Maybe drug-addicted people aren’t just chasing a good time. Perhaps their brains have somehow mistakenly learned that drugs are the most important thing to pay attention to.
Philip, p. 164

When a student comes into class drunk or high, there is usually a deeper root to the problem – a reason they started abusing in the first place.

I believe that this article is relevant to all of us who are current high school teachers. When we see a student come into class visibly drunk or high (which has happened to me this semester), it is hard not to judge them and not to think that they are a bad student. In my placement about a month ago, one of the teachers had a student come back from lunch obviously intoxicated, being very disruptive to the class. If I were in that teacher’s shoes, I would feel sorry for them more than I would want to punish them. I try to give them the benefit of the doubt in these situations, as there could be something going on in their lives that they wanted to forget. This is the same case with drugs. I wonder if, as teachers, we can reach out more to students so that maybe we can avoid these situations completely.