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It is teaching students to distrust authority figures by having them lie.

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Have them lie and then... come out with it not too long after?

Honestly, it's one thing to lie, but it's another to lie and then come out with it. It's not as if the students caught the BS themselves. So long as you retract what you originally claimed and explain exactly what was going on (so long as it was a good excuse, which in this case it was), no trust in authority figures have been lost at all.

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Also, it is not the schools place to put on a production like this.

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It's not the school's place to teach kids that drinking and driving is bad and can result in death? I beg to differ...

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If they talked to the parents before hand that would be one thing but i highly doubt that happened.  There are other ways to make this point stick without causing such intense emotional distress.

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But the question here is would the point would be made as strongly? Would the point they make against drinking and driving stick in these kids' heads when they and their friends are drunk?

Honestly, when you're drunk, just being told "driving drunk is bad" doesn't mean shit because you have a tendency to disregard facts and common sense when drunk. On the other hand, you don't have that same tendency to disregard emotional distress like these students experienced. Those are actually remembered and thus decreases the chance that these students will let their friends drive drunk.

Would it not be better that they experience the emotional trauma of a friend dying now and then being told that it was fake than actually experiencing it for real later? Schools have a tendency of being soft on its students thanks to overconcerned parents and fears over a lawsuit. As a result, they often fail to teach us the harsh realities of the real world and leave us on our own as a result.  Which is why I think that what this school did was not just surprising, but also admirable for just trying to attempt that.

Post edited at 1:42 pm on June 3, 2008 by Bud2400

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What the fuck is wrong with those people? There are better ways to tell kids not to get behind the wheel drunk without emotionally scarring them for life.

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If hearing that your friend died and then suddenly learning that it was a hoax emotionally scars you for life and cannot handle it, you are hopeless. Death is a big part of life and I guarantee that almost everybody will deal the death of a friend or family member one way or another. I really wish schools would teach kids how to cope with death and dealing with these situations, and furthermore, actually exposing them to just how shitty it feels to deal with a loss.

Post edited at 9:12 pm on June 3, 2008 by Bud2400