Smoking and hot potatos

[Derek McMillan]

I have uploaded some resources to http://homepages.enterprise.net/sackville/activit1.htm

and

http://homepages.enterprise.net/sackville/badverts.htm

and pupils are making interactive webpages using "Hot Potatoes" software.

Hotpot seems to be hooked on Windows but the resulting quizzes work with any computer as they are designed to be uploaded to the web.

A friend mentioned to me that some girls smoke so they can lose weight...and smell like an old ashtray!

Naomi Wolff in "The Beauty Myth" compared adversely the amount of food in a diet

program in the states with the (and this is grotesque) rations in a concentration camp. She also pointed out that the average physical appearance of frequently photographed female figures in the media was that of a profoundly unhealthy teenager. Teenagers who aspire to such a model will make themselves ill.

I don't hit my pupils with anything so heavy (oh dear) as that, the aim of the course is to enjoy learning and whatever they think about smoking they can have fun putting together a quiz and at the same time learn a bit about interactive web pages. However the facts rub off on them in the process and they can take a decision for themselves about smoking based on the facts.

I hear pupils repeating to each other facts from the Ash link in the activity when they are chatting.

And seriously what is the point in teaching them ICT or Math or poetry if they smoke themselves into an early grave? If I dissuade one of the pupils I teach from smoking then my time will have been tolerably well spent.

(And what is the point in smoking to look big and hard when it can cause impotence

[Guest Stephen Turner]

Derek, cough, wheeze, what ever have we poor smokers done,gasp, hack, cough to deserve this never ending, splutter, cough, bucket of slops over our collective heads, Gasp, wheeze...............

[Derek McMillan]

I know Stephen, I was a smoker between the ages of 13 and 33. The emphasis of my work is "It's a free country, people will decide whether to smoke or not but meanwhile...here are some facts."

The "Kick Butts Day" campaign in the states has an anti-corporation slant which would probably lose them charitable status over here and it is well worth looking at some of their material.

Edited September 20, 2005 by Derek McMillan

[Guest Stephen Turner]

I know Stephen, I was a smoker between the ages of 13 and 33. The emphasis of my work is "It's a free country, people will decide whether to smoke or not but meanwhile...here are some facts."

The "Kick Butts Day" campaign in the states has an anti-corporation slant which would probably lose them charitable status over here and it is well worth looking at some of their material.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Derek, my first reply was tongue in cheek, if the campaign can keep one child from starting smoking it will have been worthwhile. Even so how I miss the long nights in smoke filled rooms, plotting the downfall of the Capiltalist system, pass the ashtray comrade McMillan.