June 12, 2008

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. But wait...there's more...
  • And he said he was glad that students seemed to have gotten the message. The message they got appears to be "your school administrators are cruel assholes," given the reaction.
  • ...& they would have a point mct. Why aren't (apparently) the parents livid too I'd like to know.
  • Not cool. Not cool at all.
  • This is something us lawyer types like to call Intentional Infliction of Nervous Shock. Yes, I work evenings, and make house calls. Take some time to think about it, and then let's get you the money you deserve!
  • Y'aint nothin' but a chalkboard chaser, Cappy.
  • Oh, and "Hahahahahahahaha, j/k!" doesn't work in any other situation, why would it work here? Assholes.
  • Now that's education that'll prepare them for their adult lives. No, really.
  • Whoever green-lighted this project needs to be fired.
  • So, did they sequester the "dead" kids? Were they complicit in the whole thing?
  • Back when I graduated high school there was always a graduating class prank (or more than one). I'm thinking a good prank for this school would be on the last day for someone to hijack the PA and do a speech something like. "Ladies and gentlemen, we regret to inform you that our dear principal Mr. xxx died today in a drunk driving accident. He was last seen careening off the interstate into the Bay with a half-empty bottle of Jim Bean scream "fuck all's-y'all it's time to party". He will be sorely missed." Then for the rest of the day none of the students should acknowledge his existence except to say "I'm so sorry for your loss" to his face. Of course I guess they'd arrest kids for that kind of shit in this day and age.
  • Whoever green-lighted this project needs to be fired come home and find his front door kicked in, his wife missing and a lot of blood spattered around the place. ...of course, a couple of hours later it will be revealed that it was all just a jolly hoax(!) and his wife was safe, and was in on the "joke". Now that would be a fair way to teach them a valuable lesson about installing a security alarm, right? I can think of few crueler mental tricks than telling someone their friends are dead. Beyond the immediate mental distress is a deeper lesson that these students will sadly take to heart: "authority figures and people you should trust, like teachers, are lying to you". And if they would lie about something this severe what else did they lie about? All good advice that follows this incident will be wasted. Every statement like "Don't drink and drive, kids" should rightly be replied to with, "Are you lying to me now?".
  • "authority figures and people you should trust, like teachers, are lying to you". And if they would lie about something this severe what else did they lie about? Like I said: excellent education.
  • Intentional (or even negligent) infliction of emotional distress down this way, Captain. But when two teenage boys pulled a similar stunt in Louisville a few years ago, they got criminal convictions.
  • Well, true, it's not called "Nervous Shock" any more, but that's how you learn it when you're discussing poor Mrs. Wilkinson, and the name tends to stick. Poor Mrs. Wilkinson and the Carbolic Smoke Ball are just about the only things I haven't blocked out from first year Torts...
  • I agree, someone, maybe a lot of someones need to be fired, then someone needs to just beat the crap out of them.... And then tell them it was a joke...
  • As an additional bonus, whenever one of these traumatized students sees a cop, he'll have warm and friendly feelings and wish to cooperate with the police and keep our neighborhoods safe!
  • The Birth of Tragedy, indeed.
  • I would think that this would be worse on impressionable teens even than it would on us adults. If I were a parent, I'd be furious.
  • Is there some kind of issue in America, is there something in the water, some virus, some toxin that is making people incredibly, unutterably stupid? Because it seems that there's a scourge of stupidity in the States.
  • You got it, Hank. Of all the stupid "educational" ideas, this one takes the cake. I'm not a big fan of litigation, but I'm hopin' someone sues the pants off the school district for this asininity.
  • In my high school years two close friends died in separate incidents and the news given during school hours. The feelings were indescribable, much keener for being young. Schoolwide horror. To endure that, even for a short time, and learn it was intentionally inflicted to "teach a lesson" has to leave a young person wounded, and not in a good way. Flagpole really does have something there. This is a good lesson in manipulation. Frankly I think the stronger message here, what those kids will take away in the end, will be a healthy distrust of those in power over them. And that is a good thing.
  • Holee crap! I actually saw that vid on Video on Trial, when I was high on Percocet! It was awful... (The vid, not the Percocet.)
  • You know, I'd maybe be all angry. Except they are trying to scare kids about drinking and driving. And damn straight they should. There are so many communities in North America where people just refuse to take drinking and driving seriously, where losing a friend to drunk driving is a normal thing to happen in high school, where people just drive home from bars without thinking. I'd rather think my friend dead for a few hours than to have them die for real because we didn't think we needed a designated driver.
  • Except, jb, there are >other ways and means - you don't need to lie. Lying is counterproductive; it's not a sound basis for a public health campaign.
  • I remember this as being the first of the TAC shock ads.
  • Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons is still wrong.
  • Yeah, very wrong. Take 'em to a funeral. Take 'em in and show them the results of drinking and driving at a rehab place. Show them graphic pictures. Have a con or excon come in and speak about how drinking and driving ruined their lives. I'm sure there are other speakers that could do a moving presentation because they speak from the heart about loss and grief. Let them know we wouldn't lie to them about the dangers. Treat them like mature adults. Treat them like we care. If you have the expectation that they are mature enough to treat this seriously and behave as adults, they will be more likely to act in a manner that reflects that belief. Treat them like inferiors who need to be tricked "for their own good," and you reap what you sow. You wouldn't pull that shit with an adult you cared about.