Inhuman
Fresh from the "I Cannot Believe Anybody Would Be This Stupid" File: School defends drunken driving hoax
On a Monday morning last month, highway patrol officers visited 20 classrooms at El Camino High School to announce some horrible news: Several students had been killed in car wrecks over the weekend.
Classmates wept. Some became hysterical.
A few hours and many tears later, though, the pain turned to fury when the teenagers learned that it was all a hoax, a scared-straight exercise designed by school officials to dramatize the consequences of drinking and driving.
As seniors prepare for graduation parties Friday, school officials in the largely prosperous San Diego, California, suburb are defending themselves against allegations that they went too far.
At school assemblies, some students held posters that read, "Death is real. Don't play with our emotions."
Michelle de Gracia, 16, was in physics class when an officer announced that her missing classmate David, a popular basketball player, had died instantly after being rear-ended by a drunken driver. She said she felt nauseated but was too stunned to cry.
"They got the shock they wanted," she said.
They should wind up getting a shock they didn't want, namely the shock of being sued for inflicting intentional emotional distress. And don't even try to tell me that the ends justify these means. If they couldn't think of another way of imparting this type of important information to their students then their teaching certificates should be revoked, because it is what they are supposed to be doing for a living.
How much you wanna bet many of those in the know enjoyed doing this to these kids?
It's downright sadistic.
Bad Ideas | Rich Horton Thursday, 12 June , 2008
By youngone, Thursday, 12 June , 2008 @ 6:50 pm
Oh right, because today’s teenagers are so mature and responsible that an educational video or an informative assembly would have stopped them from drinking and driving.Why is it that Americans are so intent on "protecting" their children when it ends up just crippling them in the long run?Is it honestly okay with you to coddle these kids so they may destroy themselves later?Just because you didn’t give them the knife doesn’t mean they can’t cut themselves all the same.
By Bleepless, Thursday, 12 June , 2008 @ 8:06 pm
Gaius, you are right. This is vile. You almost certainly are correct, as well, about the pleasure the perps got out of this. Swaggering, arrogant vermin morally unfit for their jobs. Just watch what ACLU and similar sleazebags do with this godsend.
By Gaius, Thursday, 12 June , 2008 @ 8:25 pm
Rich posted this, Bleepless. And he’s right. He can savage the comment I am about to unblock for himself.
By Gaius, Thursday, 12 June , 2008 @ 8:29 pm
It is sadism and end justifies the means reasoning, Rich. Frankly, I would never have agreed to do this - regardless of the supposed "good" it did. That police and teachers cooperated in this "lesson" speaks a great deal about what has gone badly wrong in his country in recent years.
By Rich Horton, Thursday, 12 June , 2008 @ 8:35 pm
Youngone, it is because they are immature that you do NOT do this sort of thing. If this is the length a teacher has to go to in order to "reach" these kids than that only shows they are completely incompetent.
Besides, what have these idiots taught these kids except they shouldnt trust authority figures because they dont care a whit for them?
Common human decency should preclude this from ever happening. Unfortunately, such decency rarer than I would hope.
By Mwalimu Daudi, Thursday, 12 June , 2008 @ 9:57 pm
Besides, what have these idiots taught these kids except they shouldnt trust authority figures because they dont care a whit for them?
It also taught these kids that you can do anything dishonest, slimy, and possibly criminal that you want - as long as you dive out of the "it’s for the children and if you don’t agree you hate children" escape hatch when the going gets tough. Congress and the media thrive on this excuse.
By Foxfier, Friday, 13 June , 2008 @ 3:50 am
<i>Why is it that Americans are so intent on "protecting" their children when it ends up just crippling them in the long run?Why is it that Americans are so intent on "protecting" their children when it ends up just crippling them in the long run?</i>
You’re right! The lying for the aim of protecting the kids from themselves is just utterly horrible– and the crippling distrust of authority, especially the police, that this act instilled is bloody criminal!
Oh, wait, you were trying to DEFEND telling children that their friends were dead, to "protect" them from their own poor choices. My bad.
By martian, Friday, 13 June , 2008 @ 12:06 pm
Unfortunately, the article you referenced for this post, Rich, did not give the full story. I saw an extensive report on Good Morning America regarding this incident. The program the school used is actually a program that has been sponsored, successfully, by the California Highway Patrol for over eight years. It is, indeed, a program designed in the "Scared Straight" type of approach. However, the CHP actually gives simple guidelines as to how the program should be presented, then leaves it up to the local school or school district how to follow those guidelines with broad discretion. I have not seen the actual guidelines produced by the CHP so I can’t comment on whether the people at the school went overboard, as they may well have done (I wasn’t there to see it), or not. I can say, however, that in the eight years this program has been used, the CHP has recorded very few complaints and very many good comments on the program.
The article you referenced appears to be deliberately slanted to cause anger without giving the full story (yes, people do actually slant the news sometimes). Even the writer of this article admits, towards the end of the article, that very few actual complaints were received and even quotes one 15 year old female student as saying, "You feel betrayed by your teachers and administrators, these people you trust, but then I felt selfish for feeling that way, because, I mean, if it saves one life, it’s worth it."
Personally, I am reserving judgement in this case until I know a lot more about it than one sensationalist "journalist" wrote in that article.
By Rich Horton, Friday, 13 June , 2008 @ 12:51 pm
Untitled document I dont buy it. In a "scared straight" program you show kids what it would be LIKE to be in the penal system (for example), you don't actually arrest them in the middle of the night and incarcerate them. Those kids know they are not really in jail. It seems clear that these kids really thought their friends were dead, that enough to make it simply vicious. And the quote from the 15 year old seem to merely parrot back the "end justify the means" claptrap that inspires this nonsense. If this program has a lengthy history of being carried out in this manner, then it is a case of institutionalized abuse.
By crosspatch, Friday, 13 June , 2008 @ 1:34 pm
Page one of The Narcissists Handbook says that nothing you do is ever wrong, it is simply misunderstood. It is not YOUR fault. it is THEIR fault for not taking the presentation the way they were "supposed" to.
By martian, Friday, 13 June , 2008 @ 1:52 pm
Rich, if you were referring to my post (I am certainly not named "untitled document"), the simple point I was making is that, from the knowledge I have of the incident, which is far from complete, the knowledge of the incident displayed by the writer of that article is, woefully, even less complete. Or, even worse, deliberately misleading. I was simply pointing out that this is a well establshed program that may have been misused or taken too far by the local school. Even that much has not been established, certainly not in that article. Even that it was carried out in this manner is dubious, at best, at this point. Further, I know from personal experience just how much exaggeration and false information gets inserted between the incident, how it was perceived by some students, how they described it to their parents, and how it ended up in the news report.
My point was that it’s seldom a good idea to take a single news article at face value without doing more in depth investigation of your own. I was not defending the school or the specifically described method, by any means, nor will I condemn them until I have more facts in front of me. I simply said I am reserving judgement in this case because I know for a fact there is more to the story than what is said in that article.
By Rich Horton, Friday, 13 June , 2008 @ 3:16 pm
My point is the factual basis of the basic incident, (i.e. making kids believe their friends were dead to prove a point) is not in question, even if the writer of the piece has an agenda. If you can point me to something where it is clear that the kids DIDN’T think their friends were dead then you’d have something.
Sorry about the "untitled document." If I try to correct anything in a comment it adds that and it cannot be gotten rid of. WordPress is funny that way.
By MikeM, Saturday, 14 June , 2008 @ 8:14 am
They should wind up getting a shock they didn’t want, namely the shock of being sued for inflicting intentional emotional distress. Rich, I disagree. We (Americans) are too quick to sue over minor issues and as a first resort. To my way of thinking the first recourse should be a large, vocal gathering at the next school board meeting. If that doesn’t produce satisfactory results - a public apology from each responsible person as well as "disciplinary action" for each - then a lawsuit might be in order. I would also do a close reading of the criminal code to see if there’s anything in there to "scare straight" the teachers and principal.
By Rich Horton, Saturday, 14 June , 2008 @ 12:04 pm
You certainly have a point Mike…but all too often folks these days dont "learn" anything unless it hits them in the pocketbook. Still….your point stands. Its time for the adults to start acting like adults….I just wont hold my breath.