Coffee in hand, I was ready to face Wednesday's early start.

Students watch the 20 minute movie, Teen Truth: An Inside Look at Drug and Alcohol Abuse. Photo by Jackie Barr.

However, everyone else wasn't so ready to face it. In a Class of 2011 School Loop discussion, many criticized the early start. Last year, Every 15 Minutes brought us a car accident for an assembly. When students sat down in the gym on Wednesday, Oct. 28,  a movie and a speaker just weren't going to cut it.
 
"It was a waste of time." "Nothing we haven't heard before." "I don't think it will stop the people who are already doing drugs." Comments such as these filled the class discussion. And they're all true.

When students have been listening to the same talk since elementary school, it's bound to get old. A boring, non-motivational movie featuring awful mugshots of addicts did not appeal to many students—including me.
 
Yes, the assembly offered a new perspective on drugs and alcohol because it came from a former addict, but the general student population pretty much knew what he was going to say before he said it. His melodramatic speech only served the purpose of eliciting a superficial "aww" from the audience rather than instigating a self-reflection on why not to abuse alcohol and do drugs.
   
Why make us spend our free time listening to the same old lecture? Junior Nathan Burroughs brought up a very valid point on the School Loop discussion: if the administration felt this assembly was really important, why should students have to give up their time outside of normal school hours to listen to it?

But in the end, late start or no late start, all that matters is whether the student gained any insight from this assembly. Unfortunately, many students were blinded by the lack of sleep and indignation from having to listen to another speech. Some, like me, truly felt the assembly had no effect at all, and only a few actually felt it was a valuable experience.

If teachers aren't willing to give up twenty minutes of their class for one day of the whole school year, then maybe the school just doesn't think the assembly is important (enough)," Burroughs said on School Loop. "And if the school doesn't think it's important, then why did we bother having it?"

• Add New
• Search

Comments (4)

• |99.51.74.197 |2009-11-19 06:08:53 babs  - it was worse
  awful mugshots?
  they showed a guy puking out his stomach lining
  
  it was disgusting and represented the admins lack of understanding of the student body
  Reply

• |71.202.203.64 |2009-12-03 03:39:27 Sherry Roohi  - being smacked in the face with the the truth
  coming from a person who doesn't drink or smoke.
  i found the assembly some what eye opening.
  the video smacked the students with the truth. and showed them what they them selfs were doing.
  people don't like to be criticized, and hearing someone telling them to stop a habit or stop what they are so called "enjoying" made people put up walls.
  and they didn't come to the assembly open minded.
  
  
  Reply

• |67.188.137.54 |2009-12-20 18:43:28 Anonymous
  I thought the assembly definitely missed its target audience - casual users who are still bound to be successful. Just about everyone that's graduating this year is going to be in college next year; 40 year old meth addicts with no teeth do not fit the post-Monta Vista life I think. It would have been much more effective to talk about what goes on behind the scenes of peoples outwardly normal lives and how drugs eat away in your private life.
  
  Nathan brought up a good point. The admin probably thinks that late start is no big deal because we wake up at the same time every other day... but I think everyone feels it when we miss a late start, I know I do. That extra hour of sleep means a LOT to kids that are as sleep deprived as us...
  Reply

• |99.65.178.24 |2010-01-05 03:36:58 Anonymous  - Targeted at the wrong audiance...
  Doing this sort of presentation at Monta Vista is not really the right place to do it. While there are students who abuse drugs, the number is very small, especially for serious abusers. I think it would have been a much better use of money to have an assembly on something that actually effects people at Monta Vista, like Academic Honesty, or like last year's Every 15 Minutes where some people have actually been effected by the topic.
  
  Just my opinion, but I know a lot of people I know feel this way.
  Reply

Write comment

Your Contact Details:

Name:

Email: do not notifynotify

Comment:

Title:

Message:

Security

Security Image

Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Powered by !JoomlaComment 4.0 beta2