https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-so-students-were-told-their-classmates-died/ Brodhead High School in Wisconsin tricked their students into believing 4 of their classmates had been killed texting while driving. It was a hoax, and 10 minutes later the students were told the truth. Certainly texting while driving is a bad habit, but is deception the best way to get that message across? Thoughts?
I don't see the problem with shoving a lesson of reality into their faces. People are desensitized to this kind of thing, texting and playing Pokémon go while driving and putting lives at risk. So they had their feelings hurt, now they know what it will be like if it happened for real.
I understand your point about teaching, but "shoving a lesson of reality" is not what they really did. In fact, it was a hoax, the opposite of reality. They deceived, just like the little boy who cried wolf in the old fairy tales or Brothers Grimm.
Yeah they deceived, but it was in good nature. Unlike the fairy tale people getting killed because of texting really happens. Willing to bet texting while driving kills more kids than gun shots.
Except maybe in Chicago, eh? I do completely support efforts to stop anybody, including kids and adults, from distracted driving, whether by texting or other distractions. So I take it you mean that deceiving others is OK, as long as your intentions are good?
This was not deception to cheat, steal, or for nefarious reasons. This was nothing more than a dose of the real world, a good shock to hit home. Deception is not always a bad thing, it can be used for good. Nothing else gets through to these kids, maybe this will make them think twice as I doubt it will be a lesson they forget.
So to borrow from Jagger, is it safe to say our school systems and government offices are practiced at the art of deception? And a deception can be beneficent, as you suggest this one is, or it can be nefarious? Seems like tortured logic somehow to me. Oh, the web we weave, and the rationalizations we employ, when first we practice to deceive. What I find interesting about this incident is that both parents and students were willing to participate in the deception. I still think it is the very same dynamic in play as with the Boy Who Cried Wolf. Are we really supposed to believe people willing to participate in such crude displays of dishonesty?
Well people have a tendency to take the word "deception" in itself as totally negative, in which it is not always a negative thing. For instance is deceiving someone to keep them from knowing they have a surprise party a bad thing? I mean you are lying for a good reason right? lol yes I know a surprise party can't be compared to this particular instance but just giving an example of how deception is not always bad. Or how about doctors who tell patients, even though they may truly be on the brink of death, that everything will be ok so that patient stays calm? Obviously that is a more shrewed deception but it is done for the reason that they do not want their patient to panic way too soon because that can lead to much worse things. And no our teachers should not be well versed in deception lol, too much of anything is a bad thing. But this is teaching a life lesson and done so to get a reaction and make these kids understand what is truly at stake. Like I said simply telling these kids today something is bad and it is in one ear and out the other, but having them experience a hypothetical situation as if it were real will stick and make them think about that very moment any time they want to start texting while driving. Was it a harsh way to do it? Oh yeah, but at the same time I bet it will save some lives and I guarantee you they will share the experience with their children. Maybe not actually recreate it, but maybe then they can explain it better. I mean what is the difference in this and practicing fire and earthquake drills? Most of the time a fire drill happens they do not know if it is a real one or not, it's just random. Is that also wrong? Or a deception used so they can get ready for the real thing?
Well yes, you can make it about semantics and hypotheticals, or you can rationalize it any way you like, but the fact remains that parents, children and a school administration planned and executed an operation using deception against their own students. So maybe my larger point is that if "the system" cries wolf as it pleases, even with the best of intentions, does that system become less credible? In the future, will it be perceived as being truthful, or being deceptive? Is that perception a good thing for future societies? Do we really want to encourage that perception?
Simply preparing people for the real world using real world situations. We are just going to have to agree to disagree on this because frankly it is a harsh lesson learned, but at the same time a lesson that can save lives down the road. I'd rather these kids be deceived in this manner than see them wrapped around a telephone pole.
It's a safe bet that some kid, somewhere, probably even one from Brodhead School, will eventually be maimed or killed from texting while driving or some other "preventable" behavior. In the meantime, the kids have learned yet again that their parents and other authority figures are practiced at the art of deception, and will tend to mistrust those authority figures. Yes, we have the government we deserve, fairly well at Orwellian levels. To me, this makes so many other public events become highly suspicious. If this little event was staged by the authorities, what other events might have been staged by the authorities, "for our own good?"