Alumni Success Stories: Inspiring Hope During the Opioid Crisis

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Originally published in TEACH Magazine, January/February 2024 Issue

By Jeffrey Webb

I am a teacher at DuPont Middle School in southern West Virginia, a region defined by stereotypes and hit hard by America’s opioid epidemic. The course I teach, 8th grade social studies, focuses specifically on our state’s history. It is designed to analyze the past and future of West Virginia, and to instill in students a sense of pride about their home.

However, every year students come into class believing there is little to be proud of when it comes to West Virginia. “Nothing but crackheads,” some of them say, not realizing that heroin and prescription pills—not crack cocaine—are the reason behind our state’s drug problem.

Many of my students grow up thinking the only way to survive West Virginia is to leave, leading to a mass exodus of our youngest and brightest. Meanwhile, others internalize the “nothing but crackheads” stereotype, leading to apathy about school, discipline referrals, truancy, and, in some cases, even drug use. The students come to class feeling hopeless, believing they are trapped by their circumstances and doomed to a life of poverty and addiction. Why bother trying if the future is already decided?

These attitudes may partly explain the state’s low number of college graduates and high number of overdose deaths—“deaths of despair,” as they’re coming to be known. I wanted to challenge this narrative, and I knew that to do so, I had to help my students see past that despair.

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Jeffrey Webb is a writer and an English and social studies teacher from West Virginia.

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Jeffrey Webb
Jeffrey Webb
Jeffrey Webb is a writer and an English and social studies teacher from West Virginia.

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