Is it a big deal for a teacher to have smoked hash when she was younger?

No. Just don’t tell your students. I know so many teachers. If everyone was asked if they did drugs when they were younger there would be a lot fewer teachers.

If it doesn’t bother you, don’t worry about it. @psychocandy is right – teachers are people just like everyone else, and I’m sure a good handful of them smoke(d).

Do you have a criminal record of said hash smoking?

@everephebe no,no, I just smoked a bit when I was doing art, it wasn’t in a desperate druggy kind of way, just a bit of fun.

@lemming Ok, how would they find out about this then?

This is a situation where don’t ask, don’t tell actually works.

Just don’t talk about it.

@everephebe because the people I knew at the time could tell someone, you know, like with facebook, everyone knows everyone. Would it be a big deal, if they did find out, or would it be like, ‘she smoked, who cares’?

@lemming Make your profile private, and remove all the damming evidence you can. Now if one of your old friends feels the need to mention something to an employer, unless they have proof then you can deny it as hearsay. If you are fully “outed” then admit that you smoked when you were younger, that you don’t now, and that this in no way interferes with your ability to teach.

I don’t think it will come up unless someone is posting photos of you smoking on facebook, which isn’t allowed. And I don’t think they will be that concerned with you unless you start doing drugs during school hours, or having sex with the kids. Be cautious (not paranoid), and if all else fails, move to California.

Thanks @everephebe, hopefully I won’t have to deal with it. Or maybe I’ll be like a certain politician can’t remember which and say I didn’t inhale!

I’d be surprised if you found any teacher between the ages of 35 and 50 who hasn’t taken a toke at some point in their life.

Alas, it is still not politically correct to advertise such missteps so it would probably be best to keep the information on a strictly need to know basis (and guess what, none of your students nor their parents need to know).

If you were ever convicted of possession or public intoxication you would never teach in my state—even for a misdemeanor.

@perspicacious no, I was never in trouble with the guards ever, but that’s good to know.

I agree, it’s not a big deal. I doubt it would even matter if a coworker found out about it, but I wouldn’t bring it up… especially around children.

Well considering our current president’s past, and a previous president’s past, you could could just say you toked up, but your not running for school board or anything.

My art history teacher shared that she smoked marijuana frequently in college and high school. But that was an unusual class with an unusual teacher where we could be open about almost anything.

But under normal circumstances, it’s just something that doesn’t need to be discussed. If people find out, people find out. It doesn’t seem like a big deal to me. A lot of people try and/or do drugs in their high school/college years.

Choking here…. It is certainly not something you want to advertise, but the experience may come in handy. I teach a HS diploma completion program..it’s technically for adults, but we have quite a few “kids” in the course, anywhere from 18 to 25. A couple of our younger students (18 I think) are boyfriend and girlfriend. They only come in together. Well…they went to lunch yesterday and were gone much longer than they were supposed to be, for about 2 hours. When they came back I took one look at them and said, to myself. ‘Mmmmm….” I’m a child of the 70’s, see…. A couple of minutes later I said, “Did you kids have fun on your lunch break?”
The guy choked on his giggle (or maybe his potato chips) and you could tell he was saying, “If she only knew.”
I just said, with my lips pressed together, “Uh huh.” They suddenly got very quiet. Then I proceeded to do quirky little thing to throw them off, like sending messages to their computers that said, “Look out!”

I say as long as you let it go , then all will be cool !

I certainly don’t think so but I don’t make the “rules” sadly, because if I did, you would have absolutely nothing to worry about.

No, it shouldn’t be a problem. Ex-Mrs Meiosis was a teacher, and they get up to exactly the same stuff that the rest of us do…

One word of advice, if you are going to be a teacher. Get off facebook, or at least change your user name to something the kids won’t find out, and don’t use your own photograph as an avatar.

Heck no. I was a hippie and a teacher. Open minds make good educators.

You mean there are teachers who haven’t?

No big whoop. Kind of hard to find someone that hasn’t these days, isn’t it?