The War on Kids continues apace with a scared-straight exercise designed by officials of an El Camino High School to dramatize the consequences of drinking and driving. Highway patrol officers were asked to come to the school and announce that several students had been killed over the weekend in car accidents. The students reacted as you might expect they wept and some became hysterical.
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.
However throughout that day news spread that in fact no car accidents had occurred and no one had died, it was merely an exercise to scare the students into not drink driving. Students were understandably shocked and angry upon learning the truth.
“You feel betrayed by your teachers and administrators, these people you trust,” said 15-year-old Carolyn Magos.
I think the only lesson that the kids will learn from this is that authority figures are not to be trusted and that they will lie to you.
ColdChef a commenter at Metafilter describes a similar but I think more effective method to reduce drink driving amongst teenagers.
Every year, around prom time, my family funeral home participates in a “mock accident” that is staged in front of the local high school. The students are called into an assembly, and while they’re in the building, and with the assistance of local government and law enforcement, we arrange crashed cars on the roadway in front of the school. Every effort is made to make the accident as realistic as possible, including fake blood and (admittedly) crappy make up.
When the students come outside, they see the wreck, which is usually peppered with popular students for maximum effect. At first there’s some laughter and gawking at the students they recognize. They are given a moment to take in the scene, and then police and firemen arrive, with lights and sirens, securing the perimeter. An ambulance comes, removes the bodies from the cars, attempts treatment and then pronounces them dead.
Then, it’s my turn. My brother and I drive up in the hearse, solemn and grave-faced–full black suits. Much more serious than we would be at an actual wreck. First, we cover the body with a white blanket. We gently lift the body of the student onto our cot, into a zippered black bag. We slowly zip it up, place the body into the back of the hearse and drive off.
At no point does anyone try to pass this off as reality. It’s a tableau…something to stick in their minds. This past year, they included as part of the scene a hysterical mother, arriving at the scene and going apeshit at the sight of her “dead” daughter. And, just like all of the kids there, I knew it was all fake, but it still affected me. The mother played the part well. She screamed and cried and fought the police officers to get to her child, finally collapsing into a heaving heap on the asphalt.
I’m sure that the imagery of such a tableau along with the reaction of the ‘mother’ is something that would affect teenagers and would stay with them for a long time and thus would be a far more effective deterrent. [via]
