VISUALS
"SOMETIMES
A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS"
Tobacco Education
Must Do More Than Give
Information,
It Must Change Attitudes!
By: Robert H. Meyers, Canyon
Springs High School Teacher has students do parody of tobacco ads.
Moreno Valley, CA: rhmeyers@earthlink.net
Below is the assignment I use in class to inspire
the tobacco ad parodies. It follows two days of lessons that
expose the dirty tricks tobacco companies
use to lure kids into smoking.
I believe that getting kids angry about being
duped is our best bet to fortify them against seduction. Constant
exposure to tobacco ads has conditioned them
to associate tobacco use with "social prominence, distinction,
success, or sexual attraction." We have to
change these attitudes, get kids to think of tobacco as gross and
uncool.
This is not easy. I smoked a pipe for about
a year after high school because I thought it made me look older. I
enjoyed it, but it just became too much trouble.
Now, of course, I don't think it's worth the risk; even so, on
occasion, I find myself following a pipe smoker
around just to catch a few aromatic whiffs!
I doubt that anybody starts out saying "I want
to be an addict, a pothead, an alcoholic, a junkie." We find
something that seems to satisfy a need --
for a while...
The conclusion for my tobacco-alcohol-drug
unit, then, is a simple observation:
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