Ramblings

I'm not a big fan of lying to kids "for their own good." It's lazy and the kids just learn to distrust the adults.

Apparently some school officials disagree with this sentiment, however:

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.

Read the whole thing to see school administrators express zero remorse for messing with the kids' heads.

The whole episode reminds me of My Future Self 'n Me, a hilarious episode of South Park where the parents hire actors to pretend to be the kids' future selves whose lives are all messed up from drugs. My favorite clip is here (fast forward to about 1 minute in):

Full Episode here.

I think the whole problem stems from a lack of respect. Kids are smarter than parents, teachers, and administrators give them credit for. And the adults wonder why their kids grow up to be so distrusting of authority.