Imagine you’re a high-school senior, sitting with friends in your Monday morning physics class. You notice that one of the popular athletes is absent but think nothing of it – he might have skipped class to go to the beach, you think, or maybe he caught that final cold of the season that’s been going around.
Suddenly a uniformed highway patrol officer appears. Your jaw drops as she informs you and your classmates that the absent student, along with several other people you know, were killed in a car wreck over the weekend. You’re in shock, traumatized. Suddenly your upcoming prom and graduation don’t seem quite as exciting anymore, now that several of the people you wanted to share it with are gone.
Now imagine your unspeakable anger a few hours later, when officials at your school call an assembly; produce the “victims” of the alleged wreck, who are very much alive; and inform you that the entire debacle was a “scared-straight” exercise to discourage drinking and driving.
Such was the case at the San Diego-area El Camino High School last month, as this June 12 CNN article reports. Although El Camino administrators had planned to reveal the truth in an assembly later in the school day, students were so visibly upset that many administrators and counselors clued them in to the hoax earlier on, the article reports.
School officials are defending their actions – “They were traumatized, but we wanted them to be traumatized. That’s how they get the message,” said guidance counselor Lori Tauber – but many others in the community allege that El Camino High went too far. Superintendent Larry Perondi mentions in the article that the program will be revised, but he doesn’t say how.
That a mental health professional such as Ms. Tauber would even consider endorsing a program which purposely causes trauma to participants is bad enough in my opinion, but are scared-straight programs such as these even effective? An old USA Today article by Michael Haines suggests otherwise: at Haines’ school, Northern Illinois University, the number of students who reported drinking heavily rose after NIU put a “scare-tactic” campaign into place in 1989.
Haines’ proposed alternative? “Social norms programs”, which stress the fact that most student drinkers do in fact choose to drink responsibly, despite peer and media assumptions about Animal House-style collegiate alcohol use. Such programs have been implemented on college campuses with “astonishingly” positive results: self-reported heavy drinking by Hobart and William Smith Colleges students dropped 40% in 4 years after such programs were implemented, Haines says.
Of course, drunk driving remains a problem (see these statistics for 1982-2006 from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), and educators and lawmakers should always be looking for solid, rigorously tested programs to disseminate important messages about health and safety. That said, the teachers and officials behind the El Camino High scared-straight program disaster would do well to put in a bit more research before coming up with any other public health campaigns in the future.
(17 votes, average: 4.82 out of 5)
Loading ...You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Links to This Article
Stop scaring teenagers. Start talking to them. « Drug Education News (6/17/2008)
Should we use scare tactics to teach a lesson? - Zelda Universe Forums (6/22/2008)
13 Comments to
“How NOT to Discourage Drunk Driving: The El Camino High Debacle”
I read about this the other day and I have to say that I was astonished that the school thought it was a good idea to stage such an event.
I wholeheartedly support schools wanting to do something to highlight the dangers faced by young novice drivers.
Renée, what do you think is the best way to get the message across?
First I believe they should remove the term accident from any rule of thought or law. This only allows a deflection of personal responsibility. When in fact its not an accident when someone gets behind the wheel while under the influence of intoxicants and attempts to operate a vehicle. The idea that deliberately driving an automobile while drunk is an accident is ludicrous.
Read More:
Hi, drivingcourses,
Great question!
If I were a school administrator, I would certainly want to see some statistics before committing to any particular anti-drunk driving program: Approximately what percentage of teenagers report unsafe drinking behaviors in the U.S. these days? In my state/county? How did this program fare in other areas? Did the number of teen drunk-driving fatalities go down? Was there a reduction in risky behaviors such as binge drinking? (Social norms programs certainly seem to pass this test.)
After weeding out the ineffective programs, I’d choose from there, based on what seemed appropriate for the demographics and budget of the school district.
-Renée
I went to high school where they performed this same type of program but with some differences. The program was called every 15 minutes and has been put on by my high school every year for around 8 years. What happens is one everybody knows what is going on that day because the school makes an announcement in the morning before class, but they do not tell us who will be “dying” . Every 15 minutes that day from the time when school begins till the end of the day a staff member dressed as the grim reaper comes into a different class and claims a victim a member of the senior class. After lunch that day we have an assembly with a staged car wreck and rescue by the local police and fire station. Throughout the entire day nobody is allowed contact with the “dead” students and that night they all spend the night at an undisclosed location and are completely separated from their family friends and other students. The next day an assembly is held where parents of the “dead” come and read a goodbye letter to their son or daughter. It is an incredibly moving experience that i was extremely glad to be apart of. I was a student who had “died” in the car wreck and even though you were only cut off from your friends and family for around 30 hours. That night we were encouraged to write down our the feelings that had run threw us all day and i recalled how at first i had taken it lightly but as day continued i realized all the people that i hadn’t seen all day and it struck me how much i missed them after only that short amount of time. The entire night i didn’t sleep well with only the lonely thoughts to occupy my mind and the images of my family and friends and the memories i had shared with them all. It felt so unreal and when my parents read their goodbye letter to me during an assembly in front of the entire senior class I was overwhelmed and was reduced to tears. I don’t consider myself to be very sensitive person but the every 15 minutes changed my life a lot. It brought me closer to my family and friends and especially my girlfriend at the time i realized how much we meant to each other after going that entire time without her. Before this experience I had been a drinker that had driven on occasion when i shouldn’t have. Every since that day i still do drink but i will never allow myself into the drivers seat after i have had a single alcoholic beverage, nor will i allow a friend to drive drunk.
So yes i think it was a mistake to not let the kids know what was happening beforehand, but if handled correctly it can be a very positive experience that can keep a lot of drunk teens from getting behind the wheel of a car. I know it has done a lot of good within my friends.
I went to high school where they performed this same type of program but with some differences. The program was called every 15 minutes and has been put on by my high school every year for around 8 years. What happens is one everybody knows what is going on that day because the school makes an announcement in the morning before class, but they do not tell us who will be “dying” . Every 15 minutes that day from the time when school begins till the end of the day a staff member dressed as the grim reaper comes into a different class and claims a victim a member of the senior class. After lunch that day we have an assembly with a staged car wreck and rescue by the local police and fire station. Throughout the entire day nobody is allowed contact with the “dead” students and that night they all spend the night at an undisclosed location and are completely separated from their family friends and other students. The next day an assembly is held where parents of the “dead” come and read a goodbye letter to their son or daughter. It is an incredibly moving experience that i was extremely glad to be apart of. I was a student who had “died” in the car wreck and even though you were only cut off from your friends and family for around 30 hours. That night we were encouraged to write down our the feelings that had run threw us all day and i recalled how at first i had taken it lightly but as day continued i realized all the people that i hadn’t seen all day and it struck me how much i missed them after only that short amount of time. The entire night i didn’t sleep well with only the lonely thoughts to occupy my mind and the images of my family and friends and the memories i had shared with them all. It felt so unreal and when my parents read their goodbye letter to me during an assembly in front of the entire senior class I was overwhelmed and was reduced to tears. I don’t consider myself to be very sensitive person but the every 15 minutes changed my life a lot. It brought me closer to my family and friends and especially my girlfriend at the time i realized how much we meant to each other after going that entire time without her. Before this experience I had been a drinker that had driven on occasion when i shouldn’t have. Every since that day i still do drink but i will never allow myself into the drivers seat after i have had a single alcoholic beverage, nor will i allow a friend to drive drunk.
So yes i think it was a mistake to not let the kids know what was happening beforehand, but if handled correctly it can be a very positive experience that can keep a lot of drunk teens from getting behind the wheel of a car. I know it has done a lot of good within my friends.
I agree with Griffin. My high school, too, participated in the Every 15 Minutes program with the simulated crash, the grim reaper, the “dead” students. The “drunk driver” student was taken to the local police station to cement the point. I have no idea about whether the program was effective, but it does seem like a good idea. On one hand, I have this idea that the more realistic the whole thing, the better. I am sure there were many students in my school who reacted to the day with a dismissive eye roll. Yet, in this case, it was taken too far. So I don’t know. I would like to see some statistics about this program, since it’s been going on since at least 2004. The program’s website is here: http://www.every15minutes.com/aboutus/index.html. It offers no statistical evidence of the effectiveness, aside from this vaguely worded sentence: “Research shows that those who learn from hands-on experience retain two to four times more than those who learn from just listening, or from listening and seeing.” I seem to recall that using fear to motivate behavior works on a very curvilinear scale–and often does not influence long-term behavioral changes.
I imagine also that the implementation of the program is not exactly cheap, which should also be weighed against the effectiveness.
For those who are interested, here is one study about these types of programs’ effectiveness, courtesy of the Wikipedia article on Every 15 Minutes: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0CTG/is_4_16/ai_83076569
While I think “trauma” can be overstated and a bit “PC”, I do think that intentionally creating it for someone else’s “program” is wrong.
To me, though, the bigger issue is “LYING” for effect. It’s like the old ‘drug scares’ - scared straight (BS!) etc. What you really get out of it is a realization that you can’t trust the information your teacher, school, government - whatever - is giving you.
We have a culture built around this type of dishonesty. Advertising etc. and seem to feel it’s acceptable. THAT’S the real harm here. I think.
I am a student who participated in the e15m program at El Camino High. I know it was an amazing program and I think what happened was beneficial. I’ve read many comments from ranting parents who think this is too traumatizing for student and they shouldn’t be lied to. Blah Blah Blah… For all you parents who think your child is a “good son/daughter,” I’ve got news for you. Your son or daughter faces these kinds of decisions every day. To drink or not, to accept the joint or not, to drive under the influence or not. When you may think they’re going to spend the night at a friends house on a friday night, your thoughts of them being a perfect child bind you. Too many parents are so ignorant, they can’t tell they’re being lied to. Your son or daughter goes to parties with alcohol and drugs. They do things you tell them not to. You’re so blinded by this imaginary vision that they’re playing X Box, or reading the newest Cosmo magazine at some friends house being safe and pleasant, but really, they’re out partying and having the time of their young-adult life! I know… I’m a teenager. I know what goes on. Obviously, these parents who take so much pride in their parenting “skills” don’t know what the hell they’re talking about! Just because you sit your child down and have a talk with them, it does not mean they’re going to listen. Kids these days don’t listen to authority figures anyway! They need someone or something to kick them in the ass and wake them up! This is reality. Kids these days think they’re invincible! They think they can do anything. A lot of them don’t understand.
Also, being a student at El Camino High, I haven’t noticed any change in the student life. Sure it was a big deal for a week or so, but seriously, everything went back to normal. People just like to waste time and rant over something that doesn’t even matter. It wasn’t that big of a deal.
“Responsible teenage drinking”? Are you people nuts? There is no such thing as responsible teenage drinking, TEENAGERS WHO ARE DRINKING ARE BREAKING THE LAW!!!! The solution is to start throwing the people who give these kids booze in jail, whether it is a store clerk, parent, or just some jerk who buys kids alcohol. Responsible teenage drinking!! Theres an oxymoron for you!
As an educator, I CANNOT believe that the administration of this school thought that lying and deception of this sort would achieve the intended goal! 2 students at my high school died this spring in an accident (no drugs/alcohol involved) and the impact of the REAL tragedy was hard enough on the students/faculty - why would anyone want to perpetuate such an idea, then attempt to defend their actions like this? There are better ways to have students get the message about drinking/drugs/driving than this.
My University started doing a “social norms” program a few years ago, putting posters up with statistics like “this% of students don’t drink and drive”. Most students make fun of the posters, turning the statistic around saying “so this% of students DO drink and drive”. A few of my classes talked about it, and many students felt the program was a waste of time and money and a big joke. Though I suppose that’s not to say it didn’t have a positive effect individually (group mentallity and all). Also, one of the posters said (I think) under 60% of students smoked, and you really wouldn’t have guessed that walking around campus. So how they got their statistics is also to be questioned. I think the faculty/staff involved in the program at least lessened the effort after getting feedback from students. I saw fewer new posters this past year.
My school did the same thing personally i think it was very effective and the majority of the students will agree with me.
Join the Conversation! Post a Comment:
Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 13 Jun 2008
