The Mental and Emotional Tool Kit for Life – A Way to Give Psychology Away. Education that Can be Therapeutic. An Ounce of Prevention Worth Many Pounds of Cure

I taught health education at the high school level for 33 years. Itwas my job to try to help my students prevent and avoid all thosecommon problems and issues young people so often struggle with. Ilearned very early that the way we typically teach health education,by dispensing helpful information and advice, was never going tobe as effective as I would like it to be. Actually, I learned this muchearlier in my own family watching loved ones behave in ways theyknew were unhealthy for them even when they knew better, or evenafter having suffered because they did. I was a volunteer paramedicon our local rescue squad for many of my early years as a teacher. Iwill always remember responding to an alcohol overdose call andfinding a young female student I had in class to be the victim – astudent who I knew had aced all our quizzes and tests in our alcoholunit. There was also another young female who I knew had acedour quizzes and tests in the sex education portion of the class, andwho went on to be our school’s valedictorian, who had an unplannedpregnancy.