Kush: The Cologne of Choice!!!

  
Welcome to my new blog.!!! My name is Shira Dillon and I am a high school teacher in Los Angeles, CA. This blog will explore the mind and life of teenagers today and help adults better connect with them. Please come by often or subscirbe so you can receive these bogs by email. And don't forget to like my FB page www.facebook.com/ParentsTeachersandTeens to unite with me to help public education become a better institution of learning. Our children need it!

"How do you know if your child is using drugs?"

 The response was, the school would let me know.  She confessed due to the numerous hours she works just to make ends meet, she is rarely at home until late at night. 

"My son spends most of his hours at school. So it is the school's responsibility to let me know what's going on with my son." The mom said with a sense of wavering confidence.

"Well, as a teacher, the cologne of choice for many of my male and female students is that of Kush. The smell is so strong and there is nothing I can do about it except try to not inhale too much. When I call parents like you, they are at work or do not pick up the phone." I said to her frankly.

The school cannot let you know if you don't make yourself available to know!

In a schoo in South Central, Los Angeles, a class can have thirty five students and twenty of then will smell like weed.  The school isn't staffed where one teacher can send twenty kids out of class.  The thermostat is set to a comfortable 72 degrees and the aroma is set to Kush.  That's what it is and there's no working solution unless parents, uncles, aunties, cousins, grandparents, and everyone who has a family member that is a teen talk to them about drugs. 

Most of the time when a parent comes to see me they want to know why their child has a fail (F) in my class. There's so many things that parents need to know other than their child's grades. Here are a few suggestions to help parents become more aware of what's taking place in their child's school.

1.  Attend Back to School night!- This is a great way to make the connection between parent and teacher before student's even have grades!

2. Teach your child the importance of coming to school dressing and smelling appropriately! Students who are high and smell like Kush do not make the best impression on teachers nor do they make the best decisions.  These students are normally absurdly late, inattentive, extremely disruptive, and my favorite, the compulsive classroom eater. 

3.  Give the teacher a working number! With technology the way it is today, the best way I contact parents is by text and email.

4.  Talk to you child often! Take time to turn off the gadgets and talk. Replace television time with a parent selected book that your child would love to read.  There are books for teens about the important issues that many parents don't know how to talk about effectively.  My book "Sex, Drugs, and Other Teenager Elephants" is one of them.  See the end of this blog to find out how to order your copy!

It really does take an entire community to raise a teenager. Talk to the teenager in your life about drugs, about responsibility, about prioritizing, about making good impressions.

I know I may not be able to stop a kid from using drugs because they have to make that own decision,  but I do at least try to show them why it shouldn't be done at school.

                                     Teenagers are forming their adult habits NOW!.

If you don't get anything else from this blog, then I want to make sure you get this.

Talk to a teenager about the "Elephants" in the room that we ignore.
 If you know at least one teenager then you are apart of the community!!!

To order your copy of "Sex, Drugs, and Other Elephants click the paypal link below.

 

e-books are only $4.99  For less than a combo meal you can purchase a book that will change a child's life.  This is the book teens want to read and you'll want them to read it!




I'm Shira Dillon, a high school teacher in Los Angeles, CA
Like my FB page www.facebook.com/ParentsTeachersandTeens  to unite with me to help public education become a better institution of learning. Our children need it!
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Behind the Attitude!!!!

Welcome to my new blog.!!! My name is Shira Dillon and I am a high school teacher in Los Angeles, CA. This blog will explore the mind and life of teenagers today and help adults better connect with them. Please come by often or subscirbe so you can receive these bogs by email. And don't forget to like my FB page www.facebook.com/ParentsTeacherandTeens to unite with me to help public education become a better institution of learning. Our children need it!

 This morning a student comes to school late without her book, homework, and other materials necessary to learn. She is greeted by campus security that yells at her about being late and make jokes about how she should go home since she didn't bother to come to school with materials.

Jessica then enters the classroom where she needs to sign the tardy sheet and is then given a detention slip by her teacher. Jessica sits in her chair with an attitude as the teacher does his lesson.

"So nice for you to join us today Jessica.  Too busy trying to find the right outfit to get to class on time?" The teacher says playfully as he finally get some laughs from the class.

"It looks like your ass need to be late sometime Mister so we don't have to keep looking at your dingy sweat stained shirt that you wear every damn day."  Jessica snaps back at the teacher and gets even more laughs.

"Get out of my classroom and don't come back until your parents have a conference with me!!!"

Jessica storms out of his classroom and into my classroom.  She tells me everything that happened this morning.  I asked a question that no one else asked Jessica. 

"What happened Jessica that made you late?"

You will be surprise what we as adults can get from teenagers if we just ask them a question sincerely. I learned 3 things about Jessica's life.

1.  Her father is a drunk and had fought her mother last night.
2. Jessica slept in the car all night with her mom b/c they were afriad to go back in the house.
3. Jessica mom made her wait until the father left for work before she could get ready for school.

Moral of the story: You never know what someone is going through. I'm not excusing Jessica's disrespectful behavior but the adults in this story were not without fault either. Before any teenager is going to listen to you, you must take the time to listen to them. If you listen, you just might make a connection, and learn the "Why" behind the "What" a teenager does.

I'm Shira Dillon, a high school teacher in Los Angeles, CA
Like my FB page www.facebook.com/ParentsTeacherandTeens to unite with me to help public education become a better institution of learning. Our children need it!
Leave your email to get this blog delivered to you for Free.

Cellphone, iPhones, iPods, OH MY!!!!!!!!

I think back to high school, I remember writing notess to my friends often.  We would put the date, time, our favorite song, and then tell what was on our mind. I use to fold my notes in the cutest way possible and give it to my friends during passing period.  Ah! The good old days. That's right "old days!" Even though I haven't had a twenty year high school reunion yet, the times when I was in high school doesn't exisit anymore.

Today students are texting their friends during class, calling them during class, and commenting on their facebook status during class! Instead of including their favorite song in a note, they are listening to it.  In Class!!! When I went to college to become an educator these type of "gadgets" didn't even exisit so there was really no expert to teach teachers how to deal with the problem. However, I have my theory on a solution that will help eliminate these electoronic devices dominating the classroom. 

The Solution:  Parents!

Parents, you are teachers partners in crime.  We need your help! A father came in to parent conference night two weeks ago and he cried when I told him that his son listens to music in my class. His folder was empthy and he has a 0% average.  The father took the ipod away and the boy came to school the next day and did his work for the first time.  He became a model student.  A week later, the father gave the ipod back to his son. Guess what happened?  He stopped doing his work. Even when I made him put his ipod away (which I was lucky he did) he still did not do any work.  When I asked him why, he said his father gave him the ipod back so now he doesn't have to. 

I was lucky he put the ipod away and answered my questions. Sometimes these students would be willing to fight a teacher before they hand over a cellphone or an ipod.  "Ain't nobody got time for that!"

But what I do ask that we have time for is for the parents to talk to their kids about what they are doing in school, look at their cellphone to see if they are texting during class, and take their gadgets if they are using them excessively in school!

If parents and teachers will work together, then together we can improve public education in this country. One parent/teacher pair at a time.

I'm Shira Dillon, a high school teacher in Los Angeles, CA
Like my FB page www.facebook.com/ParentsTeacherandTeens to unite with me to help public education become a better institution of learning.  Our children need it!

There's A CONDOM in The House!!!!

Parents!!! Imagine you are sitting on the couch after a long work day and you stumble across a condom in your child's backpack.  What would be your first thought? Let's say that your child is anywhere between the grades of 6th and 12th grade. What would be the first thing you do?

I have taught teenagers for the last fourteen years in both middle and high schools. Yes, they are thinking about sex.  I'm sorry if you don't want to accept this fact, but it is true.  They are thinking about it, talking about it, watching it, and of course, many are doing it. Yikes!  Think back to your teenage years. Pretty scary, huh?  Well in 2013 when there is not only a computer in almost every home, but the internet can be found on every cellphone, young people today have access to sex on a 24hour basis. (Yes, I've seen teenagers watching porn in school and I've caught them trying to act out the porn in schoool too!)

Sex!!! It's one of the many elephants in the room that no one wants to talk about and yet teen pregnancy seems to be more normal in high school than an art, drama, or  music program.  So I conclude this blog leaving you to ponder the following questions...

 1. How do you address the issue of sex with your child effectively?

2. How do you really know that your way is effective?

(Teenagers are smart.  They know what answers to give their parents and other adults. It doesn't mean that they are honest answers.)

3. Do you really know what's going on with your teenager when it comes to sex?

4. Do you know what's going on with your teenager's friends ( the folks teens really listen to) who are full of stories and advice about sex themselves?


Something to think about!!!