Interesting facts my son learned in heath class...

[moneymanmike]

My son, who is 14, told me today that in his health class his teacher told them oral tobac is worse then smoking for you. So my son being the good/smartass kid he is informed his class that his father uses a Swedish oral tobac called snus that has the lowest carcinagins (sp?) out of all tobac products. He also informed them Sweden has the highest use of oral tobac in the worl and has the lowest tobac related health issues. :lol: His teacher did send home a note explaining even though he was polite and had good info he should have approched her after class to disc. the topic. :shock: Somedays that boy makes me so proud This is not the first time he had an issue in school because of the knowlage he learns at home. We also got a note sent home when he had a conversation in his art class about the history and proper use of a hookah he saw in a painting in his text book. :lol:

[holnrew]

'atta boy! You must be proud

[airwoodstock]

Cheers to your boy Mike!

It always makes me giggle when the students know more about a topic that the teacher does! The same topic was touched upon in my daughter's Health and Fitness class this year but, since I know the teacher (most of the teachers are in my store all the time and they know I snus), he asked me about the differences between snus and dip before opening the proverbial can of worms!

[luckysealy]

i would be damn proud myself. no wonder the education in this country is falling behind. our teachers are so quick to teach propaganda than research and educate themselves.

[outsidelinebacker20]

You are more calm about it than I would be. I think I would have a talk with the teacher. No excuse for blowing smoke up your kid`s rear end. They have a responsibility to know what the f%§k they are talking about or keep their pie hole shut. Self righteous morons.

1, 2, 3, 4, ......... breath deep ...........errrrr.........

Kevin

[burningcow422]

In my health class Sophomore year of High school we were being taught about drugs and tobacco and whatnot and during the chew portion of the power point presentation my teacher asked out loud who chews? And as the rebel I was I pulled out 2 tins of Cope and he told me to my face that I'll have cancer in less than a year and basically that my head was far up my ass and whatnot.

Same teacher that said he would rather have his kids drink to death than smoke pot based on legality issues. Personally I'd rather go for thinking I'm about to have a heart attack vs choking on my own vomit..


lol random post I know

-cow

[deebocools]

I'm still able to remember my own health class... these events were circa 2003

We watched an entire video on smokeless tobacco. They had a former minor league baseball player who "could've made it to the majors"(at least that was the idea), but at the time he was talking with subtitles after loosing half of his lower jaw from dip. He said he did 2 cans a day. They continued with more imagery, of distended tastebuds("hairy tongue") and one particularly horrifying image to me was "dip lip", when the lower lip's nerves/muscles die and the lip just hangs down limp.

Not knowing anything at all on the subject, I'm sad to say I ate it all up, believing that everyone who uses smokeless turns to mutants in sewers.

The lesson the teacher reiterated was "not any better than cigarettes", luckily he didn't go on to state that it was any worse.

[Dead Rabbit]

fellas...I'm gonna have to defend the teacher on this one. The chick was teaching 14 year olds not to get hooked on tobacco products. End of story. Expecting her to be knowledgeable about an obscure tobacco product from a far away land is ridiculous. The last thing she probably wanted was the "safe option" of tobacco use being brought up in class. The mere confusion this would create amongst children would out weigh the truisms of our beloved snus. Thus, I can see why she thought this would have been better to be discussed after class. In fact, most of these health classes are based on curriculum developed outside the classroom and handed down to the teacher to be taught like a giant power point. Now, is she a "self righteous moron" incapable of dealing with dissenting opinion? Maybe. But, I'm a snuser and I would have done the same thing she did.

[deebocools]

this is a question of truth. Emotionalism and effect should never outweigh facts.

If she is insisted to teach about tobacco, she should give the full picture, not a melodramatic plea that tobacco is evil. I suppose she would be in her rights to just say that tobacco came from hell, right? as long as it keeps kids from using it?

she can't be expected to her own research? what is she, a teacher or a robot?

[Dead Rabbit]

this is a question of truth. Emotionalism and effect should never outweigh facts.

If she is insisted to teach about tobacco, she should give the full picture, not a melodramatic plea that tobacco is evil. I suppose she would be in her rights to just say that tobacco came from hell, right? as long as it keeps kids from using it?

she can't be expected to her own research? what is she, a teacher or a robot?

People have spent entire careers researching tobacco and can't figure it out. But the teacher lady giving a 20 minute anti-smoking lesson to kids is supposed to have it all figured out and then hold a debate on safer alternatives of using a highly addictive substance? Mind you these are kids. 95% of them (yes, things have changed since we went to school) don't use. You're being unrealistic.

One other thing. Remember, for every parent who demands "truth" there is another sue-happy, pissed off parent just waiting to start screaming about a teacher saying tobacco is safe.


Lastly, look at us. I don't know about you guys, but I hated being addicted to smoking. It was fricking killing me. Literally! I tried everything to quit. And it still took me years to find snus. And nobody had more motivation to become enlightened about snus then me. Why would this middle school teacher be put on the hot seat for not knowing about the very product we all wish we knew about 10 years ago?

edit: I didn't notice the teacher made a point of saying oral tobacco is worse. That is kind of stupid.

[justintempler]

moneymanmike,

Congrats. The problem with misinformation is that once you find out they are lying about snus then you question if they are lying about cigaretttes.

Reminds me of the film "reefer madness". They lied about how bad marijuanna is hrmmm (so then the thinking goes maybe they lied about crack too) Let's keep them honest.

[SeneNatten]

I'm glad there are other people out there who can't keep to themselves when listening to nonsense.

Still, there's a lesson in politics for your son here. The truth might be morally superior, but that doesn't mean you'll come out ahead by telling the truth. My guess is that the tobacco curriculum is mandated upon the teacher. Religion, sexuality, drugs... those aren't things that school districts generally leave to the individual teachers to decide how to teach. The school, for students, is the law, and the law usually wins. If the battle is worth fighting, plan your tactics ahead of time instead of charging in with a kamakaze cry. But sometimes the battle isn't worth it.

...if only I could take my own advice.

If that were my son, I'd probably send the teacher a note along the following lines. "Would you have preferred my son to bring up the issue outside of class, where his peers could easily be persuaded that some tobacco use is risk-free? He brought up a scholastic issue in an educational context and provided the school with an opportunity to refute his arguments. A simple "I'd like to see evidence that supports your claims" would have been an appropriate response. This is a good opportunity to teach critical thinking skills both as they relate to the claims of others and our own emotional impulses. What's the next-best alternative to tobacco use? Tobacco use isn't just a longevity issue, but may also financially prevent car ownership or physically make them unappealing to the attractive sex--things high school students value perhaps more than we want them to. Tobacco can be a wonderful educational vehicle: science (biology), mathematics (statistics in epidemiology and actuarial analysis), social studies (peer pressure and the cultural comparisons), English (marketing language) and history (how tobacco came to be so widely used, and legally, despite its unarguable health consequences) are all implicated in an issue that is (unfortunately) personally meaningful to many children. I thank you for bringing this shortcoming of the school to my attention and I hope that we can work together to improve the education of all our youth. If you would like to discuss this matter further, I'd be happy to meet with you in person."

At the very least, that would make the teacher would be more frustrated with me for writing that letter than with my son for speaking his mind.

[jackolantern]

edit: I didn't notice the teacher made a point of saying oral tobacco is worse. That is kind of stupid.

I honestly can't blame her. I thought the same thing for years. "Big Smoking Tobacco" has put millions of dollars into keeping this myth alive and well to help combat the one piece of the industry they can't seem to touch: "Big Smokeless Tobacco". The more smokers they can keep away from smokeless tobacco, the more money they make for themselves. At the same time, smokeless tobacco companies cannot defend themselves. If they do, any research they conduct would be instantly thrown out and the anti-tobacco groups would scream that they are trying to prove it is safe to hook our 13 year old children.

Most people I talk to actually think that oral tobacco is worse. My parents did, and were pretty concerned when I first told them I was using snus until I told them more about it.

[Grim]

I can understand that the teacher and people who teach health classes want to scare kids away from using harmful/addictive substances, and I agree with the need for truth and actualities instead of scare tactics, yet I agree that you should probably do whatever it takes to keep kids away from drugs/tobacco until they can make those decisions themselves.

I would like to say however that it was health classes like those that got me started using tobacco and drugs.

In 6th grade I dipped for the firs time because someone was talking about it in health class and a buddy of mine said his dad let him use dip so I went over to his house and tried it.

D.A.R.E. is what peaked my interest in drugs. For those of you who do not know it stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education. I never knew what Weed and Cocaine and all of those things were, seriously, until that class.

So I was all like, what makes these things so bad and so on and out of curiosity i tried pot and loved it. Never really did any other drugs.

I think its good to inform kids about the dangers but at the same time I think the parents should play the important role so that while teaching kids about these things the parents can inform them of the truth and make sur ethe chil dunderstands stands the consequences of such actions.

I know it wouldve been nice if my parents wouldve sat my ass down and talked to me about a lil thing called jail.

[PennySD]

I blame the lack of proper information of snus in the States for the teachers' sending a note home.

I still get people lecturing me how i'm going to get oral cancer with oral tobacco usage.

I say I'm at a slightly increased risk for pancreatic cancer, but not a big hole in my face. I'm realistic.