June 2, 2008
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Your Friend Died, Just Kidding
A police officer walked into a school and notified several classes of students that one of the students had died in a drunk-driving car accident.
“The officer read a brief eulogy, placed a rose on the deceased student’s seat, then left the class members to process their thoughts and emotions for the next hour.”
The student didn’t really die. It was a program designed by Mothers Against Drunk Driving to educate young people on the dangers of drunk driving. The students are informed later that the student didn’t really die.
Apparently the whole program has left some people mad at MADD. Here is the link: Link
Do you think in this case that the ends justify the means?
Comments (191)
FIRST!
I think so. I mean, yeah it sucks that they were sad for no reason but it also teaches them that they dont want to do that to others or feel that way. Egh, theyll live.
I think that’s a horrible thing to do.
nope.
don’t get me wrong.
drunk drivers totally infuriate me.
but there are more effective methods to demonstrate this.
i consider the demonstration “out of bounds.”
No it does not. That is a cruel thing to do to people. And it’s arrogant. As if to say that children can’t learn a lesson without being tricked into it. That kind of holier-than-thou morality we can do without.
@squeakysoul - @nephyo - @five11nation - agree
Your mom died. I keed, I keed. Ha.
They were completely out of bounds and I can’t believe the school district condoned it.
I’ve got an 18 year-old son, and he’s got 18 year-old friends, and they’re all driving, so I am certainly concerned about drunk driving. But this is so far over the line. The officer should face disciplinary action. And the chapter of MADD that thought this up should be disbanded.
that is the most messed up thing ever. Where are peoples morals these days. That is just wrong. “the power of life and death is in the tongue” So them even speaking of such a horrible thing is almost condemning. !
this is way over the line
I would be happy that my friend was still alive, but mad that sucha cruel joke was played. Though it wasn’t necessarily intended to be a joke, as in “ha, ha”
Can’t we arrest the cop for impersonation?
It is absolutely not okay. There are plenty of effective means of educating students about drunk driving other than pretending that a student has died. That completely crosses the line and is absolutely unnecessary.
We had a drunk driving incident survivor who had killed someone in the accident from being drunk come in and speak to us. It was extremely powerful.
Looking at it…it seems a bit mean. Why would anyone do anything like that?
That’d be really harsh, but I can see how a good jolt might be good for them.
jesus christ you crank one out like every hr.
is it just you there, theologian?
i like the picture but the story seems dum
care for muffins any?
it is awefully early here
esp for such a post
No — that’s not okay in the least. Then again, MADD goes over the line all the time, so why should this be any different?
I think this was a little bit mean. I think that there are a lot better ways to educate people on the effects of drunk driving without resorting to scare tactics.
I remember in high school a girl died in a car accident and I was the only one to respond with “Heh she gets what she gets.” It’s a shock students actually gave a crap about their fellow peers.
The school i attended did something similar for Prom. It chose one senior and had her “Die” in a drunk driver accident. They actualy made it mandantory for everyone attending prom to attend her “Funeral” which was in a real funeral home, and later they held a “Memorial” that the entire highschool was required to attended. I felt the entire thing was in poor taste, especially since a few weeks later a student actually did die from some kind of birth defect and the school held the exact same “memorial” for him. It really made the real one feel corny and Tacky since they’d just had something so similar for a fake death.
Schools: Do not Trivialize death. Thank You.
That’s a little extreme. And cruel.
And no, in no case does the end justify the means.
@Alle_in_Ashe - I remember those, and they were hilarious.
yea
I support this entirely.
I think it’s terrible. There are ways about teaching kids a lesson about drunk driving with out actually being cruel to them. My old school had a car that we was beat up to like it was in an accident, and we add plaster body parts handing out of it. Another program had kids volunteer to walk around with white make up and sign, they were supposed to be “dead” and no one could talk to them. The sign had the cause of death which had something to do with drunk driving. Everyone can be aware and get the message. If people are aware their friend is really not dead then there’s no one getting traumatized. You could inform everyone take the kid out of class and hold a mock funeral, still gives the same message.
Not in this case.
The lying, distraction, and emotional manpiulation of the students is not worth the trivial point made by these MADD people. The stunt offers no special insight or knowledge.
That was absolutely cruel…
No, I think it is going too far. The school and the police should not be trying to falsely scare children into not drinking. If asking the kids to imagine how they would feel if one of their classmates was killed is not enough to stop them from drinking, I doubt lying to them would have greater impact.
I think this is a very cruel way to try to “teach them a lesson.” Very cruel. Death is nothing to play games about or tell untrue stories about. There are better ways to teach about the dangers and consequences of drunk driving.
I hope the kids learn something from the demonstration, but it is out of bounds. There have got to be other ways to jolt the kids into realizing the consequences of drunk driving, without deception.
That’s just mean. More like a sick prank than learning a life lesson.
i think its a tad extreme.
I actually don’t think these “fake situations” meant to scare people into changing do anything, b/c in the end the consequences are only faced for a short period of time and then it’s like “Oh, but it didn’t REALLY happen” and any change in the person is short-lived.
There are enough real tragedies related to drunk driving, we don’t need to make new ones up to educate students about the dangers. It’s not going to be the one thing that stops them– look at all the people who still do whatever drugs even though one of their close friends died of an overdose.
The fuck? Of course not.
All it’ll do is piss those students off, and they’ll probably do something like that just out of anger.
@mightymarce - There are enough real tragedies related to drunk driving, we don’t need to make new ones up to educate students about the dangers.
Yup, yup.
NO. That is an AWFUL thing to do and shouldn’t be legal to deceive a whole group of students like that. What about that student’s close friends? What if some of them had psychological reactions?
My high school did a program where twice a year, students volunteered to be “dead” for a day. Throughout the day, the Grim Reaper (yes, a guy in a Grim Reaper costume that scared the heck out of us) came and took a few students every class period out of class, gave them a black t-shirt, and painted their faces white, and no one was allowed to talk to them all day. It was to show how it would be if this many kids died driving to prom, basically. It was mostly effective, and no one got distraught over thinking their friend was dead.
when i was in high school they played us footage of actual drunk driving crime scenes – complete with a shot of some guys brains in a flower bed and a little girl impaled by the hook on from a tractor trailer hitch. graphic, but it got the point across.
the next year they bought a car that had been smashed in an accident from the local impound yard and put it on the front lawn of the school – still with dried blood and hair stuck in the winshield from when the person’s head had went through the windshield.
it worked – no one died at our high school from drinking and driving
No. I had a friend die in a (non-drunk driving) car accident. It was horrible and the first hour I knew was so horrible. I think its torture to put someone threw that feeling needlessly. MADD should have to pay for therapy for anyone who needs it in that class!
When I was in the service we had a program for substandard soldiers that were on the brink of messing up bad enough to go to jail. We would arrest them for an infraction that was in fact a jailable offense, and process them through the military jail, not fun, you don’t have any rights there. Afterwords the commander, and first sergeant, along with thier immediate supervisor would “rescue” them and tell them that this is what they would be looking forward too if they continued down thier current path. 98% of the time it worked like a charm. I think we need to worry less about hurting someone’s feelings, or damaging their all important “self esteem”, if it will save them from a far worse fate, like I don’t know………..death, or having to live with the knowledge that your negligence got someone else killed, how do you think that would damage thier mental health?
as someone who’s actually KNOWN a classmate to have been actually KILLED this way… I don’t think it is a very good way to teach this lesson, considering the girl who KILLED the boy didn’t learn the lesson…
MADD has deteriorated, and though I definitely support their cause I’m not sure I can support them.
No. I don’t think any sort of falsehood is a case of “ends justifying the means.”
I’m not saying I’ve never lied or been manipulative, but to purposefully lead children and teens to think that someone in their lives died is horrible. There are plenty of other ways to get MADD’s message across.
So who should pay for the therapy for the parents who lost thier child? Siblings who lost their brother/sister. Fiancees, freinds the list goes on. You can get over a little scare, you can’t get over dead. I was a chaplain’s assistant for 8 years, and I buried more soldiers than I care to remember, nothing was worse than burying someone who died in such a wasteful fashion. I once had to council a soldier who during the search for body parts after a drunken motorcycle accident picked up what he thought was just a helmet, only to find one of his squad mates head still in it. I would have rather talked to someone who had nightmares about being scared straight than someone who had gone through that. It’s time to grow up and quit being such a bunch of sissies. I’ll say it again better alive and scared than dead.
I smell a rat. That article’s only specific sources are the Officer’s name and the state of California. I didn’t mention the student’s name or the high school.
If MADD is that insensitive, there may be reason for a lawsuit.
I don’t think it’d be a good idea to do it exactly like that. I mean, if it were my friend & they came in there & said she had died I would be in such a state they would probably have to rush me to the emergency room, it’d kill me. & then later find out it wasn’t true, I’d be happy she hadn’t died, but I’d be pissed they caused me all that stress & misery.
There are other, better demonstrations I know of. That one is just cruel.
Nope, deceiving those poor kids like that is just cruel.
We had a really powerful presentation done by an ex-paramedic filled with his stories, props, and photos of drunk driving accidents and it brought out a lot of emotion and seemed to change a lot of people. Reality can be just as jarring as a learning experience as a fabricated death, the only difference is they may actually have good feelings looking back on it.
that’s insane !
some schools won’t let kids keep score in games because someone will lose and they will feel sad. what the hell does this shit do to them ??
they did the same thing back when i was in high school (10 years ago…) and had a helicopter land in the parking lot and everything at the ‘accident site’. in the end, we all thought it was funny and were glad to get out of class for the afternoon.
but yes, when someone actually does die, and the school goes through the same motions, it really trivializes the whole thing.
Drunk driving is stupid. In fact, I think getting drunk at all is stupid. But faking someone’s death like that? I think that is completely over the top and uncalled for.
No, not really.
There are two sides to this issue maybe? 1. People are turning into little wusses where everyone has to be protected and feelings need to not be hurt, people fling bullshit lawsuits for their bruised egos and I’m sick of it.
2. Kids will still drink and drive. Kids will still die in alcohol related car accidents. When I was a kid, one of us did not make it, and you know that story, and it was alcohol and gun related. What can I say? A worse mix than alcohol, kids and cars is alcohol, kids and guns. Sometimes people do incredibly stupid things and sometimes people die. They already had a law, it didn’t help much.
I do not want someone to make it their life goal (and major headache for a lot of other people) to protect me, because you just can’t do it.
People need to be realistic about tragedy and death. It happens and I don’t really want to hear about it anymore. I don’t shove my tragedies down your throat, so political noise may actually be that selfish need for an answer to chaos, and there is none.
Hurts doesn’t it? Deal with it.
that’s really weird
maybe death shouldn’t be it
more like injured…
Drunk driving is serious… but come on. Death isn’t something to play around with. Telling students one of their own has been killed only to turn around and say… “no, we just wanted you to see that drunk driving is wrong.” Come on, there are better ways to educate kids about drunk driving.
No way that is justified….. what a cruel thing to do….
Why is it that liberals believe it is OK to lie in order to promote some cause. Mind you conservatives do too.
No, it isn’t OK to lie!
I don’t like it, especially that they let kids believe this for an hour. It also bothers me that a cop lied to these kids. The police should be trustworthy; some kids already have a negative view of law enforcement, and being decieved by them will only make things worse.
I’ve never had a police officer come in and tell us that a student has died, so I don’t think I’d fall for it anyway. I’d support it, only because when students think someone has died they’re a little more quiet throughout the day and I like the peace. And we barely did work on some-kid-died days. It was awesome.
Oh, come on, this “cruel joke” is nothing compared to what kids will do to other kids these days. Did you see that video out of FL with all those girls beating the crap out of the other girl? And this was not designed to be a prank, but rather a teaching tool. If you announced to a bunch of 16 and 17 year olds that an officer is going to come to class and talk about the dangers drunk diving I would guess about 90% of the class would immediately tune out and not listen, because of course, they are already know it all.
But if you hit them with a real world example, like what happened here, maybe you can actually get them to think twice
Apparently the student who volunteered to be the victim thought it was a good idea.
@GhostBenjimon - Well said. I agree.
OMG NO! I lost a very good friend in grade 10 to a drug overdose. We were devastated. The entire grade cried for three days straight. This isn’t something you joke about, even to teach a lesson.
We have a program like this, called Every fifteen minutes and what happens is that every fifteen minutes a student “dies”, and he or she can not speak for the rest of the day. The other students must experience the reality of losing a friend, and in the end of this they have a ceremony where they read eulogies of the deceased, and it’s just plain depressing. We get to witness an accident, bloody bodies and wrecked cars, some people get to experience a night in jail, and those that have died can not go home, so the families also experience the extent to it. I believe it’s all a good idea, because it does cause the students to be more aware, but it seems as though the students only care for a week or so and then go back to their old habits of partying it up and drinking and driving.
no…under no circumstance.
i think there are other ways to teach children, you don’t have to torture them.
My school lost two students last year to drunk driving. I miss Ross terribly as does everyone who knew him, but kids at my school still drink and probably still drive drunk. If a real death doesn’t change behaviors, I doubt a fake one would be more effective. We’ve lost eight students already this year, I think it would be disrespectful to them to turn death into another anti-drinking campaign.
totally for this program. When you think of how many people drunk teenagers kill, the victims’ loved ones, including the teenagers, their parents and the people around them…
hell yes, keep the program going…
Stupidity to combat stupidity..
I lost my 16 yr old sister who died last year in a car crash, if someone feels the pain I did throught the whole thing only to discover it was not true I’d be very very very angry!!!
hahahaha,,, i think it teaches a valuable lesson,,,, never believe anything a cop says,,,,i know i dont,,, if you do,,, hahahahahahaha,,, thats your problem.
shock evangelism rarely works in religion…how is it going to work in regards to drunk driving? It is creating an emotional case, and one that will leave the person not realizing the implications, rather becoming jaded and cynical towards authority.
I hate people who don’t give straight forward talks. What a bunch of assholes.
that is one of the most ridiculous things i have ever heard. i would be absolutely infuriated if i was in their position. no one should ever have to go through that unnecessarily. this whole stunt is just in poor, poor taste. makes me sick.
This is a lesson in very poor taste. I imagine it will leave the students angry and insulted that they were tricked, not angry about drunk driving. And I doubt it will make a difference in the number of students who go out and drive drunk, sorry to say.
@squeakysoul - I agree.
@five11nation - I agree on your opinion there.
Hmmm. I can see the point they’re trying to make, but I’m not really sure if the ends justified the means. Kind of a grey area I think.
That’s interesting that people got mad. At my old high school, they also did the program. The students who “die” do not attend class, and are supposed to stay home. One of my coworkers had to have her shift covered, because we are supposed to be experiencing life without them. There is an assembly that day, where they actually have the “car” that the students had been in. Then they basically have a funeral, and someone reads something about the students that “died.” It’s all very powerful, especially if you are friends with the person. At our school, someone actually dresses as the Grim Reaper and pulls the student out of class without a word.
But, at our school, everyone knows that it’s not real, so the…erm…magic? No, that’s not the word..so the strength of the message goes away a little bit. But, I still think there is a lot of potency in staging this, because so many teens die in drunk driving related incidents, and I don’t think students think of the consequences, not just for themselves and the people they may harm, but for their family, friends and peers.
People get upset about everything these days, it’s kinda ridiculous. Teens these days don’t listen very hard when someone is standing up in front of the classroom saying “Drunk driving is bad, drunk driving is bad, drunk driving is bad.” But when you see what it could actually do, it becomes more real, solid, and something to think about.
i think its a good program. the students need to learn not to drink and drive. i learned the hard way, one of my friends really did die.
I think it is somewhat sick.
There is a reason many of the more extreme psychological experiments were shut down in the 80′s and 90′s. Some were extremely helpful to the psychology field, but were judged by many to be unethical.
I would be of the opinion that this practice by the schools is unethical.
It may seem cruel, but I think if the lesson is taken into account that this death very easily COULD HAVE resulted from a drunk driver, and made students aware of what even teenaged drinking could lead to, then yes, the end did justify the means.
that’s awful.
Woah, that’s harsh to do to people.
It’s a good wake up call though
I don’t think that was appropriate. I’ve seen ‘Shattered Dreams’ where there’s a car wreck on campus and they play a call to 911, life flight comes, and the coroner comes and they put them in the hearse, they go and notify the parents, everything. Then all day they ‘take’ people and the next day there’s a funeral, but we all knew that was what was happeneing. This seems like it was just out of the blue without any kind of warning.
publicity stunts like this are completely unacceptable. i don’t care if it’s a good cause. as a bunch of Moms, they should know better than to f*ck with the minds of their children/teenagers. and it’s even more despicable if the teachers knew about it.
what’s the matter with these people?! don’t they know how to be open and honest with their offspring??
After the initial reaction, I think this is a really effective programme. If that happened to me, I’d probably be so freaked out I won’t even let my friends drink =x
@hecticmuse - LoL, i can just imagine someone saying that..
.@GermanWrench - I agree.
It was too harsh.
I don’t know if you know of something called Shattered Dreams, but High Schools do it and mine did it my senior year I think. They get volunteers and stage out a car accident. First they play a video of the involved people (one car with a drunk person, and the other just some friends driving safely), then they “crash”. The whole school is escorted outside to the scene of the crash and watch the firemen take the bodies out of the car and carry them out on stretchers.
In this case, I don’t see anything wrong with it if it’s getting across the right message. But like you said, the kids knew what was going on so they didn’t care.
@lissalinn - My high school did the same thing every year during the week of prom… minus the funeral part.. we just had someone playing Death come into a classroom, turn off the light and take a senior… each day “Death’ would ‘claim three lives’ and then at the end of the day they’d announce it on the loud speaker.. That didn’t really have much affect on us because we were so used to it.
Thats so horrable
But sorda Scary in a way
The wrong way to get a right message through.
…
@SunshineOnARainyDays -
yeah it had no effect on people in our school and that was the first time that they had ever done it. I think part of it is the mindset of the people involved, they think that it can’t happen to them and they just don’t care.
I missed the first day with all the ‘drama’ because of a scheduling snafu which caused way more drama than the program did.
I think they were out of line. That may be teaching them the consequences of drunk driving, but it’s also teaching them they can’t trust the police. Do we really want to be teaching our young people that? Why not use a real story about a real teenager who was killed by a real drunk driver to make the point? If it happens so often, there should be enough real stories to tell to make the same point.
And what if there’s a situation like what Alle_in_Ashe described on the first page of comments?
they do something like this at my school every other year. they pull like fifteen kids out of class and have headstones set up on the grassy area in the quad. then the juniors and seniors have to go to the stadium, where they’ve set up a car accident and we have to watch all the response people pretend to save them. they also do this stupid thing where every fifteen minutes, they play the sound of a heart monitor over the speakers and then it dies or whatever. it’s more irritating than anything.
it’s pretty stupid when you know it’s fake, but i suppose to someone who didn’t know about it, it would be upsetting and kind of cruel.
to answer the question, the end never justifies the means.
Well now that’s very typical of M.A.D.D. wich carries entirely too much power in this country.
Got to hand it to them they don’t disappointoften
PS: Dan, (In reference to what another commenter said) you go ahead and pump them out every hour. Xanga is not nearly as much fun when you’re not around!!!
What a horrible thing to do.
MADD has been into wasting time and money for years. I understand when they pioneer to increase penalties against drunk drivers, but their “information campaigns” are just horrible; this one more so then others.
MADD should be ashamed of this stunt.
It’s a cruel joke. HOWEVER, as one who has lost 4 classmates (3 during high school and one two years after we graduated) to drunk driving accidents, the tragedy is a total wake-up call, it’s especially hard when the person who died was NOT drunk, but killed by someone who was. It’s a tragic situation, but one many learn from (at least I did), I’m sure I would’ve been a little peeved if their deaths were jokes, but, honestly, at least they’d still be here today. Though I do agree, motivational speakers who share their real stories probably would be just as jolting and wouldn’t run too much of a risk in offending people….then again I think America is WAY oversensitive about stuff so..yea this a difficult one to answer I guess.
@nephyo - well said.
that’s a real jerk thing to do
@reed44 - What you described proves that sometimes it takes a real jolt to the emotional system to get a point across. Otherwise, all we’d really be doing is merely educating with facts and figures not ever really making it personalized for each individual so that the point can really hit home.Thank you for sharing your experience.
No. That is outright deception and crying wolf.
You don’t joke about death. Whether you’re trying to teach a lesson or not. You just don’t.
do i hear lawsuit for infliction of intentional emotional distress?
I think that’s awesome! Â I think the kids really understood the possibility of this happening and are thinking…I’m glad it wasn’t real but my gosh it could have been.
That’s going way too far.
my daughter was a “victium” where 4 others in the car had “died”…she was pulled from school along with the 5 others and sent to another school in the dirstrict…at first I was appauled…but then I realized that shock treatment is just what these young kids needed…the sixth person was really arrested for a DUI…but they used him in the “performance” too…it worked at her high school…DUI’s were down signifiantly from the year before…smile
I don’t think that was right. What if that was your best friend, you’d be crying like crazy, and then you find out that it was all for nothing? There’s other ways to teach kids not to drunk drive.
That is absolutely ridiculous what a horrible thing to do to someone.
Tough call. I definitely think that if more people knew what the consequences of their actions can/would feel like, they’d be more likely to make smarter decisions.Too much of society tries to dull the tragedy of what can happen to people.
With that thought, I’d have to say I think the better course of action is having drivers that have committed manslaughter while drunk come in and talk. You can really hear the pain in their voice, and get a feeling of the sort of torment they live with.
I think it is an amazing way to teach a lesson. I personally work with children and they can be completely hard headed sometimes. You can tell a child all you want not to do something but they don’t listen they are teenagers. You can tell a teenager not to drink and drive but you hear about so many deaths from it. These teenagers now know what the decision to drink and drive will do to the people around them. Hopefully next time they are thinking about getting into a car after they have been drinking they will actually think about this lesson. It was not just another lecture but they actually learned and will remember this. I am very happy that someone is atleast trying to do something active to put into these students heads that it is not ok to drink and drive and it does hurt the people around you.
On the one hand, the principal just totally lied. Lying, even for a good cause, is not any justification to do anything. But nowadays, it seems that we have to scare children in order for them to realize the potential danger hazards of the world today. Though, I don’t support lying, this really needed to be done. Kudos to the principal for thinking of this–or rather, whomever that thought of it.
no, no, no no, and no.
That’s called LYING!! What if some kid with a weak heart suffered a heart attack or something because of this stunt. You shouldn’t do that to people, you could traumatize them for no reason!
That’s so fucked up.
MADD goes over the line way too much…
<33
It is a powerful way to get kids to think twice about drunk driving, but I am not sure if the psychological scarring was warranted.
Poor kids thinking their classmate had died; what if another student in the class were their best friend or sig. other!? 
So sad. This is a tough one really..
wow that’s…crazy…
i mean, it was awful and all, but they got the point across, right? there could have been worse things to do to these kids….maybe…
That’s awful!
I’ve had this done to me. Not the same circumstances, but my very ex friend pretended to be her mother on the phone and told me she’d killed herself.
I found out later, like, MONTHS later that it was false.
Gotta be a better way, this is just childish
While I think it might be a little scarring, it’s just crazy enough that it might work.
Thats just not cool. Teens already don’t like adults for lying to them, we don’t need this to further aggravate us.
I think that is a cruel joke. Especially if it is with a grade school or middle school. This can be emotionally damaging. It’s sick
What’s wrong with MADD finding a way to traumatize kids without having to drive drunk?
I think that the basic thought process is a good one. I was a teenager not long ago and to really drive a point home, you had to shock the hell out of me.
However, in my high school at least, we have a number of students every year die of drunk driving or ODing, or just bad luck and I was close to one of the students that died. I can’t imagine if I went through all the emotional turmoil that I did, just to have people that I’m supposed to trust tell me it hadn’t really happened. I probably would have killed someone.
They completely stepped over the line of human decency. Just because they’re high school students doesn’t mean that they’re going to have an easy time of accepting a dead friend – and then to LOL J/K J/K. That’s just wrong on so many levels.
Everyone is aware of the program and knows it’s going on. My school did it until it became to costly, everyone always looked really forward to it because it was such a real and great event. Your peers are taken out of class every 15 minutes and the next day a huge crash is staged near or on your campus. It’s really effective when you see one of your friends “dying” on the football field from a car crash.
Absolutley not.
I’m all for education for drunk driving and what not, but there are certainly more ethical and just as effective solutions.
Jesus, if someone did that to me, i would freak out.
@Frodoholic - “Teens these days don’t listen very hard when
someone is standing up in front of the classroom saying “Drunk driving
is bad, drunk driving is bad, drunk driving is bad.” But when you see
what it could actually do, it becomes more real, solid, and something
to think about.”
I agree. I think this might have been a little over the top, but at the same time people who are shaken to their core may be more likely to do something about it.
Absolutely wrong. There are other ways to promote safe driving.
MADD is getting worse and worse. Kind of like PETA.
that’s kind of really sick. i would be really angry if that happened at my school.
That seems awfully excessive to me.
@not_done_baking - yeah that happened at my school, too, but only the seniors got to see the staged accident and deaths, but it seemed like it would be really emotional.
but if in this case, the students didn’t know it was a program, i think it’s wrong.
yeah what a great way to end the year. The reason mad was started wasn’t because of teen drinking, it was because a girl was in a guys car, and they got hit by a drunk driver, the girl was the teen, not the driver. I hate madd.
Totally over the top and wrong. What if someone had sent a text to a parent or other family member with the erronious info? Someone could have gotten hurt. What if the boyfriend/girlfriend of the “deceased” was in that class and took their own life? What if a kid with a bad heart had arrested?
I have seen false info used for effect, and its a very bad idea. It teaches kids adults use trickery and cannot be trusted. Its playing games with their emotions. It borders on the intentional infliction of emotional distress.
If you want to use drama, tell kids up front its a drama and then really do it up right. Use fake blood, crashed cars, radio dispatches played out loud. The cop and the rose are nonsense.
Yes. We need to get through to teens SOMEHOW.
I think it’s cruel, but it makes a valid point. If I “found out” my sister died in a drunk-driving car accident, I’d be extremely crushed. EXTREMELY. But if I later find out that she’s fine, I’d be very pissed off…but then I’d realize that I wouldn’t want to go through that again. It’d probably completely change me.
When I was in High School, there have been a couple talks from people who have been in car accidents. One guy couldn’t move, couldn’t speak or anything. He used an electronic talker and talked about him being popular, about him thinking nothing bad would happen, and it did. It’s a depressing thing to witness, and it affected people for a short period of time, but I don’t know about the long run. Unfortunantely, something devastating would have to happen to us in order for us to truely change. Unfortunanately, sometimes start realizing things after it’s too late.
I am fortunate enough to have no desire to drink alcohol. I am perfectly content with drinking water and using different methods on getting rid of stress that are completely 100% safe.
So, do I think that it is justifiable to do that? Although I do think it’s cruel, especially when someone has to live with the belief that his/her friend is dead for a long period of time, I think it’s a slap across the face telling you to WAKE UP and smell the coffee, and is justifiable.
thats a pretty weird way to teach kids about drunk driving
I honestly think i would be hysterical if the police did this to me. They could probably cause some horrible emotional damage to someone by doing this..
At my school every year before prom, the seniors engage in an even that (i think) is called “Every 15 Minutes…”. To start it off, in the morning there is a smashed car from a local teenage accident displayed outside, and throughout the day a grim reaper [volunteer student] pulls other seniors out of classes and “kills” them every 15 minutes. The dead student can’t talk for the rest of the day, has RIP written on their forehead, and wears a t-shirt that says “Every 15 minutes…”
I think something like this seems more effective and less likely to do damage.
I’ve seen something on tv where they stage a drunk driving accident. It wa at a school dance and these kids supposedly drank and drove, and got into this accident right in front of the school..everybody was watching and everybody believed it when they pronounced the kids dead..Thats very shocking but I thikn I like that better than what was done above.
Absolutely not. That’s horrible.
We had a demonstration at our school kind of like this that lasted 2 days, but we were informed first. Kids were picked to be ‘victims’ and reenacted a drunk driving accident, with smashed cars, cops, and everything. The kids who had ‘died’ spent the night at a hotel and weren’t allowed to call their parents or friends. The next day, they held a funeral for the students, where parents read euligies and the ‘dead’ students spoke too. Every 15 minutes someone dies in a drunk-driving accident, and every 15 minutes, a kid was called out of class to be painted up to look dead, like it had actually happened. It was a good idea, but many students didn’t take it seriously. Some did though, especially a girl I know who had 3 of her friends die in a car accident [not acohol related] early that year. It was like re-living the tragedy all over again, and she was horrified that they made her watch. There’s really nothing you can do without stepping on someone’s toes, but I’m definiately not for the pretending-someone’s-dead-then-coming-back-and-saying-just-kidding scenario. It’s just not right.
On two thoughts I think it was good but then not good. I think it defintely would put into perspective how it is when you find out someone was lost to that but then it kind of gives alot of grief that is un-needed. I’m not exactly sure if it is exactly right or wrong but from the story that you linked to it seemed kind-of wrong thta they were not aware of anything until way later or not even before.
@kinkikiwi - Well, if you can save a few kids lives by making them think someone they know has died for a few minutes I think its completely justifiable.Whats the worst that could happen? They cry for a few minutes and then find out they’re crying for nothing.
I know it seems mean but some people are just too sensitive these days.
No, because it not only tells the students that lying is ok and justifible in some situations…
It’s not good to lie about someone dying or getting hurt.
But I can see where it would make the students think twice about drinking and driving.
@BeautifulB_227 - I definitely disagree. The ends doesn’t justify the means. Is it ok to torture Iraqis to see if they hold any information that would help the American government? No, it’s not ok to torture anyone at any time no matter what it’s concerning. Physical torture, emotional torture, whatever – who cares if it’s just for an hour or so? So is it ok to torture Iraqis for just an hour or so until they cry a little bit? I mean, they’ll get over it, right? Yeah, man – those Iraqis are too sensitive, they need to toughen up….
I know I’m being extreme but I see it the same. I just know I wouldn’t want it to happen to me and it sounds like some really bad karma for MADD
@saintvi - agreed.
Although, I feel like there is nothing more people can do. People will drink and drive no matter what. I think I was the only one that took DARE class seriously, lol. I don’t drink or do drugs…
They’ve done this at several schools in my high school district. The students said they held a scene of the crime, a funeral complete with a death certificate, basically the whole show. The students also said that it was hard-hitting.
wow that’s terrible.
That is just a sick joke, in my opinion. I would smack a hoe. Lol.
I cannot express how angry I would be in that situation. That is absolutely unacceptable.
Someone needs to warn these kids, the alcohol companies are never gonna do it.
All they want you to do is to have a picture of a cool mountain stream running through the mountains or a hot girl staring at you in a bar. When the fact of the matter is that alcohol destroys countless lives year after year.
We know…my wifes brother – in – law was killed by a 19 yr. old drunk driver back in 2004. He did less than a year in jail & he got off with a slap on the wrist.
………ok……..kinda freaky…
in high school, madd had a program where certain students wore red “madd” ribbons, which meant you were dead. you couldn’t talk or participate in class. by the end of the day, there were 3x as many dead people, as people would rip their ribbons in half.
that’s ridiculous. if someone told me my friend died in a drunk driving accident as a joke i would be completely outraged. i know drunk driving is bad, no one needs to emphasize it by joking about the death of one of my friends.
LOL..
Well, anyway, I think it’s a bit cruel and unusual. But, I see what they’re trying to say here and I understand.
having a fakedeath and driving an emotion doesn’t necessarily help them. they become immune after a while, cold and apathetic. they think it might help, but the end does’t justify the means. you want to teach the kds a lesson hit them where it hurts the most in the pocket.
Over the line… I would have been a hysterical mess!
First Santa, now this…
Wow. If that were to happen to me and the person that “pretended” to be dead was my best friend, I would be completely outraged. First of all, in my old high school, the principal there no one liked.. so if he were to do that to us, I’m pretty sure some of our students would have retaliated against the school. Vandalism, etc., etc… thinking about the kids in my class, oh yes, they would’ve. Also, the fact that the school and the police had just LIED to the students.. that’s not very trustworthy is it? I can see why they did it.. but going behind the back of the students and lying to them. That’s just wrong.
Also, what about the kids that were battling psychological disorders? I’m sure that could’ve been hard on them. I’ve been diagnosed with depression so I can see the students (and see myself) acting in a very stupid way.
I’m sorry, but there’s other ways to get something across. This is sick and wrong.
hey
that’s horrible.
I would answer, but all I can think about at this point is how awesome it would be to attend my own fake funeral if I were that kid.
brb while I fake my own death.
I went through the every 15 minutes program when I was a senior in high school, but we were told that it was going on that day, and our “deceased” classmates were still in class with us, just wearing white face paint and black t-shirts. When they “died,” they were removed from class by a police officer and the grim reaper. Bells rang every 15 minutes to signify another “death.” In the middle of the day, we saw a staged car crash caused by drunk driving. The next day we had an assembly about the whole thing, and there was a time to discuss our feelings about it. It was a hard experience, but it was effective.
I think that this school went about it in the wrong way. They needed to let the students know that this was only for show. the lesson is good, but playing with emotions is not the way to get it across.
well i can understand that they are trying to let teens know the danger of drinking but that was going pretty far
wtf. now those pissed of teenagers are probably going to go get pissed and have drag races just to say a big fck you to MADD. i think that someone was way out of touch with reality and especially teenagers to even think that that was a good idea. this is what happens when fanatical emotional people are put into a position of power and decision. their decision was callous and antagonistic.
shit a brick
No. I would be mad at MADD, if that happened in my kid’s school.
This logic is entirely reasonobale to me, I will explain in a second. A similar thing happened at my school for Prom week a few years ago. An estimated average time in minutes (every 15 i think) is given for when a teenager dies from drunk driving. To display this, a bell would ring every 15 min and the Grim Reaper would walk into the class room and take a student away from the class (they were part of the prom comittee). Obviously ours was more obvious and to the point, but I think the situation given above is very appropriate. Sadly, our generation learns best through example and experience. If you tell us every 15 min someone dies, we will say, “yeah ok, it hasn’t happened to me yet,’ and trust me, I know more than a hundred people that fit that description. But to have a real experience changes people. There is no way to deny it. To say that MADD was toying with their emotions is BULL SHIT. Life Plays With Everyone’s Emotions Every Day! To have a police officer come into class and declare the student dead may have been scary for them, but they as students should have figured out it was fake (afterthought: unless I guess it was middle school or elementary school). If anyone was to come into a class and declare a student dead it would have been the principle at the most, the whole school would know about it, and a eulogy would not have been read to the class. For real people, use your head! Sorry it was so long guys.
whoever would support this is a disgusting and disturbed individual.
this was at my friends school – long beach Poly. He said everybody started crying and they were given tissues when they entered the auditorium.
one of the high schools i went to did a similar thing. we witnessed the aftermath of the “car accident” and the drunk driver getting arrested, then they had some guy dressed in a grim reaper costume come around to class rooms and take a certain kid out every 30 minutes or something like that. they imformed the parents what they were doing and filmed their fake reactions to their children dying in hospitals.
mostly i thought it was corny, but they set up fake gravestones in certain places on campus and when some kids started knocking them down, i found myself getting irritated with them.
effective for some; but rather a violent way to preach the message of non violence! It could really disturb some; we must protect their rights. sorry, i vote no. also the POLICE officer participating? hmm. too much
this infuriates me, but then again I’ve never heard of them doing anything that isn’t rotten to achieve their supposedly noble goals
I think this could constitute an legally actionable act. I think they could open themselves up to being sued for this. You don’t go deliberately upsetting people in public, humiliating them by having them show raw emotion, then tell them it was not real.
Just because they are kids doesn’t mean you can use such unethical teaching methods. If you did this in a corporate setting, someone would be fired and sued.
I don’t know. It’ll make them appreciate that friend more, though, I think, and maybe their friends in general. And that’s a good result also. But my friend died in January in a car accident, not related to drunk driving, and I wouldn’t be able to handle it if they even just PRETENDED one more of my friends died. I’d hurt somebody.
At my high school they made a video about someone in our senior class getting into a car accident and dying, and they had the grim reaper coming around to pick people to “die” and they painted the “dead” people’s faces white and hung a statistic sign around their neck. This person in a mask going around my classes and the face paint scares the bejeezus out of me so this year even though I actually went to prom, I stayed home the grim reaper day. :]
@Simple_Man_123 - That’s unreasonable. When someone comes in and tells you someone you know is dead, you’re not thinking logically. You’re upset. And it is toying with their emotions, because they’re lying. Life doesn’t lie about death, sorry. Causing undue emotional distress to prove your point is just cruel and unusual. Not to mention the FAKE experience of someone dying and then being told that they’re not really dead, just kind of undoes the whole lesson. It’s more like “MADD is a bunch of assholes” more than “I could die from drunk driving.”
they do this at my school every year, except everyone knows about it and no one thinks its real so…i think this is a little extreme.
@AllMyNamesAreTaken - Life is cruel and unusual. And drunk driving is a serious issue. But I must admit, this action would have suited better a decade ago when the death rate of teens dying in car accidents was significantly higher as opposed to now when the issue is less prevelent.
This situation also has to be taken on a personal level. I myself would have had no problem with it. I already experience the aftermath of a fellow classmates death in high school. For each person a tragic event will trigger a different set of reactions. For some people they are more extreme than others, obivously these students and their parents were extremely upset. However, my thought is, instead of attacking MADD, why did they not attack the school for agreeing to the whole ordeal?
The program wasn’t designed or implemented by MADD. It is a CHP program that MADD provides speakers for. For some reason, the article posted the program was designed by MADD. But that’s not the case. Its always amazing to me that people have this perception of MADD that its always going over the line. What if this article stated the program was designed and implemented by the CHP, would all of you still cry then?
That cop was an ass( or his boss was) you don’t do that to someone.
i think it would get it across their mond about drunk driving and the effects and that they should never do it and they shouldnt be mad at MADD they should thank them for teaching them a lesson
So TRUE….
NO!!
They had NO right!
One of the worst things I have ever read about.
grr
No! The cruelty of it will last for years and leave a bitter taste in many people’s mouths. And, saying that, it could even backfire and force some to rebel by drinking. If I were the school, I would set up a “watch” as I’m sure some students will not take it lightly.
They did this at my school, many students “died” & only the ones that hadn’t heard about this event from the previous years really believed it. The kids that were involved had to stay away at a hotel & couldn’t communicate w/anyone while they were “dead”. The parents would also get a phone call saying their kid was dead & then later on finding out it wasn’t real.
It was stupid, sure they were trying to teach us something, but really, it didn’t work.
actually schools near my district have the every 15 minutes program. my district had it, with additional performances, until we no longer could fund it. it`s not supposed to be as bad as you imagine it to be. the effect it has on people is supposed to keep kids from driving drunk. no one actually died, but .. every 15 minutes someone out there does die as a result of drunk driving. i think it`s great to bring awareness to this fact. we take things for granted until it actually happens to us. by then, it`s too late.
Dear Dan:
Was this done by an actual police officer? And if so, did he have the approval of his department and the school system when he did this? You don’t teach young people things by traumatizing them like that! This is on par with the Hollywood pornmeisters who give us scenes of child molestation with the transparent excuse of “It’ll raise awareness of the issue”! That’s what this was, in essence.
Once you start doing things like this in the name of education, where does it stop? And what does it do to the credibility of policemen, educators and the already politically compromised MADD? Cops and teachers, along with the parents themselves, are the most visible authority figures in the lives of young people. When they’re seen as sources of traumatic falsehoods, what attitude does that engender with them toward the very society in which they’re supposedly training to be members of?
The parents of that community should- almost literally- take up arms with the responsible parties to make sure that nothing like this ever occurs again. And MADD should be the target of lawsuits by the parents of those kids who were affected… and barred from the educational process.
Well, it does get the point across, and no one got physically hurt in the demonstration. I hope it gets people to think.
Like wow.
WOW.
But it really does get accross the message so
I want to say right on. But uh wow….