Amy I am so glad you find and point out these things... I was convinced in high school that it was a manipulative useless place covering up for being some kind of education, went to a major U after skipping nearly 2 yrs of it, my bro is a geneticist after quitting at 14, this is outrageous that morons subject young people to their stupid fantasies. too bad people who have kids cannot find responsible people to educate them.

Thanks so much for posting that. For me, high school was four years of babysitting that got in the way of all the really interesting reading I was doing. I work my ass off now, sometimes spending weeks checking out a single line from a study for my column to see if it's correct. But, school was easy for me, and I wrote my papers on the typewriter and did very little, and managed to get A's and a few B's when I really slacked off. One great class I took: Logic/Critical Thinking. But, I already did a lot of that on my own, because I couldn't stop reading.

I was blessed to attend one of the best high schools in Florida ages ago. They regularly sent contestants to International Science Fairs, state championships of all kinds and had a seriously positive student body. Of course, this was "back before kids were coddled", and excuses endlessly offered for why their self-esteem was so low, etc. Instead, counselors would point at the achievers and ask, "Can you see the advantages to being known for getting things done?"

But I'm not pretending it was heaven. It just was compared to the modern version, with its administrators hobbled by the insistence that the thug and the valedictorian be treated the same. And that's all I'll say so crid doesn't bust me for going into cliché-land.

Hey, why is it nobody saw this coming? In the news here in SC, parents are complaining because their kids don't get a "real world education" - whatever that is - and the PTA is always insisting that the school "do something to lessen the amount of drinking and driving".

Parents: this happens when you tell the school system to do your job.

The saddest thing about this will be that nobody will actually take the (botched) lesson: that doing stupid things will kill you and make people suffer. Instead, those subject to the hoax will now think these things only happen to other, lesser people - those who haven't been shown to be superior to those nasty weasel pranksters who said such awful things could have happened.

Amy,
Yanno, I wondered if you'd do anything with this sordidness. I'm glad you did, and I'm equally very happy to find you think it as distasteful as I did when I first read of it. This was, however noble, in V E R Y poor taste (ie NOT FUNNY!).
That the school thought it up and perpetrated it without consulting the school board or a the very least some of the parents is bad enough, that CHP went along with it is simply reprehensible.
And no, you really can't trust CHP. Upon return from a lengthy 11 month deployment (ok, so I'm gunna date my age here) is support of fleet operations during the Iran Hostage Debacle a CHP patrol officer stood on the handling deck and said... I kid you not this man stated... he had never cut a seat belt off a MVA fatality (a nice euphemism there eh?).
Ok now I've been an EMT off and on for a great number of years, since before EMT-Is were tasked with extraction responsiblities. I knew better. I mean I KNEW better. Sadly I've cut more than a few seatbelts off MVA fatalities to get them out of cars, and I've never been a 'duty EMT' (ie I've always been reserve/stand by aka '3rd string' if needed) riding the box out of the squad bay!!!
Shall I discuss CHP (or any other state) biases against motorcycles, lowriders, flashy sports cars, lifted 4x4 trucks and loud pipes, etc?
Back to schools. I recall the day my daughters teacher called me suggesting I come to the school and give my daughter the rest of the day off (amen and thank Goddess I had a really fantastic working relationship with this particular teacher. I would arrive unannounced at any given day or time, and she knew she could call me at any given time on any given day and I would be there before the receiver cut off (I was a stay at home dad who lived just a few miles from the school). Munchkin... KNEW... she wasn't going to get away with anything in class.
So the teacher calls me asking me to come to the school and retreive daughter. It seems DCS was scheduled to present to the class discussing 'child abuse' inclduing 30 minutes on "your mommy and daddy aren't allowed to hit you, and if they do you tell Mrs {name deleted for privacy} and she'll tell me and we'll make them stop".
What's the message to an 8 yr old child here?
How does "I can do whatever I want and they can't do anything about it" sound?
The irony is that the very people who harangued me for "you're so strict with that child" are the same people who praised her politeness and manners and good behavior.
I did what I could do... until the day her mother kidnapped her.
Gunner Retired.

In February this year, there actually was a car accident here in which 3 boys died, who all went to my daughter's high school. The aftermath was horrid, so I have to ask WHY ON EARTH would ANY high school FAKE something like this to get the kids' attention?!? THAT IS THE WORST EXAMPLE of a "valuable lesson" I have ever encountered! How DARE THEY?? Enough real teenagers aren't dying to set enough of an example for these assholes?? Jesus H. Christ on a pin cushion how totally irresponsible of that school's administration!
Guidance counselor Lori Tauber defended the exercise: "They were traumatized, but we wanted them to be traumatized. That's how they get the message." Absofuckinlutely NOT!! Idiocy in the extreme.
(GR, so sorry to hear that your ex is a moron. I hope you got your daughter back. Sounds like you are much the better parent.)

Man, that is truly fucked up. The school and CHP should pay and hopefully they will. I'm serious. I hope they face some kind of lawsuit from this mess because, sad but true, our country has gotten to the point where nothing is done unless a law suit comes about. God forbid, the school board should take suitable action and discipline or the Police Department.

When I read that guildance counselors fucked up defense of her actions, I wanted to see her traumatized and a lesson learned. How about she has to foster care one of the kids now having nightmares? Let me take that back. God knows what the sick bitch would do to them if she had that kind of access.

Amy, I'm glad you aren't an alcoholic. I had friends growing up who's parents didn't give a rat's ass about their kids drinking, and now they are problem drinkers who will no doubt be genuine, DT-withdrawal symptom alcoholics by middle age. Developing brains that are exposed to alcohol get a craving for it hardwired into the brain circuits. Fortunately you didn't like it and didn't drink it much when young. Some do, or make themselves like it, because it's a grown-up thing.

And yeah, you can smoke pot occasionally without any serious side effects (except acting really stupid and making "deep statements" that are utterly moronic)but most other drugs are pretty dangerous. You try them, it's fun. Try them again, but it's not quite as good. Next time you try more. Down the road into addiction. Not everyone, no, but a lot. And it makes you stupid literally, killing brain cells.

Personally, I think drugs should be legal. And taxed. And you should be held responsible for all health and other consequences you bring on yourself by doing them. I think it'd be a great way to thin the herd, stupid-people first.

And yeah, open communication and respect are the best ways to go with kiddos. And letting them make stupid decisions when they're little consequences, not big ones. But not all parents do.

I think the school was a bit off here, yeah. I am a fan of graduated liscensing till kids are 18. Or better yet, an intelligence test prior to liscensing? An actual, HARD driving test to get your liscense? Something anyway.

And yeah, you can smoke pot occasionally without any serious side effects (except acting really stupid and making "deep statements" that are utterly moronic)...

Hey! I resemble that remark! o_O

I had friends growing up who's parents didn't give a rat's ass about their kids drinking, and now they are problem drinkers who will no doubt be genuine, DT-withdrawal symptom alcoholics by middle age. Developing brains that are exposed to alcohol get a craving for it hardwired into the brain circuits.

Do you have anything that even approaches valid evidence for this? Because the whole of Europe would argue against you.

Problem drinkers aren't that way because of alcohol. They are that way because of some other psychological or emotional defect. If alcohol hadn't been the crutch they found, it would have been something else.

And whomever approved this little stunt for the school is an obvious sociopath. "Scared Straight" didn't work out so well. Why the fuck would this?

I had friends growing up who's parents didn't give a rat's ass about their kids drinking,

This is different from your parents offering you alcohol while they are there at the dinner table. And see Brian's comment above. I am friends with many French people, all of whom were raised as I was, given sips of alcohol. They are not drunks, and being a drunk in France is considered vulgar and disgusting.

We gave sips of alcohol to our kids. Daughter didn't like it, son did. We were scared for him, but to keep from making it a big deal we kept on. We would explain that little bodies can't handle very much of it. If he asked for some of my beer, we would say fine, but drink your juice first. If he forgot, we wouldn't remind him; if he remembered, we would give him a tablespoonful.

It worked, for both kids. Our daughter still doesn't like alcohol and drinks only for ceremonial reasons. In high school our son joined a group that promised to use no alcohol or drugs. Now that he is an adult, he drinks in moderation. He doesn't use any other drug, as far as I know.

We gave sips of alcohol to our kids. Daughter didn't like it, son did. We were scared for him, but to keep from making it a big deal we kept on. We would explain that little bodies can't handle very much of it. If he asked for some of my beer, we would say fine, but drink your juice first. If he forgot, we wouldn't remind him; if he remembered, we would give him a tablespoonful.

It worked, for both kids. Our daughter still doesn't like alcohol and drinks only for ceremonial reasons. In high school our son joined a group that promised to use no alcohol or drugs. Now that he is an adult, he drinks in moderation. He doesn't use any other drug, as far as I know.

What's not forbidden doesn't have the allure of the forbidden. If you can have alcohol, and in the most uncool way, with your parents, you have no need to sneak it.

Moreover, a French woman I know was pregnant and with me at an event, and I gave her the remaining half of my glass of wine (she didn't want to go get one and have people look at her funny). I've read of a couple of reports of studies that a glass of alcohol while pregnant isn't going to kill the baby or make it come out with three heads (although, ideally, you're not supposed to drink any in the first eight weeks of pregnancy when the thing is forming).

Isn't this usurping the parents of their right to teach their children right from wrong?

I wish schools would stick teaching facts and figures instead trying to be the morality police.

You know what I would like to see is the requirement that teaches all students the basic skills of life like how to purchase a car, understand loans, and maybe a course on latin root words which would help people understand langauge better. Because that is something every person needs to know to function in our society.

My entire elemetary years were spent on learning metrics because the USA was going to be all metric when I grew up. Lo and behold it is not and I am am well past grown up. What a complete waste of time.

They need to get back to the R's and get away from this kind of bullshit.

I've been following this story. It's hard for my opinionated ass to be left speechless. But this about does it. Schools in our country have gotten so out of hand with the coddling of school kids, the elimination of competetion amongst students, grading systems implemented such that no student is left behind (or given a bad grade). And then some complete fucking moron comes up with the 'oh your friends are dead because of drunk driving' exercise? And then everybody else involved (teachers, CHP, administrators) thinks this is genius, and goes along with it?

I believe the break down is in that post babyboomer generation of teachers, law enforcement officers, and administrators (i'd guess the adults involved here are in the 25-40 year old range). I have a younger brother in that age range (33) and I have noticed that he and many of his colleagues (teachers, lawyers, writers, doctors, professors etc) have a tendency to be a few bricks shy of a load on many issues. Kind of like stoners that aren't stoned anymore, but still aren't putting all the pieces of the puzzle together. Like these drunk driving 'teachers'; they just don't seem to be able to picture/foresee how their actions will affect those involved after the event has taken place. They have a brain fart, think it is GENIUS, implement it, then wonder why it didn't work. Morons.

Parents, it goes without saying. Take responsibility for teaching your own kids, and prepare them everyday to go out and fight the ignorance which shows up as their teachers, administrators, and law enforcement officials.

""Scared Straight" didn't work out so well. Why the fuck would this?" I don't know, that program scared the ever living shit out of me. After that one trip to Ricker's Island in NY city I stopped screwing around completely. I can see the point they were trying to get across but the execution has horrid. Most of the other scared straight programs in my area went to county and that had little effect. That trip changed everyone of us.

When I was in HS we tried some goofy attempt at this. We had some of the "popular kids" (really bad selection process) pretend to be dead. They wore some stupid sash and had to be mute all day. Didn't do shit for DUI's in the school. Then a popular kid actually ended up in a body bag. That did the trick.

Wanda: I was with you till the learn Latin and the metric system. I took some Latin and it did jack for my knowledge and use of English. Reading well written books that use "big SAT words" (not my term) properly did. I use both the metric and English system constantly.

Actually telling everyone that the students are dead. Wow bad call all around. I'm almost curious how they pulled this off. How did they keep the parents of the "dead" kids quite after all the calls of sympathy?

I'm all for "Scared Straight." And when I speak to inner city kids, I tell the girls what the reality of getting pregnant young will be. You want to hold something cute? Get a Hello Kitty handbag.

Real death is one thing. This was obscene.

Crap and then some. This is my 3rd attempt here, let's see if it works:

Here are some links to studies, one by Duke Universiry, which is well thought of as far as research goes. Amy no doubt can find info to the contrary........but anyway here it is. And I wasn't talking about sips of wine, I was talking abour kids who drink.

http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/feb2000/niaaa-14.htm

http://www.duke.edu/~amwhite/Adolescence/adolescent6.html

http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/388/harmful_consequences.pdf

One link per comment, please. Going back to rescue the other two from my spam folder and delete. You want to post two links, post two comments. Thanks!

Oh, and leave about 20 seconds between comments you make. Sorry. Spammers ruin it for everybody.

Momof3, those links aren't even related to what you were arguing earlier. Derr, everyone knows BINGE-drinking is bad no matter the age.

Amy, not being snide, but why only 1 link per comment?

I wonder how well it would go over if students brought fake guns to school and pretended to shoot the teachers?

Snide's no problem here, just don't be dull!

And it's just because, thanks to spammers, I have this amazing anti-spam software, Akismet, and no matter how I change my settings on my control panel, if you (or I!) put in more than one link per comment it will drop-kick your comment to my spam folder.

If that happens, please write me right away and I will rescue it. If you ignore the message you could end up being blocked until you request unblockage from Akismet.

And feel free to post all the links you want. Just please leave each link in a separate comment, and leave a little time -- 10 seconds, 20 seconds, between submitting each comment.

Sorry...the spammers fuck it up for everyone. On the bright side, I used to spend hours of my day deleting spam, and I have my life back now, thanks to Akismet.

I think alcoholism is less a chemical/physical thing than it is mental. All the drunks I know are covering some stuff they don't want to think about. And, purely anecdotally, I drank like a fish as a teenager, and as an adult I drink a little here and there, and more than that very occassionally. I think its because I can deal with my reality quite competantly.

Being an adult, or even an educator, doesn't make you except from the possibility of being a moron, unfortunately.

Why scare kids with a fake drunk driving death story? Why only use fear? Why not use some pain, too?

Teacher uses high-voltage device to burn crosses into kid's arms. Mind you, I know what those things can do. I have one. I even made a video where I cheerfully zap myself in the face with it (on name link). HOWEVER, that's me, I tolerate it well (no burns), and I'm mildly insane. Most kids could easily get burned by it. I would never dream of letting a kid near most of the equipment I work with, let alone zap them with it.

And to think, he's even from MY state of Ohio. Yay!

"to what you were arguing earlier"

Was I arguing????????????

Derr, of course binge drinking is bad. Not that many people in the general public know the definition of binge drinking. It's a lot less than it sounds. Anyway, if a parent wants to lessen the mystique of alcohol by providing moderated amounts, more power to them. Works in Europe, right? Unfortunately we don't live in Europe. And if word got out, it seems like the sort of thing the idiots running state child welfare might want to involve themselves in. And that's no fun for anyone. Plus, then you get your kid bragging at school "my mom let's me drink". Enter said state idiots.

> you can smoke pot occasionally without
> any serious side effects (except acting
> really stupid and making "deep
> statements" that are utterly moronic)...

Manly men do it sober

The whole alcoholism thing confuses me. I hear about people who get mean when they drink, and those who drink all the time, keeping booze stashed everywhere so they always have access to it. And it does seem like there are people who have real problems when they try to quit - withdrawal symptoms and such.

But there also seems to be a hysterical attempt to disease-ify it, in ways you just don't see with other things people do too much of. I'm not sure why that is - maybe the anti-alcohol crowd just has a more finely-tuned political mechanism?

For example, some people can't seem to stop eating too much, so they join support groups like Weight Watchers and learn how to manage it. If my weakness is an extra glass of wine instead of an extra piece of chocolate, why is my weakness a disease and not simply a lack of self-discipline?

Some people can't function without a heavy morning dose of caffeine, but most of them just keep drinking their coffee every morning. They aren't trying to quit, or fretting too much about the implications of a chemical dependency.

Someone who never drinks except to get ripping drunk twice a year would be defined as a "binge" drinker. But they still drink less in total than someone who drinks one drink per day and never gets drunk. By the definition of the AA crowd, both of these people are alcoholics and should immediately seek treatmet.

Where do you go to find a reasonable, sane approach to it? I'm don't often see a balanced, rational viewpoint on the subject of alcohol, whether it's directed toward kids or adults either one.

I'm surprised that on the topic of lying to kids to teach them a moral lesson no one has brought up the fact millions of parents, ostensibly to give their children moral lessons, tell them the big lie, as Amy sometimes puts it, of the special invisible friend in the sky...

> I'm all for teaching kids to
> question authority -- and
> everything else. But, this
> is emotional abuse.

Yeah. Somebody probably covered this, but one of the things this teaches kids is that it's cool for the state to pull intrusive, inter-personally manipulative stunts. To teach lessons. So we shouldn't be surprised that local governments think they can tell you whether you can smoke on the beach, or in your home, or how much trans fat is tolerable. There are people who think the entire populace is an eleven-year-old kid brother who deserves a wedgie, because, y'know, we're all just people, man.

Well said, Pirate Jo. Though not a drinker or a smoker, I have long raged about the oppressive laws regarding alchohol and tobacco. I was over 21 and a nondrinker when the laws changed from 18 to 21 for drinking and people never got why I cared but I saw it plain as age discrimination and still feel that anyone who can be drafted or tried as adult and who can vote should be able to drink if they want to. And the sin taxes are someone else's morality/religion imposed on others. Something that is not supposed to happen in the good ole US of A. (But does with amazing frequency.) Sure enough, chocolate is my vice and now they're coming after that. What's next?

I'm middle of the road with the underage kids drinking though. I get Amy's point and well taken but the parents (with that and often also with pot) who say let the kids have the party here where we can at least keep an eye on them are just morons. Maybe something in between like only so much and only so hard an alcohol is more reasonable than all or nothing.

Jaime, I belong to several church/state groups and have been reading a lot on that case. It's even more ominous than that. The teacher involved is using science class to promote religion, denouce anything other than a Christian viewpoint and burned a cross into the kid's skin. Ed Brayton (on Amy's sidebar) has some good posts about the case on his blog.

"The whole alcoholism thing confuses me." There is at least one theory that AA served to create alcoholism, the more you focus on something the more you want it South Park did an episode on it. Alcoholism is different than a chemical dependence on alcohol.

Someone who is dependent on alcohol will have the shakes and tremors, sever mood swings, odd eye motion etc. during the withdrawal process, they can actually die from it.

An alcoholic as per what I could gather from self proffesed alcoholics and the AA literature is someone who can't stop after the first drink or 2. They may or may not have a dependence on alcohol.

So the person who binge drinks fits the description of an alcoholic. Where as someone who has reached the point of chemical dependence but can stop at one drink is not. Also it depends heavily on which local chapter you talk to, for some of the more militant ones anyone who drinks at all ever is an alcoholic.

There are also some theories of a genetic component to both addiction and alcohol specifically.

Fear-mongering is the easiest way to get people to do what you want. They are too afraid to ask questions and challenge you. Teachers are supposed to help mold intelligence, not use emotional manipulation to get results, that's the job of religion.

Chrissy,
How very correct you are, just look at the state of our laws in the DV/IPV - sex crime genre of law. It's problematic enough without resorting to biased laws and Misandrist courts exacerbating the problem (in large part by wholly ignoring male victims of DV/IPV and sex assaults).
The vast amount of compeltely false information the laws are based upon is reprehensible, when authentic data and research is so volumnous and readily available.
Gunner Retired