Educating Students about Drug Use and Mental Health - Catholic - Grade 9: Expectation 5

Catholic Grade 9 Overview

Expectation 1 & 2

3

4

5

Demonstrate and use decision-making and assertion skills with respect to media influences and peer pressure related to alcohol, tobacco and other drugs.

Bold text between orange lines is an excerpt from the Catholic Course Profile, Unit 2, Activity 4: Decision Making and Assertion Skills

Teaching/Learning Strategy 1:

Students will be provided with notes on the Decision-Making Model. Teacher will lead a class discussion on the handouts.

Teaching/Learning Strategy 2:

In groups of three, students will examine the two scenarios using the Seeing, Judging, Acting, Evaluating model provided by the teacher and apply the decision-making model to make healthy lifestyle choices. Class discussion will follow.

Decision-Making Model

Seeing:

• recognize the decision and look at the issues
• ask questions about who will be affected
• determine if the decision is a moral one (does this have to do with loving God, myself and others?)

Judging:

• analyze the options / alternatives and the consequences of each
• evaluate what options would be truly loving ones
• calling upon our conscience, consider…
      a - what the Bible says
      b - what the Church says
      c - what can be learned from the experience of committed Catholics

Acting:

• decide to do the loving thing
• ask for God's help in putting decisions into action
• break your decision into small steps / follow through with your plan

Evaluating:

• how did your decision work out?
• what are its effects on your life / on others / on your relationship with God?
• what did you learn?

If you can change some aspect of the result for the better, do it now.

(See: Be With Me, Teacher's Manual, Unit Four, Theme Four: What is the Loving Thing to do? Page 137)

Decision-Making Scenarios

1. (Sara's Situation) - Sara has just broken up with her boyfriend. She is unhappy about this situation, but realizes the relationship is over. She is now out with a group of friends driving around after seeing a movie. Someone suggests the group stop by their house to pick up a case of beer. In her depressed mood, Sara is up for anything that might numb the pain. Sara thinks about the "Decision-Making Model" before she replies.

2. (Tom's Situation) - Tom has started hanging out with a group of older teenagers. One of the guys he really admires smokes marijuana. One night Tom was offered a joint by this friend. Everyone is watching. Tom thinks about the "Decision-Making Model" before he replies.

Alternative Activities:

Using the I.D.E.A.L. Problem-Solving Worksheet - Student Worksheet, walk students through the steps of a Decision-Making Model. Use a relevant drug related problem (e.g., being offered a ride from someone who had been drinking). The model should include:

I dentify the decision to be made. (What is it? Is there more than one?)

D iscuss the decision options and their consequences. (What are the positive and negative consequences?)

E valuate the options and select a choice. (Which solution is the best choice?)

A ct on your decision. (Follow through. Is there anything else you need to consider?)

L earn from your decision. (What did you learn? Would you make the same choice again?)

Encourage students to learn the acronym IDEAL to remember these steps.

Suggested Drug-Related Scenarios:

1. John and Omar are playing baseball in the park. Richard arrives and starts to brag about his skills and abilities. "Hey! You could hit home runs, too, if you tried these!" he said, showing them some pills. He explained that the pills would help them to "bulk up". He offers both boys some pills to try. Discuss what John and Omar should do.

2. Your boyfriend's/girlfriend's parents are away for the weekend. He or she invites you over to watch movies on Saturday night. When you arrive, you discover that an older sister has bought some beer to liven up the evening. After your first beer, you start to have second thoughts, but you don't want to lose your boyfriend/girlfriend. What should you do?

I.D.E.A.L. - Problem-Solving Worksheet

Identify the problem:

________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

Discuss (describe) or list three possible ways you might choose to help solve the problem.

1. ______________________________________________________

2. ______________________________________________________

3. ______________________________________________________

Evaluate each solution. How would choosing the solution make the problem better or worse?
 

Solution 1.	Better because:	Worse because:
Solution 2.	Better because:	Worse because:
Solution 3.	Better because:	Worse because:

The best solution is # __________

Act on a plan to use the best solution. Describe how you plan to use the best solution.

Learn about your plan. How do you think your plan will turn out?

Teaching/Learning Strategy 3:

Introduce the concept of assertion and refusal skills. Have the students create a list of strategies that teenagers would use to refuse drugs. Ask them to describe the technique and its suitability in various situations. Refusal techniques that should be included are:

• no thanks
• making an excuse
• walking away
• avoidance and changing the subject

Teacher Background Information:

From experience in elementary school, students should be familiar with assertion and refusal skills and techniques for dealing with influences. Ongoing practice and application to relevant and typical situations is needed.

Assertiveness
Characteristics of assertive communication:

• Strong and steady voice
• Direct and to the point
• "I" statements
• Confident
• Honest
• Being aware of people's feelings
• Eye-to-eye contact
• Open to resolution of problem
  

Comparison of assertive, aggressive and non-assertive communication:
 

Assertive	Aggressive	Non-Assertive
Strong and steady voice	Loud and explosive voice	Soft, uncertain voice
Good eye contact *	Intimidating looks	Downcast eyes
Strong body language	Intimidating body language	Shifting weight back and forth
Aware of others' feelings (sensitive)	Insensitive (what you want isn't important)	Doesn't feel comfortable talking about how he or she feels
Confident	Demanding	Nervous
In control	Cannot control temper	Uncertain
This is what I think	This is what I want	My thoughts aren't important
"I" statements	"You'd better", "If you don't, then look out"	"I guess, maybe"
I would like to hear what you think	This is what I want	Is everyone else doing it?

*Teachers are reminded to be sensitive to cultural variations.

Hot Tips for Teachers: Skills/Techniques to Deal with Influences/Pressures

Include:

Delay Techniques

Don't make any decisions until you have had time to think it over. Includes statements such as:

• Please, not now, I'm not ready.
• Sorry, my friend's waiting. We'll decide later.
• I'm busy right now. Let's find a better time to talk about this.
• Let's wait and make a decision in a week or two.
• I need to talk to someone else first.

Negotiation Skills

Try to find a decision you think is acceptable to both parties. Includes statements such as:

• Let's try this instead.
• Do you think we can find something to do that will make us both happy?
• How about we try to do this instead?

Refusal Techniques/Skills

Note to teachers: If students have encountered this activity in previous grades and meet the desired expectations you may have them develop/share their own techniques that they currently use. There are many different ways to say "No" to peer pressure. Some of these techniques are:
 

 

Refusal Techniques/Skills

Additional Activities:

1. Refusal Role-Play:

Students work in small groups of four or five. Each student selects one of the following activities to explain or role-play for the small group:

• Choose a couple of your favourite refusal skills and explain why.
• Choose two refusal skills that are most difficult for you and explain why.
• Choose two refusal skills that you would recommend to a younger sibling. Why would you recommend these?
• Choose a refusal skill to role-play for the group. The group identifies the refusal skill and discusses ways to make it more effective.

2. Refusal Skills Charades:

Students work in groups of four or six. Cut refusal techniques/skills worksheet into slips of paper. One pair of students selects a refusal skill and using charades, acts out the skill to the rest of the group. The group tries to determine what skill is being portrayed and discusses in which situations this technique would be most effective.

3. Refusal Techniques/Skills - Student Worksheet:

Students will complete this worksheet and discuss in small groups or as a class.

Refusal Techniques/Skills - Student Worksheet

Under each of the headings, describe how you can use this technique to avoid substance use:

1. "No thanks" technique

________________________________________________

________________________________________________

2. Give a reason or excuse

________________________________________________

________________________________________________

3. Broken record

________________________________________________

________________________________________________

4.Walk away

________________________________________________

________________________________________________

5. Avoiding the situation

________________________________________________

________________________________________________

6. Cold shoulder

________________________________________________

________________________________________________

7. Change the subject

________________________________________________

________________________________________________

8. Reverse the pressure

________________________________________________

________________________________________________

9. Strength in numbers

________________________________________________

________________________________________________

10. Humour

________________________________________________

________________________________________________

11. State a health problem

________________________________________________

________________________________________________

(Adapted with permission from Drug Abuse Prevention Program Educational Resources
(DAPPER), Toronto District School Board, 1996.)
 

Teaching/Learning Strategy 4:

Introduce the concept of peer pressure. Have students describe various situations that they would consider examples of peer pressure. Use examples to define direct, subtle, internal, or external peer pressure. In small groups, students will discuss situations involving drugs and describe the subtle and not so subtle pressures that promote drug use. Collect the responses from the groups and indicate whether they are internal or external. Review the responses noting that internal and external pressures are interrelated and that by dealing with internal pressures first, you can then deal with the external pressures.
Homework Assignment:

Students will complete a homework assignment that summarizes peer pressure. On a separate page (to be handed in) students are to write:

• three helpful things they can tell themselves if they feel pressure to use alcohol, tobacco and other drugs
• three things they can tell someone who is pressuring them to use alcohol, tobacco and other drugs

Hot Tips for Teachers: Influences/Pressures

There are many factors that influence drug use by youth (e.g., family, environment, and individual factors). Use of drugs by peers is a risk factor for initiating drug use, however, research indicates that it is less important than previously thought. Program evaluations have shown that teaching refusal skills will not prevent drug use. A recent Canadian qualitative study (Warner, 1998) involved interviews of youth throughout the province of Ontario. Youth reported that "peer pressure" was not a big concern, and that they were able to make their own decisions about drug use. In teaching this section, it may be more appropriate to use the term "influences" rather than "pressures" and to invite your students to identify what influences their behaviour.

Definition of Influences and Pressures:

Persuasive strategies commonly used to pressure individuals into doing something they really don't want to do. Strategies may include gaining trust, arousing curiosity, appealing to logic, evoking guilt, promising, building or threatening to end a friendship.

Subtle Pressure (Indirect Pressure):

Seeing others use substances (e.g., friends, family, people on TV or in ads) creates subtle pressure. "If it's okay for them, it must be okay for me."
Example: Your friend is talking on the phone, organizing a party for Friday night. You are there and are able to hear her end of the conversation. She asks the person to buy her some beer for the party. You hear her say, "Oh, and Jennifer is here. You better get some for her. I'm sure she'll be drinking too."

Direct Pressure:

Being offered a substance or being asked if you would like to use a substance. This may include being actively encouraged to use it or being teased, rejected, or criticized for not using a substance.
Example: You are standing by your locker, about to go to your next class. Your best friend tells you, "Grab your stuff and let's go! Everyone is headed to the coffee shop."

Internal Pressure:

Your thoughts, values and perceived societal expectations that may affect behaviour.

External Pressure:

Pressures from your external environment, including friends, family, media, work, etc., that may affect behaviour.

Suggested Questions for Small Group Discussion:

• What influences our decisions?
• What defines our peer group/group of influence?
• What is the culture of the peer groups to which you belong?
• What are the expectations of the group (e.g., related to music, dress, etc.)?
• Do these differ from your family's expectations?
• How does the group culture and norms influence your choices (e.g., clothing)?
• How do you decide what is acceptable to you/your friends?
• When a friend wants to do something and wants you to participate, why won't he or she do it alone?
• What protection does it offer that person if you do it with him or her?

Alternative Activities/Discussions - Direct/Subtle Pressures

Skipping class - what are the influences? (direct, subtle, internal, external)

In which of these ways is a cigarette offer usually made? Which ways have you experienced? Assign each discussion group one drug, e.g., tobacco, marijuana, alcohol and steroids. Each group discusses and describes a situation where a person may experience pressure to use these drugs.

Peer Pressure - Homework Assignment
 
1. In your own words, define peer pressure.

________________________________________________

________________________________________________

2. In your own words, explain the difference between the four different types of peer pressure, and give an example of a situation involving each.

________________________________________________

________________________________________________

3. Three helpful things I can tell myself if I feel pressure to use alcohol, tobacco or other drugs are…

1._________________________________________________________

2._________________________________________________________

3._________________________________________________________
 

4. Three things I could tell someone who is pressuring me to use alcohol, tobacco or other drugs are…

1._________________________________________________________

2._________________________________________________________

3._________________________________________________________
 

Teaching/Learning Strategy 5:

In groups of four, students will be presented with five peer pressure situations and will discuss appropriate solutions to each. Class discussion will follow.

Alternative Activity:

Take a Stand

1. Draw an imaginary line to divide the class into two groups. (Or use masking tape on the floor to make a visible line).

2. Tell the students that this is a decision-making line and some of them will have the chance to "take a stand" on this line as they try to make a decision about a situation you will pose.

3. The remaining students have the chance to try to pressure them to change their minds.

4. Ask a volunteer to stand on the line.

5. Read out the following scenario: (Additional scenarios follow)
"You have a weekend job with a local catering company. Your boss scheduled you to work on Saturday night at a banquet for 300 people. Your best friend calls to say he has tickets to the hottest concert, which has been sold out for weeks. The tickets are for the same day as the big banquet. Take a stand, with each half of the class trying to change your mind."

6. The group of students on one side of the line will represent the employer and other staff and try to persuade the volunteer to go to work as scheduled. The other group will represent the best friend and will try to persuade the person to call in sick and go the concert. Students from each side take turns trying to change the student's mind.

7. The students can decide any time to go with their friend or to work as scheduled.

Hot Tips for Teachers to Guide Debrief

Debrief, with the students asking:

• What was the main reason for their decision?
• What did it feel like to be pressured?
• What did it feel like to be the ones giving the pressure lines?
• Did anyone feel she would have liked to support her friend in her decision rather than change her mind?
• Was the group pressure too strong to let this happen?
• Was the student able to make a decision and stay with it or was he or she swayed by pressure lines?

Discuss assertiveness and how this was shown or not shown in the exercise. Ask volunteer students to model additional assertive responses in this situation. Additional scenarios that involve drug use:

1. You are going to stay overnight at your friend's married sister's house. Her brother-in-law offers you a cigarette because, he says, "You are grown up." You don't want to smoke. Take a stand, with each half of the class trying to change your mind. Demonstrate refusal skills and assertiveness skills.

2. There is a group of kids in the park who are smoking cannabis. Some of these kids are your close friends. They want you to join them but you want to head to school because the end of lunch bell has already rung. Take a stand, with each half of the class trying to change your mind. Demonstrate refusal skills and assertiveness skills.

3. The principal of your high school speaks to your class regarding a classmate who has been hospitalized for a near-fatal drug overdose. The school staff and the classmate's parents are worried that if the person trafficking the drugs isn't caught, someone else could suffer the same fate. It is suggested that all information can be reported anonymously. You are aware of a classmate, with whom you are friends, who sells these drugs. Your parents think you should provide the principal with the name but your friend thinks you should keep quiet. Take a stand, with each half of the class trying to change your mind. Demonstrate refusal skills and assertiveness skills.

Teaching/Learning Strategy 6:

Students will design a 5-10 minute skit that presents a practical lesson on the dangers of Substance Use and Abuse. This skit should show what can happen, why it can happen, and how it can happen. The role-playing activity should also demonstrate personal strategies to deal effectively with the social influences that contribute to the use and abuse of drugs. Several topics should be suggested to avoid repetition of themes. The teacher and students will develop the criteria and descriptors for a rubric to assess the learning expectation in the role-playing scenarios. This will be one of the culminating activities (a unit test is the other culminating activity) for the substance use and abuse activities. Students will be given time to rehearse their skits to be presented the next day. Skit Presentation Rubric categories may include the following: Social Skills, Oral Communication, Organization and Content in conjunction with the four achievement levels.
 

Additional Activity:

Virtual Party

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health has developed www.virtual-party.org. This interactive game and resource was written by a group of young people. Its aim is to help young people make healthier choices and reduce the harm that partying may present. The game allows students to apply what they have learned up to this point, in a series of hypothetical, but typical, situations that confront the two main characters, Sarah and Jason. The game takes between three and 15 minutes to play.

These suggested activities focus on helping young people explore the reasons behind their decisions and actions, and the outcomes or consequences (both positive and negative) of those decisions and actions.

1. Benefits and Consequences:

Introduce students to the concept of www.virtual-party.org and that they have the opportunity to assume the role of Sarah and/or Jason as they head out to a party. Working individually or in pairs, the students track the following as they play the game, following the various decisions and actions that the characters make:

• What benefits did the characters believe they would get from their decisions to have a drink(s)? What were the outcomes or consequences of those decisions?
  
• What benefits did the characters believe they would get by either refusing a drink or moderating their drinking? What were the outcomes or consequences of those decisions?

2. Reducing the Risks:

With the whole class, introduce the following section and then break into small groups to address the questions. Discuss small group findings as a full class.

Hot Tips for Teachers to Guide Debrief

The surest way of avoiding harm from alcohol is not to use it. We know that not everybody makes that choice. Still, Sarah and Jason have options of making choices to reduce the risk of harm to themselves or to their friends. What are some of these choices? Which are more effective? Least effective? More realistic? Less realistic?

 

Bold text between orange lines is an excerpt from Catholic Course Profile, Unit 2, Activity 5: Substance Use and Abuse Unit Test

Teaching/Learning Strategy 1:

The administration of a final unit test would be the strategy used in this activity. Test items must address the four categories for achievement (Knowledge/understanding, problem solving, applications and communications) including the use of case studies and/or data analysis.

Teaching/Learning Strategy 2:

The test should also require analysis of case studies to demonstrate knowledge of the Decision-Making Model.

Hot Tips for Teachers about the Unit Test

The content and length of the test is up to you and the needs of your students. You may have used other methods of assessment in this Unit and so do not require a comprehensive test, or you may only need address one or two of the expectations.

If you decide to develop a test, the following are a few ideas for your consideration:

1. Use some of the questions from the Facts and Myths worksheet to assess students' ability to identify / distinguish between the myths and facts surrounding a typical drug user and the effects of use of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs.
2. Using the Drug Descriptions as a guide, questions might be developed to assess students' ability to identify the physiological effects (both short and long-term) of the use of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs.
3. From Unit 2, Activity 4: Decision-Making and Assertion Skills, use one of the scenarios in your test. Have students identify a decision-making model, apply it to the scenario, and identify possible assertive and refusal techniques that could be applied to the scenario.
4. Finally, some of the Additional or Alternative Activities may be used as questions on a unit test.
   

Sample Role-Playing Rubric
 

 

Additional Resources

Additional resources are listed on the web site. You may also check your local school board or public health office or contact the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health at these numbers:

• R. Samuel McLaughlin Centre: 1-800-463-6273
• Video Reference Desk:  416-535-8501, ext. 6987
• Marketing Department (kits and pamphlets, etc.):  1-800-661-1111

 

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