Worst idea ever? I’m MADD about this!
A police officer in uniform walked into 20 classrooms at El Camino High School in California and announced that several students had been killed in car wrecks over the weekend.
The hoax was intended to teach the dangers of drink-driving.
But the scare tactic backfired when some students, who were not told that it was a stunt for two hours, became hysterical and wept uncontrollably.
Is this an acceptable way to teach high school students about the perils of drunk driving: tell all of them a prominent student died in an alcohol-related car crash and then let them believe he is dead for several hours before revealing the truth, he’s alive! It seems a bit… heavy-handed.
–Lori Tauber, Guidance Counselor
There are other programs about drunk driving taking place in high schools called Every 15 Minutes (no I will not link you past the flash intro, you will sit through it and you will like it.). In Every 15 Minutes a student is pulled from class every 15 minutes (to represent that in America someone dies from an alcohol-related car accident*) and then their eulogy is read by their parents at an assembly later in the day. The idea is to show the mortal ramifications of drinking and driving. It’s morbid, sure, but at least no one ACTUALLY THINKS THE KIDS ARE DEAD**.
Imagine this happening to an adult. You call Miss Tauber (I assume she’s not married because she is evil) at home and tell her that her kindergartner ate bleach, turned blue and died. Once she gets to the hospital you take her into the morgue to show her the body the kid comes running around the corner. It’s a lesson in what it is like to lose a child. Do you think she has a right to be angry? You bet your ass she does, and no amount good intention will save you from the impending lawsuit.
Another interesting fact is that all of the fabricated stories about dead students didn’t have ANYTHING to do with the students drinking. All of the accidents were caused BY drunk drivers. The students weren’t drinking. Read that again, the students were not drinking and driving in these “accidents”. Cpt. Tim on BoingBoing nails it.
The most screwed up thing about this is that the story told was that their friends were hit BY a drunk driver. So it wasn’t even something that was preventable by not drinking and driving.
The lesson? Don’t be killed by a drunk driver.
They might as well have taken them aside one by one and told them that their mothers had been raped and murdered to demonstrate the dangers involved in being raped and murdered.
Why did they do this again? They should be fucking ecstatic that none of the students killed themselves because their best friend or boyfriend/girlfriend died. High schoolers are a wacky bunch and you shouldn’t go toying with their emotions. You shouldn’t “want them to be traumatized”.
*a number that seems a bit low if you ask me
**I still think they should spend their time on other activities, but this is preferable.
June 18th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
I think the only message they “got” was that you’re a horrible guidance counselor.
June 18th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Have you seen ‘Brass Eye’, a documentary-style comedy programme by Chris Morris. Very dark comedy, obviously; but it’s interesting that in the ‘Drugs’ episode, they show this scheme to put kids off drugs by telling them their parents have died in a drug-related death. It’s actually funnier than it sounds, but the astounding thing is that this sounds exactly the same and, sadly, it’s real life…
June 18th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
I’m kind of sad that Netflix doesn’t have the documentary you were talking about. I love your blog by the way, I just wish it was updated more often. Thanks for checking mine out.