“Saturday Night Live” recently featured a skit in which teachers and school officials closed out the school year by telling their students, “You won! We quit!”
Like most comedic skits, there was a tinge of truth behind the satire. It’s doubtful any pre-COVID school year has been more exhausting and career-challenging than the one just completed. News reports regarding physical assaults on teachers and administrators surfaced throughout the year and from all points of the United States. The use of vape by teens & pre-teens continued to proliferate at the elementary, middle and high school levels. Trying to control a classroom when one or more students are jacked up on the myriad stimulants delivered by vape paraphernalia is one thing. Concern that these teens & pre-teens have no idea regarding the contents of these cartridges is doubly worrisome. One story from the United Kingdom was particularly troublesome. A young teen “tried” vaping for the first time in a school bathroom and within 90 seconds was teetering on cardiac arrest.
Traditionally, teachers and administrators celebrate the end of a school year just as gleefully as the students - if not more so. The hope here is that the summer break brings with it a chance for our nation’s educators to recalibrate and recharge the batteries. Perhaps, too, the pendulum of intangible social cues that dictate what’s cool and what’s not will swing in the other direction, and by the time the weather turns crisp and clear vaping will be about as cool as William Hung singing “MMMBop.”
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