some it meant uh School the summit meant popularity to Summit meant other things I saw a lot of physical Expressions as you kind of went wow where am I going to be in five years well that's something we think about particularly when we deal with drug abuse because in five years most of you are going to be from 16 to 17 years old and so they locked themselves in in time and space to a feeling about where they are and where they're going mine does not be a pretty valuable tool in launching a discussion about feelings and certainly right into the drug abuse program you can go about feelings about oneself and how they're affected by drugs that next letter D after that Bingo okay you feelings about nice to have said what a great group you are wow you're really terrific you come in here and get all your papers out in the morning and you really do a good job you're looking at me like what he's saying that we're doing you didn't feel it right didn't you we were going to start working a little bit more on feelings in here now we've been getting the facts you know about uh amphetamines and you know about barbiturates and part of you are actually quite different from eight you've done in any other class I think and it may put you in a strange position go along with it let's see what happens for instance I would select oh now we don't need cancer I'll just go around and you can see one of them to go outside now Jay I think we're the last of the four boys use it at school and with sixth graders and technique to get them into it by having the children first talk to each other for five minutes about anything they must sit and face each other and whether they do nothing they're supposed to talk to each other and they must face each other and after a while we twos talk to each other boys in any way they want to about anything what did you feel the purpose of this was if any minute communicate yeah with other people with someone else other than someone that you know also that you know that you know very well and also maybe with the opposite sex because of the kind of silly about that yeah and see what other people think about other subjects we talk and we'll talk about that why could we talk more did your time seem to go fast yeah or did it seem to drag [Music] more time discussions out here I wish we had more time for it and maybe we'll make some more time we won't make this the last then all right all right one of the children in that group he learned to talk to a girl a couple of kids got invited to parties at the end of the year they said I never thought I was going to get invited to a party and then I began to talk and they found out I really wasn't so bad and I found out that girls really weren't so rough they began to talk so that technique might be a lead into using this whether on the elementary or the secondary we presented it just as another tool you could use and it ties right in with your drug abuse sensitizing them to feel that they are a worthwhile and that others are worthwhile but these tools along with your stealth evaluation tools can be a valuable way to get kids to see you as a human being because nobody but a human being would put on this kind of program and uh often we aren't seen as teachers as being human I mean we don't even sleep or they've run across a teacher that hasn't been human but at least I think we'll come to the conclusion that they're worth working for aren't they the kids it's real interesting because before you didn't know anything about it you know you just saw the headlines in the paper and everything now when you see something you know you know what's going on it was good class and I learned a lot about drugs I mean when I didn't know anything about drugs I was curious what they would do to you if you just text yourself taking even one you couldn't say that's not going to hurt me you can keep on taking them then after a while that's nothing bad is going to happen to you there's no doubt about it why should you take drugs just you know live a happy life and not just start something stupid and that's about all