One might think that the current campaign against drugs should include drug education courses in the schools. But parents who have looked into the matter think that so-called drug courses are not a solution and may even be part of the problem.
One of the so-called drug education programs parents are questioning is called “Quest.” We say “so-called” because the first question is whether it is a drug education program at all.
The Quest program began in 1975 with a grant from the Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan. The “Skills for Living” units cover grades nine through twelve, and “Skills for Adolescence” is for grades six through eight.
In the latter curriculum, only one of seven units gives any facts about drugs and alcohol. The rest of the course is a strange mixture of psychological exercises. Here are some examples.
Students are asked to complete 22 statements called “Boundary Breakers,” such as, “Sometimes I wish I had . I get in trouble when . One thing I’d never want to do is . The thing that worries me most is . When I think about the future I .”
Students are given an “Emotion clock.” That means students must fill in the blanks for “feelings you’ve experienced at four-hour intervals during the past 24 hours.”
“Skills for Living,” which is the high school course, is likewise concerned with emotions, feelings, attitudes and beliefs, and does not contain one unit on drugs. The teacher’s manual lists these units for study: Self-Concept, Feelings, Friends, Family, Marriage, Parenting, Financial Management, Life Planning, and Life Philosophy.
Suggested topics for student “journal writing” in the high school program include “you and your feelings, you and your friends, you and your family, you and the person you marry, you and your own parenting, you and those great big beautiful dollars, you and what you will do, you and your concept of the universe.”
The teacher’s manual for “Skills for Adolescence” contains these revealing passages: “All of the sessions in the curriculum contain questions designed to help students determine how they felt during the activity, what caused their feelings and reactions, what they thought, what they learned, and how they can apply that learning to their lives. In short, questions that can assess the process of the session, as contrasted with the content. Feel free to include additional questions of your own [such as], What feelings did you have during this activity? What are your feelings right now?”
The teacher is told to take pupils through “energizer” exercises, such as fantasizing they are on a descending elevator, and the doors open on the fifth year of their lives. Programs like this are not drug education at all and are a cheat on parents, pupils, and taxpayers.
Parents all over the country are demanding protection from this sort of group therapy by unlicensed psychologists. To meet this demand, the Kenosha (Wisconsin) School Board recently adopted a policy called “Privacy Rights in District Programs.” It will appear in all student handbooks.
This policy states that “students and parental privacy rights shall be respected in all classroom, group counseling, group guidance and other student activities.” It says further that “No student shall be required without the written and informed consent of parents or legal guardians, to participate in any group activities, exercises, or studies intended to reveal personal or familial information.”
This new policy came about as the result of the work of a human concerns committee which was examining the health curricula. It became clear at this committee’s meetings that some students and parents would be “uncomfortable” with the subject matter, techniques and films “relative to teaching values and sex education.”
The committee concluded that some materials infringed on religious values. Also, the school had received a grant for a pregnancy prevention program, and there was concern that it was “probing” in nature.
After examining the parents’ concerns, the Kenosha school board decided that students should have “privacy rights and not be required to participate without parental permission.” The school board president said that “there are some things that students shouldn’t feel they have to reveal.”
