Would You Use Prescription Drugs to Improve Your Teaching?

The lead headline in the April 25th Chronicle of Higher Education is on the growing practice in academic circles of using prescription drugs like Ritalin (concentration) and Provigil (keeps you awake) to help job performance; brain steroids, essentially. It’s an interesting idea—Lord knows that I could use some help with focus every now and again, and if there was a happy pill that could help me do that with minimal side effects, I’d sure have to consider it. Right now my pcik-me-up vice is Monster Energy drinks, which drives my wife nuts.

Would you pop pills to be a better teacher?