couldn't find Blood on the Highway anyplace???
Posted on 06/12/2008 2:00:27 PM PDT by Snickering Hound
OCEANSIDE, Calif. — 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 suburb are defending themselves against allegations they went too far.
At school assemblies, some students held up 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.
Some of her classmates became extremely upset, prompting the teacher to tell them immediately it was all staged.
"People started yelling at the teacher," she said. "It was pretty hectic."
Others, including many who heard the news of the 26 deaths between classes, were left in the dark until the missing students reappeared hours later.
"You feel betrayed by your teachers and administrators, these people you trust," said 15-year-old Carolyn Magos. "But then I felt selfish for feeling that way, because, I mean, if it saves one life, it's worth it."
Officials at the 3,100-student school officials defended the program.
"They were traumatized, but we wanted them to be traumatized," said guidance counselor Lori Tauber, who helped organize the shocking exercise and got dozens of students to participate. "That's how they get the message."
The plan was to tell the truth to the students at an assembly later in the day. But word that it was all a hoax began to spread before the gathering. Tauber said some counselors and administrators revealed the truth to calm some students who had become upset.
Oceanside Schools Superintendent Larry Perondi said he fielded only a few calls from parents, while the PTA chapter said it had not heard any complaints. Perondi said the program would be revised, but he would not say how. And he said he was glad that students seemed to have gotten the message.
"We did this in earnest," he said. "This was not done to be a prankster."
So lying authority figures are better than the blood and guts movies they showed us in Drivers’ Ed class?
couldn't find Blood on the Highway anyplace???
The purpose of school is not for a bunch of cops and school employees, with the "permission" of idiot teenage participants, to take other children apart psychologically.
The people who planned and executed this don't look to have two decent brain cells to rub together.
I'm sure that anyone present who had suffered a loss at the hands of a real drunk driver or who had recently lost a loved one in any other way found this entire exercise hilarious. I'd strongly encourage them to show their appreciation by suing the school system.
We just lost one of our soon to be graduates to a drunk driving accident. The driver of the car she was in was drunk and hit the guard rail on the highway killing the young woman instantly. She would have graduated on the 18th and was going to study nursing in the Fall.
At least these kids will get to talk to their friends again.
Read the comments on the article I linked to. One is from a woman paralyzed as a teenager by a drunk driver, in an accident which also killed her boyfriend. Another is from a mother whose teenage son was killed by a drunk driver. THEY wholeheartedly approve of this. The “purpose” of school, quite frankly, should be whatever parents think it should be, and in this case the program had the overwhelming support of parents (only one parent was willing to speak against it, and she wouldn’t give her name, suggesting that she doesn’t have much company).
Again, most of the PARENTS supported it. This is not a situation of stupid educrats doing things the parents disapprove of.
I don’t care who approved of it.
I find it somewhat surreal that someone with the ID of “Government Shrinker” is ok with the government messing with children’s minds, lying to them, and making them cry in mental anguish.
Because it is not ok. Not even for a “good reason”.
Not for any reason.
Period.
It is not their job to psychologically dismantle individuals. Even if some of the parents approved, it is not the job of the police or of the teachers.
I disagree, though, about the lessons these children may take away. The lesson they may take away might be that adults, particularly the police, lie and are devious, and why should they listen when they are told not to do things?
"Maybe what they told me about drinking and driving was a lie, too? Maybe what they told me about drugs being addictive was a lie as well."
I have never known great good to come out of lying when the truth would suffice.
There is no protest because the state owns our children.
Pure ownership.
Well, of course it isn't.
The purpose of school has it's roots in the "social efficiency" movement of the early twentieth century, and is the magnum opus of such upstanding men as Carnegie, Rockefeller, Ford, and J.P. MOrgan.
Traditional learning forums have always had three foundational purposes:
- teach people to be good - teach people to be good citizens - teach people to maximize whatever talent they have
With the influence of the industrialists, however, a fourth purpose came into being:
- train humans to a uniform set of performance specifications that will produce the greatest number of "middle-of-the-bell-curve" consumers and employees.
Now, you tell me THAT isn't "taking...children apart psychologically" with the FULL endorsement of everyone from parent to Principle, to Priest, and Pope.
Bluntly put, psychological mutilation in the interest of future social efficiency is THE stock-in-trade of modern public education. School doesn't train young minds to be all they can be, it trains them to inhabit a cloth-lined cubicle, or stand at an assembly line dropping the same bolt into the same hole for eight hours every day with just two ten-minute potty breaks, and a half-hour to cram down lunch. Only public education could find within itself the flaming gall to teach children that an establishment like a McDonald's restaurant has something that can be called a "Career Track".
The greatest enemy of the West is radicalized Islam, but public education has a lock on the number two slot.
Since when do the parents wishes count?
Parents are NEVER interviewed when some kids brings a butter knife to school to spread the butter on a sandwich and gets suspended, or when some kid DRAWS a picture of a gun and gets suspended or worse.
The parental thing is just CYA by the school because they know they've made a serious mistake.
I say if the school reprimands the teachers invovlved, sends a real apology to all the parents and kids, promises never to do it again, I say everyone should move on.
On the other hand, if the school continues to play cutsy with the 'everybody wants it' business, I say sue the bastards and sort it out in court.
Our nation's **most** serious threat is Marxism/Communism! ( Mis-named “liberalism”.)
And...The Marxist/communist's **most** important weapon is our K-12 schools, colleges, and universities.
We can survive a nuclear suitcase bomb. We will not survive if the Marxists/Communists who control our schools succeed in in indoctrinating the next generation of voters.
The stated purpose of schools, and why parents entrust their children to "educators" is so that their children will become educated and successful.
This has never be "all" of it, of course, and will never be as long as school remains a handy dandy place to indoctrinate all those young minds full of mush. Especially easy since they're already their to learn.
The odd thing is that with all the indoctrination they have to fit into a day's school, there is very little time for education.
My children were, are, and will be home schooled, of course. They are their own wonderful people, and are very successful and happy, everything a parent would want in their children.
I only have a tiny bone of contention with what you say, and it is that you wrote: "Now, you tell me THAT isn't "taking...children apart psychologically" with the FULL endorsement of everyone from parent to Principle, to Priest, and Pope.
The Popes have actually held that the family and the Church hold sway long before the State, and that the State should submit to the family in matters of education:
The first natural and necessary element in this environment, as regards education, is the family, and this precisely because it is so ordained by the Creator Himself. Accordingly, that education which is received in a well-ordered and well-disciplined Christian family will, as a rule be more effective and lasting, and more efficacious in proportion to the clear and constant good example set, first by the parents, and then by the other members of the household...
The State therefore has the duty to respect the prior rights of the family and of the church in the matter of education, and even protect these rights. If the State were to "monopolize education," this would violate the rights of individuals, of the family, and of the Church.
Christian Education of Youth, Pope Pius XI
Isn't that awesome?
“Fire!!!!!!”
as in...”in a theatre”
and as in...
an action that should be taken.
Our lovely local PD had a commercial playing at the theatre, “Attempted murder in progress...” Lights, sirens and they find a man lighting a cigarette in a restaurant. The final scene shows said man being led out in handcuffs whilst being Mirandized. INFURIATING.
should be “has a commercial playing”
Personally, I don’t think that public schools should even exist. I really am a “GovernmentShrinker”. However, as long as they unfortunately DO exist, I’m not inclined to focus my disapproval on activities that appear to have the overwhelming support of parents (and in this case had parents actively involved in the planning). There are so many things going on at public schools that do NOT have the approval of even a bare majority of parents (such as idiocy like suspending kids for bringing a round-tipped plastic knife to school), which are much better targets for our wrath.
just wait till they find out Gorebull Warming isn’t real.
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