Teaching Hard Lessons to School Children and Others

By now you may have heard (via Balko, Simple Justice, Moby Kip, or new blawger Bobby Frederick) about the brilliant idea some folks in El Camino California came up with to teach students the importance of not driving drunk:

Many juniors and seniors were driven to tears – a few to near hysterics – May 26 when a uniformed police officer arrived in several classrooms to notify them that a fellow student had been killed in a drunken-driving accident.

…

About 10 a.m., students were called to the athletic stadium, where they learned that their classmates had not died. There, a group of seniors, police officers and firefighters staged a startlingly realistic alcohol-induced fatal car crash…

Though the deception left some teens temporarily confused and angry, if it makes even one student think twice before getting behind the wheel of a car while intoxicated, it is worth the price, said California Highway Patrol Officer Eric Newbury, who orchestrates the program at local high schools.

“When someone says to me, ‘Oh, my God, you’re traumatizing my children,’ I’m telling them, ‘No, what I’m doing is waking them up,’ ” said Newbury, whose father was killed by a drunken driver.

What a great idea! I’m sure the students at the school are very grateful for being taught this important lesson, and soon they’ll be looking for a way to repay Officer Newbury for his efforts.

Maybe one day, while he’s out on patrol keeping the roads safe, the students should call his wife and tell her that he was shot and killed while making a traffic stop. Just imagine the joy that will fill her heart when, a few hours later, he arrives home safe and well. It will be an important reminder to him of the need to be careful even during a routine traffic stop, and to both of them of the precious value of the time we get to spend with our loved ones.

Or maybe a few of the students could contact the media and say that those officers had sexually molested them. Later, they could reveal that it was all a hoax to remind the police of the importance of the presumption of innocence.

Or maybe the parents of one of the students could keep him home the next day, and when the school calls, they could say that he hung himself in the garage last night, and that they don’t understand why because his therapy was going so well, so could anybody at the school think of something that might have upset him? The next day, he could return to school and explain that it was just a way to teach them an important lesson about honesty.

Or maybe a bunch of the families could get together to send the school a lot of official-looking paperwork claiming they were suing for $10 million dollars for intentional inflection of emotional distress. Then the next day they could explain it was all a hoax to teach them an important lesson about thinking before they do things like this.

Then the day after that, they could sue the school for $10 million dollars for intentional inflection of emotional distress. That would teach them a lesson.