I chose to attend these types of meetings because I want to better understand my future students and their families. I'm pretty much guaranteed that no matter where I live, I'll have students who themselves or their family members have an addiction of some sort. I want to know how to better recognize these symptoms and how I can be a positive influence in their lives. I struggle to know how to react when I find out someone has an addiction and I don't want it to negatively impact my perception of them. I want to be able to see my students as successful contributors to society who really can succeed in school and in life regardless of their or their family members' current addictions.
Right off the bat I was surprised to see that the support group was led by two sister missionaries. They were older (one was about 35 and one was probably about 65), but I expected someone who had a professional background in pornography or therapy or counseling or something like that.
As expected, we studied from the church produced pornography program guide. It's called "A Guide to Addiction Recovery and Healing" and looks like this:
This week we were on Lesson 11, "Bear All These Things with Patience"
I went into this meeting honestly pretty sure I knew what it was going to be like (I've attended pornography firesides and young women lessons before), but I learned a lot of things. I will try to describe what I learned in terms of my future classroom/teaching and not just when it relates to a pornography addiction. Here's just a list/description of what I learned and/or some thoughts and epiphanies I had:
- We all make mistakes. I can't judge someone for messing up or relapsing or having an addiction. I want them to be patient with me and my flaws so I must be patient and understanding with them as well. As a teacher I could see myself becoming frustrated with a student who is constantly "not getting it" but I must be patient and understanding throughout the whole process. I've realized that we're all interdependent on each other. Just as we've discussed in class, I'm not perfect and neither are my students. Until we both realize this and become a little more accepting of each other, not much learning will occur.
- Struggle is a good thing. It helps us learn who we truly are inside once everything else is gone. Then, once we overcome that struggle, we have more self-confidence than anyone could have ever given us without it. It may be tempting to simply give my future students the correct answer, but I must allow them to struggle and continue to support them throughout it. This reminded me of our first assignment with our imagined classroom. Dr. Draper stated that this was one of her expectations in her classroom and I think that applies here as well.
- When a student acts out, I can't enable or ignore their actions. They must understand that I love them, but that this behavior won't be tolerated or rationalized. I expect my students to be honest and respectful and I will show this same respect to them as well. I can help my students understand how their actions are impacting the classroom as a whole. Once again, this comes back to the idea of interdependence. If one student in my classroom is suffering, they'll surely bring down other students as well.
- Everybody has a coping mechanism. I need to understand what my coping mechanism is as well as what my students' coping mechanisms are. This will enable me to strengthen the relationship with each of my students by understanding what they need. If I notice a student acting out, not paying attention, or simply being bored, I can better tailor what I suggest they do instead if I know how they like to cope. School is already a stressful enough environment without a teacher requiring a student to cope or react in a certain way.
- I can positively reinforce something with each of my students. Whether that simply be "Good job for coming to class today" or "Thank you for not distracting other students when you were bored" there's always something positive to say. Even if they continue to act out, there's always something I can emphasize that they did right that day.
- I need to see my students as they really can become and then treat them that way. I shouldn't see them as just a minority, or a ESL students, or impoverished or anything like that. Of course this may be who they are and I may need to adjust my teaching to that, but I shouldn't see them as those aspects of their lives. I should see my students as future successful business people or wonderful parents of teachers or whatever else they may want to become. I must truly believe that each of my students can and will succeed in my class and then act that way. I shouldn't limit them on their ability or what society says their ability is. Connecting back to what we've discussed in class, so many of these categorizations are wrong and I don't want them to have any place in my classroom. Basically, every single one of the topics we've discussed thus far could become a limiting factor for me as a teacher. But I have the choice to let it become that or not.
- It's the little things that go a long way. I can smile and greet my students with a handshake each day, attend their athletic or musical performances, ask them about their weekend, and get to know their families. A student's success in my classroom is significantly impacted by all other parts of their lives and I need to be more involved in all aspects in order to help them succeed.
I know a lot of these lessons don't sound like something you would hear from a pornography support group, but by simply replacing the word "student" above with "my addicted love one" we can see that these lessons actually apply in all aspects of our lives. Overcoming an addiction is all about creating a safe, trusting, loving, and progressing environment which is exactly what I want my classroom to be as well.
First off, I was disturbed about how many people were there. I looked online and realized that there were so many of these types of meetings held within just a couple miles of BYU. It seemed like each church building, seminary building, and classroom on campus held one of these weekly meetings. Some were men only, some were women only, and some were both. But either way, if every meeting had 12-14 people like this one did, there would be hundreds of people getting help for pornography every week. And that's only within 4-5 miles of BYU. I was disturbed about how much of a issue this is and that we only now are beginning to talk about the harms of it openly in church or through social media. I'm upset that we were/are ignoring a problem that probably affects the majority of church members.
Second, I was actually disturbed about how the "veterans" of the meeting interacted with the "newcomers." For example, at the beginning of the meeting, there were only a couple of women there all of whom were attending for their first time. We had a very open conversation and I felt comfortable commenting and sharing. However, as the lesson progressed, some other women showed up who had clearly been attending these meetings for years (some 5+ years). These women quickly dominated the conversation sharing their experiences and insights. However, that made me, and other first timers fall back into the background to become observers instead of participants. This happened so much that when it came to the sharing portion of the meeting, 6 newcomers said "pass" and chose not to participate, including me. So, if I really struggled with this, I wouldn't feel comfortable attending one of these meetings. I think they didn't do a very good job of including others (obviously they didn't force). I guess they just allowed the same three people to dominate the conversation. I felt alienated by the language and vocab they were using that I, and many other newbys, were unfamiliar with. This can connect back to what we've discussed in class about how the words we use can discriminate just as much as anything else.
Third, I'm also taken back about how centered this is around religion. Of course it's a church sponsored organization so it will talk about Christ and His Atonement, but I wish the church had a program to help others in different religions. If what I'm teaching only appeals to people of my same religion, I'm alienating a lot of potential students who could greatly benefit from this idea. Yes I have religion freedom, but I don't want a pornography addiction class to become a religious club. When we discussed religion in class, we focused on the idea that we can't teach anything that is advancing or inhibiting religion. However, I believe it is possible to offer a class that can teach about the harm of pornography without furthering our religion. This specific class just didn't do this.
This is a wider view of humanity that I had never really considered before. Pornography addiction, and all addictions for that matter, is a real thing. Addiction really impacts almost every single person in some way or another. And yet, we don't talk openly enough about it. IF SOMETHING APPLIES TO EVERYONE, LET'S GET EVERYONE SOME HELP! That's all. I'm upset that more people don't know about these programs and seek help for it. I'm upset addiction is such a taboo topic and that people are frowned upon for talking about/admitting to it.
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