Press coverage

Teachers urged to make a difference with at-risk kids

By Gail Schontzler
Bozeman Daily Chronicle
June 21, 2003

Montana students have higher rates of binge-drinking and contemplating suicide than the national average, but teachers have the power to save at-risk kids, an award-winning educator said Friday.

"You, right here, you have the power to make a difference," Steve Sroka of Ohio told hundreds of teachers at the close of the state-sponsored Montana Behavioral Initiative summer institute, held at Montana State University.

Kids who shoot their classmates were often bullied and teased, but no one -- not even teachers -- went out of their way to notice the student was in pain and needed someone to talk to, he said.

Sroka, who grew up in a Cleveland public housing project and was labeled retarded in second grade, went on to earn a Ph.D., be named the 1994 American health teacher of the year by the Disney corporation, get inducted into the Teachers Hall of Fame in 1996 and appear on Oprah Winfrey's TV show.

He specializes in talking to students about sex, drugs and violence.

Montana's youth risk behavior surveys found that 40 percent of the state's high school students say they have had five or more drinks at a sitting in the previous month, which is one-third higher than the 30 percent national average, he said. A high percentage of Montana kids say they've thought about suicide, made a suicide plan or attempted it.

One girl from Eastern Montana told him she was raped by her grandfather, beaten by a father and, if it weren't for her friends, she would kill herself, he said.

Like an advertiser, he boiled down his messages into easy-to-remember slogans. Every child needs "the three F's," Sroka said -- a family or someone giving unconditional love, friends who pull them up and faith in some kind of moral compass.

He faulted fashion corporations like Guess jeans and Tommy Hilfiger, saying they indoctrinate kids to think that they're not worth anything if they don't wear those clothing brands and publish erotic ads in magazines aimed at young girls.

One in five American teens has sex before high school, so education has to start early, Sroka said.

His message to kids is abstinence is best, it's not healthy to risk getting pregnant, sexually transmitted diseases or AIDS. But if they do engage in sex, he tells students, be monogamous and use a condom. But no condom is 100 percent reliable, and no condom is big enough to protect you from a broken heart, he says.

Girls are "more concerned about rejection than infection," he said. Sroka tells them to remember, "My body, my choice, I'm not your toy."

Most girls who become sexually active wish they'd never done it, Sroka said. They say, "I saw him, I liked him; I liked him, I loved him; I loved him, I let him; I let him, I lost him."

The teachers stood and applauded at the end of Sroka's talk.