While our education programs have contributed to the decline of illegal drug use among American youth, the abuse of prescription drugs by teens is rising quickly. In fact, a 2006 study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that, for the first time, the number of new abusers (12 years old and older) of prescription drugs is the same as the number of first-time marijuana users. So while we have been fighting a battle to educate our youth about drug abuse on one front, another front has quietly opened and expanded.

The nation’s education programs on drug abuse have had success in shaping perceptions of street drugs and those that abuse them. We’ve seen the use of ecstasy, heroin and methamphetamine decline, while marijuana use has held steady. Although we still have a problem, it seems the message that these street drugs are illegal, dangerous and potentially deadly has reached teens and had an impact on them. The risks of abusing prescription drugs, however, have not been communicated.
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Experiential Learning is what WILL Interactive is all about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiential_education

In this first blog entry for WILL Interactive’s shiny new site, I just wanted to touch on something that is at the core of the WILL philosophy, learning by doing. Fancy academic types will call this Experiential Learning, or learning by experiencing a topic, situation, or event. As a springboard into this idea, I wanted to relate something that happened to me this week at WILL.
We have a lot of actors who come through our doors, seeking to be in our movies. Recently we had a large audition for a half dozen films we have coming up, mostly on military themes and for use by military personnel. I want to use this as an example because it will hopefully highlight the types of, needs for, and possibilities of, experiential learning. That was an ugly sentence, eh?

I sat in on the auditions as a reader and redirector and was surprised quite a few times by the type of learning going on just in the audition process. And not just by our auditionees. Let me explain.
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