Florida Teachers Use Mints in Pill Bottles in the Classroom

According to TBO.com, when Sandy Young recently visited her grandson's fourth grade classroom at the Westchase Elementary School in Tampa, Florida, she was surprised to see pill bottles on the children's desks. This idea apparently was conceived by the two teachers, Beth Watson and Deborah Falcon, after the class read a book entitled, "George's Marvelous Medicine." The book is apparently about a young boy who creates a mixture that helps improve his grandmother's disposition.

The teachers explained that the children were somewhat anxious about the upcoming FCAT skills test, and that the mints represented a method of helping to calm them. They could take a mint out of the pill bottle, and the placebo effect would be that it had a calming influence.

Although the pill bottles contained mints instead of real pills, Ms. Young was shocked by the idea. In an interview on Fox TV News, she stated that first of all she was didn't think it was a good idea reading a book about drugging someone's grandmother, but the idea of using the pill bottles, even though they did only hold mints, was a really bad idea. In fact, she was so upset by the incident that she filed a complaint with the Westchase Elementary School.

The Hillsborough School District in Tampa said that both teachers were not actively promoting drug use, and that no action would be taken on the charge. Both teachers have been praised highly as creative and excellent educators by the parents of current and former students and have tremendous support.

No one appreciates a creative teacher more than I, but from reading this story, I have to admit that I think Ms. Watson and Ms. Falcon's judgment was a little misguided in this matter. In this day and age, when illegal and prescription drug use is a major problem in this country, I'm not sure that telling children to rely on even a mint from a pill bottle is a good idea.

Now granted, these fourth grade students are old enough to understand the premise of this idea, but I'm not sure we should be telling our young people to pop any kind of pill when faced with a stressful situation. Doesn't that promote the idea that as the situations of life become more difficult, there's going to be a stronger drug out there that will help the situation?

I think that may be what Sandy Young was trying to stress to the school administrators and teachers, let's teach our children how to deal with the pressures of life without popping a pill. Maybe Ms. Young is afraid that when her grandson is older, someone will suggest they have just the thing to take the edge off, something a lot stronger and more deadly.

Maybe Ms. Young overreacted to the situation, but in fairness, I think she deserves understanding for being concerned in a world of rampant drug use. Of course, this is totally my opinion, but I find this an interesting technique to use in a school environment when these days even an aspirin carried by a student can cause an uproar and result in disciplinary action.

Sources:

Fox TV News
TBO.com

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/feb/08/westchase-teachers-learn-lesson-just-say-no-mints-/