So, What if I don't care...
'Punish students who smoke in public'

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 8:

Students caught smoking in public should face disciplinary action.
"We should take disciplinary action against these young smokers," suggested the Deputy Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk G. Palanivel.
"Now, action is only taken when they smoke in the school compound. It should be extended to include those who smoke outside the compound as well."
The move would further strengthen the anti-smoking campaign, he added.
"We need to be more pro-active in enforcing the campaign. Otherwise it will just be posters on the wall and advertisements in the papers, having little or no effect.
"Times have changed, and our culture with it. In the past, smoking in front of the elders is considered uncouth. Now, parents are sharing cigarettes with their children.
"The campaign must go on and we must improve upon it. Education on the hazards of smoking should start from kindergarten," he added.

I have been teaching for more than 10 years and this problem has existed for as long as I can remember schools. Educators, parents and the community have been urged to take various actions to overcome the problem but without success. A lot of prevention programme have been designed to reduce the number of young smokers especially students but to this very day I didn't see if any of them were really much of a help. So, what should we do? Take more sternuous actions against the offenders? Or just let it be?

In my opinion, we have done whatever necessary actions to prevent them from smoking and now it is really up to them to decide whether to lead a life free 0f- or full Of-smoking kind of business. I'm not suggesting that we should ignore them in their choice but if we have done everything we could and still they are going for it, then at that point we should just let them be. Nagging and scolding them will only turn them into rebels.

There were some cases in my school where the students were caned in public (during the school assembly)after they were caught red-handed in the school toilet. And guess what??? Did they become better afterwards? Did they stop smoking? Suprise! Suprise! They definately did change BUT not for the better but for the worse. They became "heroes". They were untouchables. And in the end, all of them were expelled from school. There goes their future!

If only we know what triggers a person to start smoking and live with that, we might have an idea on how to overcome this problem. Most people say it is because of peer influence. But I believe it is more than that. It should have came from within the person himself, an internal urge.

Anyway, whatever it is..the choice is really ours to make.

Have a nice day!