While I applaud their inventiveness, I'd be freaking furious.  They should have found a better way.

I used to live in Oceanside.  And I know the schools there to be good schools, but this is taking things too far.

what a terrible idea

How would I feel if my child was "subjected to this"? I'm sorry...were they also held down and beaten mercilessly? Was there waterboarding going on that I dont know about?

 

That fact that people are pussies nowadays aside...would I rather them be subjected to something that scares the shit out of them, or have them subjected to, oh I dunno, say, DEATH? If it scared them and affected them in such a way that they may think twice about drunk driving, then i'm all for it. Better a scared child than a dead one, eh?

And this is a topic of which teens OUGHT to be scared.

Exactly.

"That fact that people are pussies nowadays aside.."

If you had just been told that your best friend was dead and then discovered it was some kind of "Lesson" to be learned, I don't think I'd be upset for no reason.

I think I'd be upset because it was horrible. Not because I was somehow less of a man than the generation before me.

The point is of course to be upset.

Agreed.  This they can't handle, but they can go see movies with people being blown to bits in graphic detail and all's well.  Granted, it's just a movie... but this too was fiction... and it had a purpose far better than most movies.

That's totally different. That is incomparably different. 

Its no different at all. The point I believe he is making is desensitization. You should be upset when someone dies, period. But people arent. The only time theyre snapped back into reality is when it affects THEM. The only way to get people to give a rats ass is to make it affect them. Take the Baldwins for example. They didnt care about breast cancer until their mother was diagnosed with it. Now, they help fund research and speak about it a lot. Take someone who has AIDS, or someones partner who has AIDS. Theyre more outspoken, aware, and cautious than they were before. Because theyre living it. Now, these kids have lived something terrible...if only for a moment. So hopefully that feeling of loss and despair will stick with them long enough to not do something stupid.

The problem lies with youths not being very empathetic.  Like missmandible has said, it's about it happening to you.  Too many people (including myself) says "It'll never happen to me."

Teenagers think they're invincible.  True enough, SOME know better but there are a lot who don't.  Truer still, it was cruel, but hey...all or nothing.  Now that they know what it feels like, they'll (hopefully) think twice before drinking and driving.

Honestly, I don't see this as any different then the method of what a health teacher would use to raise awareness of unprotected sex by offering teens to take care of an interactive baby, or what my health teacher used to do to raise awareness of the consequences of smoking by showing us a tar infested lung in a plastic bag. Honestly I don't think that some people don't seem to understand the reality of nature until it affects them on a personal level. It's like a wake up call, they see the reactions of their peers and realize that could have been them that was in that car accident. I also find the advertisements that beer manufacturers produce such as the one dramatization where a person leaves drunk from a party to find his buddy had already totalled his car using a remote control monster truck to demonstrate the potential consequences of what could happen if they drove home under the alcoholic influence they were currently under. I wouldn't consider it a prank if the intention is to save someone of some serious consequences or even to prevent a potential tragedy which could lead to their own demise. This article expresses that even though we may not directly know people, we still express our concern for them. After all, even though we may not associate ourselves with others, none of us want to see people end up dying because they wanted to have a little fun. Nobody should have to die because they were unaware of their actions or they didn't take the potential consequences seriously, especially when drinking can make some of us feel invincible, which is enough to make anyone feel concerned about the decisions that people make after having too much to drink.   

Except in your examples, the kids know that the baby is fake. They know the lung isn't theirs. Imagine that your health teacher has just asked a doctor to tell you that you have lung cancer from smoking. Sounds cruel to me.

 

Before prom, my high school would put on a "play" where a bunch of seniors pretended to be in a drunk driving accident.  It was sad, gross... and effective... without the emotional trauma of actually thinking that your friends are dead.