[HF8449 Jordan Paul: one teacher's approach. 1971, Length: 00:22:22, B/W, Sound. 

This Beta SP was duplicated from a 16 MM Answer Print by BonoLabs for the National Library of Medicine,  April 2015.] 

[Film leader and countdown]

[Music]

[Jordan Paul: One Teacher's Approach]

[Jordan Paul narrating:] The overwhelming feeling that students keep giving to me  

about their experience in school, and about their experience in their life, is that nobody cares.

Nobody really cares enough to get involved withthem.

They may care about whether they're learning the subject matter or not, whether they're 

teaching them well enough, but they’re not caring about them as an individual, 

what they're going through.

[Mr. Paul:] What you're most worried about, you're worried about him  

getting addicted to speed again.

[Young Woman:] Yeah.

[Mr. Paul:] And that's what’s really scaring you.

[Young woman:] That I don't want it to happen.[Mr. Paul:] And, and, you told him this?

[She nods.]

And what does he say?

[Young Woman:] He just says, like any answer,like um "Don't worry I won't I won't, 

I just need a little help to get through the day because um I get so tired.

You know school really gets me down."

And I just go, "Well, Caleb it shouldn't."

I try and talk to him.

If he does love me he will care. I think he will anyway. 

He'll care about what I feel inside.

[Mr. Paul:] Do you think that he'd be willing to come with you together  

and the three of us could talk? 

Or maybe find out if something is bothering him. 

[Young Woman:] I'd ask him, but he might resent it. You know?

[Mr. Paul:] Yeah, he doesn't know me at all.[Young Woman:] Yeah.

[Mr. Paul:] Of course you don't know me either.

[Young Woman:] Yeah but like I've heard about you and you're a really good teacher  

and you understand people that, you know, that's why I came to you.

[Mr. Paul:] You know, I try, but mainly I would really like to try and get him to understand himself 

and what is happening. 

And to, I mean that's a pretty big thing.

At this point he's saying in essence I'd rather take drugs than be involved with you 

and we're not gonna get too far until we get him involved.

You know, and even if it’s not today, if it’s sometime this weekend, or tonight, or late afternoon,

or whenever.

[Speaker at front of auditorium:] Terms such as tolerance, habituation, and physical dependence are probably the keys 

to why people get hung up with drugs.

Tolerance is a situation where an individual takes a drug over a long period of time 

and as a result of taking that drug over a long period of time he requires...

[Mr. Paul narrating:] My idea that no one approach is going to be right for all the kids in that class

so there's a lot of different things that I try.

And one of them is that lecture and uhh one of them would be having a guest speaker.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I have a feeling that maybe for some kids this is 

a valuable thing and it might work for some kids.

The kids who are most turned off to it seem to be the kids  

who are most heavily involved with drugs.

The kids who really enjoy that lecture many times are the intellectual kids who are not very hung up

with drugs anyway.

But I think really, when I think about, it's uhh the kids who probably don't need to hear it 

in terms of their drug involvement.

[Speaker:] What is in this kit is simply a display of the various items. 

These assimilate the color pretty well, but I looked at this and I noticed that really 

the colors aren't exactly what they really are in uh the true capsule form.

If you'd like to see the kit, do come up.

[Mr. Paul:] We are going to assume as I've talked about for those who weren't here,  

we're going to assume that the drug is legal.

If it was available to you, what would be the criteria that you would use to make a decision  

as to whether this is um a good thing for you to do or not. 

Now you're all to make a choice.

You may change your mind at any time during the debate and tomorrow if you would like 

you can change sides of the room.

Now my tendency is, and it’s a bad tendency, that I want to get involved in it. 

Because I tend to do these kinds, I tend to be involved too much in these kinds of things.

Okay, would anybody like to start uhh to talk about why, let’s see this 

if the negative outweighs the positives.

Kim.

[Kim:] Okay, well I feel that life, you only need to go through it once.

And there's so much to do in life, there's so many things to do and I don't think that taking pot

is helping you to experience all the things that you can do.

[Mr. Paul:] Paris.

[Paris:] I've smoked dope before. I didn't like it.

Umm it didn't give me any thrills or anything, I've had more fun not loaded.

[Young Man:] You people that like, disagree with marijuana, 

you seem to be really concerned about it, you know?

But I think you should just mind your own business because I don't give a hoot about 

you guys playing football.

[Mr. Paul:] Now hold on, hold a minute. Nobody is saying... I don't think...

All right wait a minute. One of the things. 

Wait, let me make this clear in the debate. 

One of the reasons I phrased the question the way, in the way I did is because nobody

is sitting over here telling you what to do or what not to do.

They're sitting over here or you're sitting over here because you've made a decision 

for yourself.

That's all.

And all we're doing now is looking at what went into making up that decision. 

But nobody is telling you that you shouldn't or should do this 

and you shouldn't tell them they should or shouldn't do it.

All I would say is be consistent.

If you're concerned with what you put in your body, then be concerned with what you put in your body 

in all walks of life. 

Everything.

But don't tell me you're concerned with air pollution and I see you smoking a cigarette 

or a joint.

That's hypocritical.

[Young Man 2:] If you say that you're against the oil companies making pollution,

that's affecting everybody, everyone's gonna suffer from that.

But when you smoke a cigarette or something, that's your own decision based on what you want. 

And you can still, you might hate yourself, you might, you know I'm not saying this is good, 

but you might say you know I don't really care about myself, I'm no good you know, this person might need help.

[Mr. Paul:] You're right.

[Young Man 2:] Still he might say that, but he might still care about other people...

[Mr. Paul:] I accept that as an exception to what I just said, you're right.

It's not purely hypocritical.

[The bell rings and students scramble out of the classroom.]

[Young Man:] They sound like a bunch of missionaries. 

[Mr. Paul:] I didn't hear that at all. 

[Young Man:] I think the reason maybe I smoke is because I'm bored, you know. 

I don't got too many friends you know? I've gotnothing to do. 

[Mr. Paul:] That's sad.

[Young Man:] Yeah maybe but at least I'm happier.

[Mr. Paul:] I don't know, I, I, I think it's sad to have me hear you say that,  

I mean I don't see you as a happy person.

You say "I'm happy" but what I'm saying is that, if you see things this way that maybe, 

maybe if these people see it this way that it's possible to, to find out.

How they're accomplishing what they are and maybe it's possible for you.

Sitting home and getting high in your room, you'renever going to find it.

I mean, that's sad.

That's like to me the alcoholic who will sit around on skid row and get drunk.

Now I don't see him as being a very happy person.

But there are other possibilities.

There are ways to get out of your boredom, there are ways to do things.

That's one of the things we're going to talk about on Wednesday and Thursday, is alternatives.

That there are ways to go.

[Young Man:] I mean like, you know, what is there, sports?

That's aggressive.

[Mr. Paul:] No.

[Young Man:] I think it is.

[Mr. Paul:] No, I'm agreeing with you, but that's not an only way to go. 

There are many ways to go.

There are many alternatives.

[Young Man:] Well, I like reading books.

[Mr. Paul:] Okay.

[Young Man:] You know, that's...

[Mr. Paul:] You talk about friends, you talk about, you know, you don't have friends 

so that's part of what we're going to talk about.

Because I think people can help.

[Young Man:] Yeah.

[Mr. Paul:] People isa great substitute for drugs, for loneliness, and for boredom.

So then the question is how do you go about finding them?

And that's what we're going to talk about on Wednesday and Thursday.

Those alternatives.

[Young Man:] Okay, I'll see you around.

[Mr. Paul:] He was willing to put down anything anybody over here said, 

but in one minute of talking with him individually, and if I can follow up on that now I think I can get him 

to the point where his mind is a little more open... 

Because nobody has ever said to him there are alternatives, 

that you don't have to sit home and be bored, and miserable, and lonely. 

People have said you don't have to do it but they've never really helped him

to go about finding how to do it.

[Film narrator:] If you become a pothead you risk blowing the most important time of your life.

Your teen age.

That unrepeatable time for you to grow up and to prepare for being an adult 

that can handle problems and make something meaningful out of life. 

You're the generation with the brain power and the opportunity to do more for the human beings 

of this world than any other generation in history.

Let’s hope that your teenage children don't have too much criticism about what you did 

or didn't do because you were on pot.

[Mr. Paul:] Liz.

[Liz:] Well I think that if the film presents too negative of an idea, 

the kids are going to think that there is something that they're leaving out.

[Young Woman:] That was so stupid.

You see all these guys, they're shooting their heroin all blue in the face and stuff 

and you know that's wrong!

But if you can't believe that, what can you believe?

You can't believe any of the films.

And if all the information is wrong then you can go out and take it 'cause there's nothing wrong with it. 

[Mr. Paul:] So if there's one part of the information that's false, then the assumption is that...

[Young Woman:] ...research 

[Mr. Paul:] ...there must be other things that's false. [Young woman:] Yeah. 

But you can believe your friends because they've taken it and you know they have. 

And they say it’s good.

[Mr. Paul:] Yeah, go ahead Bruce.

[Bruce:] If people are educated on drugs and everything, 

there isn't that element of the unknown.

They know what's gonna happen.

[Robin:] But you can't educate an experience.

[Mr. Paul:] Hopefully people can learn from other people's experiences, but the question 

that Robin raised, that's always been a troubling thing for me also is uhh, are the people who are 

most likely to get into trouble with drugs uhhh, who we'd most like to influence, 

the people who will be least influenced by the approach that we take to drug education. 

[Young woman 2:] I think that if all the misconceptions were cleared up right in our class, 

and everyone wouldn't take drugs anymore, but don't you think that some people

who went off drugs in lots and lots, wouldn't they go to something else? 

Things completely different from drugs, to get like their kicks or whatever you call it.

[Mr. Paul:] So then that's really saying something about what we're really lacking 

in this whole thing of drug education.

Perhaps we're not really getting to the real underlying causes of why people use drugs  

and really helping them deal with that.

But how about a positive alternative, something that you can do if you're lonely, if you're scared,  

if you're bored, if there's all kinds of things that may be happening in your life that may lead to drugs.

What about helping people get involved with some possible things that can 

really deal with those problems.

I could grab onto somebody else in a relationship and I could be involved with that person 

and hang on to that person and not let them go.

And delude myself into thinking I was in love when I was really just lonely and depressed, 

and alienated, and scared.

And I could do that for the same motivation that someone might use dope.

[Mr. Paul narrating:] The big quarrel I have with many kids is that I am an authority figure, teacher.

And they've learned to suspect teachers and those in authority.

So we have to spend a great deal of time building a relationship before anything meaningful  

can start to happen.

Sometimes the resistance is so great that I never get through.

[Mr. Paul:] I told her I was sorry for what had happened.

I really felt that we could handle the situation, she and I, 

and that we didn’t have to involve you or anybody else.

And I asked her if she wanted to get together and talk and she said yeah okay, 

ask me sometime again.

Well, that's the last time I saw her.

That was a week ago.

I see her every day on campus, I talk to her.

I say you know, are you gonna come to class? 

She says "Aw no I don't think so. I don't know."

And we say hello every day in passing and I haven't seen her in class in a week.

[Vice Principal:] From what I know, like you mentioned Linda's [?] name,  

to anybody on campus and even all of her peer group goes, "Oh my God. Not her again, she's in trouble again."

And she's been cutting every single class extensively since the beginning of the semester.

[Mr. Paul:] But you know I'm not convinced that there is nothing we can do with Linda. 

If we can get to her and like, I don't know if I can get to her because she's pretty well angry 

and turned off to me, but uh, but I had the feeling when we talked that she wasn't as turned off  

as she would've, as her image, as she would've liked to come off.

Okay well, I'm just gonna wait until she shows up again and when she does I'm going to see 

if we can, if I can set up something with her to talk with her alone.

[A band plays music outside on the school grounds.]

The concept of the teacher's role is, but in terms of our involvements with students, 

there seems to be an unwritten law that stops when the bell rings for the end of school, that that stops during lunchtime, 

that our involvement is just on a teacher-student relationship in the classroom.

And we'll take papers home, we'll make tests up, but we won't take a kid home,  

or we won't stay after school or take a lunch period very often.

I mean, once in a while maybe but not on any kind of a regular basis.

[Band continues playing.]

Now we'll lock arms.

[Everyone gathers in a circle.]

And you're, what you're going to try to do is get out.

You have to break out. 

[The boy in the middle fights to break out of the circle. Sounds of scuffling and a barking dog.] 

Go sit down so we can talk. 

[Young Man:] It irritates me to be caged in. 

It's like a, it's like a game. 

I felt that you were making a kind of game, and I was a victim of a game. 

I don't like that.

[Mr. Paul:] It seemed to me you didn't think about it.

Your reaction was immediate that you were going to use force and that was it.

[Young Man:] That's true, yeah.

[Mr. Paul:] I've always felt that there's a level between what the psychiatrist has to deal with  

in his office, which may be some really deep-seated serious problem, 

and the typical problems that kids are having, 

that if dealt with by teachers, probably wouldn't develop into those serious problems. 

And we can meet a lot of those needs.

[Young Man:] You know. It's like my parents can control me.

You know, can control me.They are above me.

[Young Woman:] How can they control you?

[Young Man:] I don't know, they can make demands, threaten, there is a number of ways.

[Mr. Paul:] People don't have control over you now as much as they did, not nearly as much. 

So you can start behaving a little bit more appropriately for the situation. 

[Mr. Paul narrating:] What my life has been in the last few years has been balancing 

what I can do here with kids, and what I have to do to be a husband and a father 

and to meet the needs of my wife and children.

And for a while uhh, I was pulling away from my family just you know like, 

I characterize it as saving the world. 

You know, this kid and that kid, everybody had problems and I was getting involved 

and I was really, you know, I was doing good things, but my marriage was disintegrating. 

And when my wife finally was able to hit me over the head with that concept, 

I finally woke up to the fact that you know, what's going on here in my home is the basis.

And that's got to be where it's at. It's really hard to keep perspective.

I guess is what I'm saying.

[Student Teacher:] As a student-teacher, I think a master teacher in teaching is so important. 

The last experience I had was, you know, was something that almost 

made me decide to quit teaching. 

I was so stifled in what I really could do and I had to have everything, you know, 

set up as far as classrooms,

where it had to be in rows.

Where you really couldn't get close and involved with the kids. 

You had to have uh, books they had to be assigned to.

And they had to have chapters to read every week. 

You know, and the, the roll had to be taken every day. 

Which I, you know you should take roll but I think the point where you're reprimanded afterwards 

if you don't take roll or if you don't start the minute the bell rings is ridiculous.

[Mr. Paul:] Come on in. 

How you doing?

[Sounds of students walking into building.]

How are you?

Good.

In this vast campus of three thousand people there are many people 

who feel like they don't know anybody.

They feel alienated.

And uh, I think that's the appeal of this kind of thing.

That maybe doing things to get people to break the ice, 

to get people more involved with each other. 

I've done this kind of thing before in class and the reaction is you know, the people who have  

an involvement like that tend to feel closer to each other.

Yeah.

Sue.

[Sue:] Can we do something like that, do you think?

[Mr. Paul:] Um, well we could do something like that.

Uhh, on a voluntary basis.

Those who want to.

I can do a very simple kind of thing.

Not as threatening, perhaps as the things they did in the film. 

If one of the primary reasons that people go to drugs is alienation, is a need for contact, 

is a need for involvement, than this kind of thing, not in and of itself, one time, 

that's not going to replace it. 

But if you can, if people can start to become involved with each other this way uhhh, they're 

they're saying that this may be an alternative to using drugs. 

Those who do not wish to be involved can remain in the classroom, 

and I don't think it's fair to the people outsideto have you 

standing around and gawking at them. 

So if you'll stay in the classroom and, you know, read or you know, do whatever you want to do.

[Sounds of students moving around and out of the classroom.]

To begin with, we're just going to walk around with each other and uhh, and shake hands. 

Get around to as many people as you can, non-verbally, no laughing. 

[Sounds of greeting as students make contact with each other.]

Okay, now find the hand of somebody who you're next to.

Take right hands.

Take right hands.

Everybody get somebody's right hand.

Let me get closer.

Close your eyes and explore that hand.

Get to know that hand.

Test the strength in that hand, 

and the tenderness. 

Have an argument. 

Now, without talking, open your eyes and see who your partner is. 

See your partner for the first time. 

[Different groups of students are outside on the yard doing ice-breaker exercises.] 

The rewarding thing to me about teaching is that I can have a positive effect  

on the life of an individual. 

I can't feel really good about the positive effect I have if I'm just teaching them subject matter, 

and that's all he's going out of the class with.

And so the positive effect that I would like to think that I can have with some students, 

the ones that I can get involved with is that uh I can help them to use the material 

that they have in an effective way. 

An effective way meaning to me, use it in a way that is going to make them happy, 

and increase to some extent the happiness and satisfaction that they can get out of their lives. 

And there's no way that I could do this just standing up there being a teacher 

for forty minutes a day, one semester of their life. 

...in terms of income taxes and things like that. So there are insurances.

[A Film by Vaughn Obern]

Things that are made easier by having them right. On the other hand it makes no difference at all.

[Photography Bernard Selling, Sound Rol Murrow, Camera Assistant Kit Kalionzes] 

[Editor Harry Keramidas, Conceptual Writing Vaughn Obern, Hal Gelb, Assistant Editor Mary Ellen Tokunow] 

[Production Manager Edward Kutner, Production Assistants Kathy McGinnis, Gene Kopp]

[Executive Producer Gary Schlosser]

[This film was produced by Extension Media Center University of California at Los Angeles]

[for the National Institute of Mental Health]

[U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare Public Health Services 

Health Services and Mental Health Administration] 

[the social seminar] 

[A multi-media training series developed by THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH 

in cooperation with THE U.S. OFFICE OF EDUCATION] 

[For workbooks, film guides and more information write to: National Institute of Mental Health,  

Social Seminar Information P.O. Box 2305 Rockville, Maryland 20852]