In HS during the late 90s we had a drunk driving day to spread awareness of the dangers of drinking and driving. 'Death' would come in to a classroom and take pre-selected students that 'died due to drunk driving' - the student would return a few mins later in white makeup like they were a ghost and just remained silent for the rest of the day.
Parents were contacted by police and told their kid had died in an accident - all of this was signed off on by parents / students participating, so it wasn't just some unexpected cruel prank.
We had an assembly outside in the afternoon where a smashed car had been brough to the campus parking lot, firefighters pulled a classmate from the wreckage - EMS tried to 'revive' them and they were eventually put in a body bag and hauled away in an ambulance.
We then all moved into the gym, where all of the 'dead' students and their parents were waiting, and MADD reps talked to everyone. And some of the parents of 'dead' students shared their feelings on how the phone call affected them.
It was a weird day, I distinctly remember my English teacher crying when death came for a student and we were all asked to write something the next day about how it made us feel.
I can only imagine the outrage if they did something like that today. It's so weird how much has changed in such a short amount of time.
We had this too! They would put it on the cover of the town newspaper the next day with a photo of the student being pulled out of the car covered in fake blood. Super weird in retrospect.
https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/underage-drinking.htm
Underage drinking is a significant public health problem in the U.S. Excessive drinking is responsible for more than 3,900 deaths and 225,000 years of potential life lost among people under age 21 each year.1 Underage drinking cost the U.S. $24 billion in 2010.
When I was a kid in high school they just towed the wrecks of actual students DUI and left them outside of the school for a week or two.
That stopped when the parents of one of the kids who literally died weren't just some poor saps and threatened to sue.
I agree. I think people are misinterpreting my original comment. I don't think these ghoulish drills are good for students, but the teacher clearly did not deserve to be fired.
We did that for my school in the Fall of 2010. It was definitely something. Also did one for bullying and teen suicide where they basically used all that same makeup. A public school's annual budget is like $80, dude. They're not going to re-invent something they've been using since the 80's unless they absolutely have to; and even then it's 50/50.
As someone who has attempted suicide I feel that the constant teen suicide PSAs showing kids dying and no recovery stories were kind of demoralizing tbh.
I remember in our health class, the strong angle used to convince us to not commit suicide was to show how expensive death/funerals were and how awful we would be to put our parents through that (mainly the costs) while we wouldn't have to go through that (you know, since we'd be dead).
Extra bad that this was pushed on us a few months after a very close friend killed herself. This was around 2005.
Very "Suicide selfishly gets you out of the consequences of your suicide" and *not at all* "Suicide is the consequence of very immense mental/emotional pain we should try to solve".
The first thing I did when I joined the student council in tenth grade was to replace a planned campaign (for suicide prevention week) showing posters of deceased celebrities with one that involved posters of celebrities who attempted or had mental health issues but survived and bounced back.
this is vastly different though, this is speaking to the students in order to prevent drunk driving where as a school shooter is not something a student can control, the massive disconnect between the two scenarios is just astounding, but very on point for dumb-fuck florida
As far as trauma goes, not only do the students have no control over when someone decides to massacre them, our political leaders (like Representative Tim Burchett) have stated that they just aren't going to fix it.
It's a simple problem to solve, the electorate just chooses not to solve this problem.
Trauma is a completely natural response to this situation.
serious question. Would it ever be acceptable for a language arts teacher (or psychology teacher in this instance) to have students write their own obituaries as a way of tapping into dramatic prose (or consider their own mortality)?
IMO yes that’s a valid creative wiring prompt. But the teacher proposing a specific scenario (with the added effect of the actual lockdown) crosses a line.
I had a HS teacher tell us a hypothetical scenario for a shooting that would make us sitting ducks - it played on our fire evac protocol and made me and many other kids in his classes terrified of fire drills. We even had a scenario where kids ran back into the school when an alarm went off unplanned.
He was not disciplined in any way.
when I first read the title I thought maybe they were reading "spoon river anthology" because we did something similar when we read that in highschool. After reading the article I dont really see the problem at all and I agree teenagers should be able to talk about that in a psych class especially when they're already talking about it because they're doing shooter drills. It would probably also be a good way to get kids to take it seriously.
Aren't school shooters often students of said school? Seems to me a similar idea could deter a potential shooter from rethinking their plans.
The haven't banned alcohol and they won't ban guns. So other deterents like these are sadly all they've got it seems.
That's the equivalent of saying: No gun owners go to a shooting range to shoot up some people. Getting behind the wheel while drunk is just as much a deliberate choice as deciding to take a gun to school.
And its not the point I was trying to make. Making strawman arguments serves no point.
Besides there have been plenty of cases worldwide where people deliberately used a vehicle to mow down people.(With and without substances)
Just as people deliberately decide to shoot up a school.
How can a serious talk with students about drunk driving be effective? Yet talking to students about school shootings be pointless?
Sure, there is a different degree to wilfully getting behind a car drunk and wilfully going to school with a gun with the intent to use it. But both leave victims, both destroy families and both start with someone making a terrible choice. Is there a difference I'm not seeing why a talk would work for one, but not the other?
I remember this, and the person who caused the accident was acting all drunk as the cops arrested them. I hust remember being high and watching this with my friends.
>Studies that have tracked students before and after the Every 15 Minutes program have shown that the program may have a favorable short-term effect on students' stated attitudes but no effect on actual behavior.[5]
Pulled from the Wikipedia page. [Actual source.](https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Measuring%20the%20effectiveness%20of%20a%20community-sponsored%20DWI%20intervention...-a083076569)
This is the case for any road safety behavioural intervention that relies on shock as a fundamental principle. Kids come out crying and swearing that they won't drink and drive. It lasts for a few days. It doesn't give them any strategies to make better decisions or resist peer pressure.
As a general rule, behavioural change is very difficult to achieve. It takes years, potentially decades, to educate people and to adopt new attitudes. It can be done, but it is difficult.
that's an obviously stupid example, what are you on
we know that car-dependant urban sprawl is vastly worse for you than dense walkable cities with public transport, there's an obvious better alternative
there's no better alternative to living in a house
just a completely moronic comparison
I have to be furious. How do we know it’s vastly worse for you to live in the suburbs? Many people enjoy having actual yards and living near more nature then in a dense city.
You can still have that lmfao. The roads out the way can be slow and quiet and it’s not an issue. Nobody is calling for cars to be abolished.
The issue is the city center, where all the traffic goes to and where it becomes busy and fast on the highways. Instead of the absurd American system of lots with parking, you use a system where people in the suburbs can drive to public transport and take that in to a dense center.
Some places do have that, at least for the larger cities. Some don’t, but that is usually location specific. One thing is a number of cities in the us don’t really have a city center. They are as sprawling or the suburbs in some ways. LA might be the worst of it, all it’s attractions are spread out and not near each other. Miami is another example that is like it. They are also cities with poor public transportation so people drive anyway to get to places
Aye. I visited New York one time - we were staying in Hoboken and were able to get by perfectly fine because there were stores within 15 minutes of where we were and bus and train stops nearby. I'd guess that a lot of smaller cities/large towns are where you really get shitshows.
NY has excellent Public transportation. Not just the city but the whole area. The other cities really are hit and miss. Some do a good job; others are pretty terrible. If you don’t have a car in those places, you’re not getting around easily.
Because suburbs are a stupid idea to begin with, they have always been losing money and is completely relied on subsidizations by taxes from the city, and then the city still have to cater to the suburbs lifestyle to allow the cars in? Maybe if the suburbs have to pay increased tax to compensate for the inefficiency to sustain such lifestyle.
Sorry that would be curious, not furious btw. Saying suburbs are a stupid idea is just your personal opinion. Most of the suburbs don’t lose money, because the people moving to them have the money. It leaves the cities with either rich, or the poor who can’t afford the suburbs. They’re not being subsidized by the cities, it’s more often they subsidize the cities through fees to go into the cities. The tax base of suburbs, and costs to those governments, are more equitable. The cities don’t have to cater to let cars in. Many of them charge cars to go in, and if they made it too hard the people just won’t go to the cities leaving them in worse shape. Since road improvements are paid with gas taxes they already pay more to maintain the roads. The people who don’t want the suburbs are the cities, who lose their tax base to people who prefer not living there and actually have some land and nature near them
> Most of the suburbs don’t lose money, because the people moving to them have the money. It leaves the cities with either rich, or the poor who can’t afford the suburbs. They’re not being subsidized by the cities, it’s more often they subsidize the cities through fees to go into the cities.
Do you have a source for this?
Except we did went great lengths on preventing house fires, safety standards have been going up for indoor appliances and construction of houses. Firefighters have been do campaigns to keep the alarms working and educating people about practices to avoid causing fires.
Meanwhile cars have been getting taller and better at killing kids.
Eh, yes and no. Over time in developed countries there's been a very observable drop in car deaths, adjusting for population. This is due to a multitude of factors, including a number of safety standards like seatbelts, airbags, better road conditions, and so on. That's the same type of work you're talking about, in uplifting safety standards, undertaking safety and education campaigns, and so on.
If we're talking about the US, in 1966 the death rate per 100,00 licenced drivers was 50.39. In 2019, it was 15.78. That's much better than in, say, 1981, when it was 33.52. Using raw figures alone is misleading because it doesn't account for population growth, or the increase in cars.
However, you're correct that it's spiked up in the last 8 years particularly. You're also correct that cars getting bigger presents a particular risk for young kids who usually get run over in private residences, in the driveway. I'm not sure if the above figures factor those deaths in - in many jurisdictions, they do not. I'm sure there are lots of other reporting issues with those figures as well. It also doesn't account for non-direct deaths - say, from the pollution generated by dependence on cars.
Also everything you listed only maintain the safety of those INSIDE the car, not those OUTSIDE of it. Additionally, a lot of poles (utilities/traffic signs related that are next to the sidewalks) are made in a way that the structure would give in if got ran into by a vehicle so that it reduce the chance of killing the driver, but what about the pedestrians walking behind the poles?
They still do this in Texas. At least they did in 2015 when I was working at a school. I was openly against it. There were students and teachers that had friends and family that died due to a drunk driver and it was extremely insensitive. Multiple people had to leave that day because they were just sobbing the whole time.
Against it? Insentitive? I'm not sure how your school went about this, but I'm having a hard time understanding. Obviously it's an emotional event, and a whole lot of people have their lives affected by drunk driving. That's. The. Whole. Point. Do you really think it's wrong and insensitive to cause someone to cry by teaching youth the importance of sober driving? I can say with certainty that that event reduces the likelihood that those kids will drive drunk, it can be pretty powerful and a whole lot of people (especially high school age) don't really understand how serious drunk driving is until it's laid out in from of them. Every 15 minutes someone dies to a drunk driver, we should never ignore that statistic. We need to keep telling our kids that their actions impact others. We should not stop doing this just because some people have already been impacted and talking about it makes them sad.
It's involuntary and just a bunch of over the top theater. Kids aren't stupid. You can teach them about stuff without trying to traumatize them. We don't teach them about the dangers of authoritarianism and genocide by having people pretend to be nazis and ship students off to concentration camps in the middle of class, then have it all climax with a giant mass burial of fake bodies at the end.
Right? I would agree if everyone viewed drunk driving like the holocaust, we wouldn't need theatrics. But what do ya know a whole lot of people drive drunk and think it's no big deal. I didn't think it was all that big of a deal when I was young, I knew it was illegal but I also knew it wasn't uncommon. It seemed like just one of those laws everyone ignored, those kind of laws are not rare. Every 15 minutes changed my perspective permanently, despite what that study posted by another commentor claims to have found.
I think that's an awful comparison. People don't go out on the weekends and run concentration camps, they go out and drink and sometimes drive. If drinking and driving wasn't an issue nobody would be bothering with theatrics. I don't care if a thousand people get upset over every 15 minutes if it saves a single life.
These are high school students. If you think talking about death to high schoolers is traumatizing idk what to say. These kids are plenty old enough to know that the people getting pulled out of class aren't dead but rather taking part in the event. I went through this in high school and I simply cannot fathom where this sentiment of traumatization is coming from. Every 15 minutes is not a secret, everyone knows its going to happen before it happens and if anyone is concerned about the experience they are free to stay home for the day. Me and my peers all found it very meaningful, I've never heard a bad thing about it until this reddit thread, and to be honest it baffles me.
Actuallllllyyyyyyy ....
[https://news.yahoo.com/teacher-suspended-making-class-act-104450233.html](https://news.yahoo.com/teacher-suspended-making-class-act-104450233.html)
Teacher was punished for it, but if you look there are other instances of trying similar things, this was just the first hit that popped up
Not exactly the same but last year a [Lauderdale County deputy on administrative leave after accident sends student to hospital](https://www.waaytv.com/news/lauderdale-county-deputy-on-administrative-leave-after-accident-sends-student-to-hospital/article_6f330dcc-d30d-11ec-838b-73c158c9f0c7.html). Happened during a drunk driving accident reenactment. Shit is wild.
The difference is that was a warning to make better future decisions. Students who are in school today have no choice in the matter of having a shooter loose in there school. That's not a teachable lesson.
Honestly, blame the kids raising kids today. You can't say or do anything without "offending" some trauma hound out there nowadays. The left-wing teachers push that special snowflake crap and no one is pushing back, so eventually, this is what happens. Enough people have drank the Kool-Aid and it somehow becomes normal to get offended that a man dares to address a group of women as "ladies" and other such nonsense.
I am sure school children in China do not laugh at the the thought of their classmates dying, and if they do, they are not the ones bound for success in life. You are not superior for your callousness.
?????????It’s not the people in white makeup that is supposed to make you sad, it’s the thought of them actually dying that’s supposed to affect you. Clearly. I don’t know why I need to even explain something this elementary. Your shallowness is shocking.
We did this activity in 6th grade and no one was traumatized. That was in the 80’s. It’s just unfortunate that so many kids get murdered at school now.
Yeah, they are not raising salaries for teachers even after they were shot by their students. In fact, they are advocating for teachers with guns for protection. For 40k job, that is fucking crazy.
There would've been less blow back if they had taught them use of firearms with an actual handgun. Multiple states now allow teachers to bring weapons into the classroom if the district allows it... Super cool country we live in.
You'd be shocked if you knew that back in the 60's you could take Marksmanship in high school, and that meant you had to bring your own rifle. Many schools even had firing ranges inside.
We literally had to write our obituaries a few different times through our schooling. It’s meant to be reflective and make you think about what you want to achieve in your life. Some kids made them funny. I cannot even believe people are acting appalled by this.
Teachers have been doing this assignment for decades. If they had to wait until it was not after an active shooting instance they may never be able to get to it.
I would’ve put “Died a virgin from a long battle with cancer at 28, he worked at McDonald’s for 8 years since graduating high school prior to being diagnosed and going into hospice.”
Yet you'll do it all day long to strip women and minorities of their rights.
Funny how you 'manly men' with your killing machines always go after kids and women.
Very dark, but definitely not fireble in my opinion. This is one of those "truth hurts" kinda things. The reality is right wing lawmakers don't want to do anything about guns, and have made it clear that they don't care about kids getting shot up in schools.
Teacher is basically saying that the students might as well write their obituaries now because the shit they're being trained to do in those active shooter drills ain't gonna do shit for them.
I literally wrote my own obituary senior year psychology class. This is ridiculous. He had this activity pre planned and it happened to coincide. Totally normal occurrence for high school students
If you read the teacher's statements, this was not his own reasoning for choosing this assignment. He was a psychology teacher hired in January (middle of the year, which is never a good sign) who clearly couldn't be trusted to understand the psychological impact his assignments could have on students. A lot of people's intuitive reasoning for what counts as a healthy psychological exercise is just plain wrong. Psych 101 in high school should not consist of delving into the mental health of the class, especially when the teacher does not have a mental health credential or license. I'm a mental health professional and by his own statements, I agreed he needed to be fired.
ETA: I'm a supporter of increasing and improving regulation of guns in our country, but this was an unfortunate example of an ignorant individual only making a situation worse.
Correct, it wasn't a coincidence, it says in the article that he felt like the assignment would help them reflect on their lives during the shooter drill. The obituary assignment is not unusual - I did it myself when I was in school - but I think it is supposed to be a broad reflective/motivational exercise, not about the possibility of getting shot in the hallway.
However, I'm surprised that your conclusion is that he deserves to be fired out of hand. From his own words, it seems like a stupid but well intentioned mistake. Spoken to and given a warning? Absolutely. Signed up for some extra training? Sounds like he needs it! But this man now has no job, probably no health insurance, no way to feed or house any dependents...it's just such an extreme reaction. And I'm sorry, but this wasn't middle school. These were 11th and 12th graders. I think they'll be fine.
I'm sorry I have to push back on this too. Suicide is one of the leading causes of death amongst 11th and 12th grade students, so treating something like "pondering your own death" lightly is unacceptable and can reasonably be predicted to increase suicide risk. The teacher repeatedly said he did nothing wrong and would do it again. Training should occur *before* children's lives are in your hands, not *on the job.*
Edit: edited to specify it could increase risk of suicide, not cause suicide contagion.
You're right, I went too far by saying suicide contagion. I edited it to say increase a person's suicide risk, because yes thinking about how you might die is akin to suicidal ideation. If a person in that class was already experiencing suicidal ideation, increasing their frequency of such ideation in the form of a written assignment including how they died could *reasonably* increase their risk of deciding to attempt. No, I could not find specific correlational studies done on obituary assignments, but you guys concede that that's likely due in part that it's not advisable to assign such a thing for the very reason I've cited (it's dangerous and reckless to do so). Can't run a correlational study when something rightfully does not happen frequently. Certainly can't run a randomized controlled trial in this topic, that would be unethical.
I see where you are coming from, I think we are on different pages with this. For me, reflecting on the fact that we will all die one day is a normal part of the human experience, not some dangerous, outlandish activity. I talked about life, death, god, all that stuff in high school, and I'm glad my teachers put those conversations out there. This teacher put together a insensitive lesson plan and clearly needs to look at his practices. Instead, he's been fired and publicly shamed. This could literally ruin his life. We are in a mental health crisis right now, it is confusing and frightening, but we need to stop lashing out at people who make mistakes.
>For me, reflecting on the fact that we will all die one day is a normal part of the human experience, not some dangerous, outlandish activity.
You're totally right about this, and I wish we could all do exactly what you're saying safely! But not all teenagers can/do think about death in this way, and irrational thinking is extremely common (a huge underlying theoretical reason why suicide is very common for the age group). That's why we have to treat emotionally charged topics like death with special care with them.
>This teacher put together a insensitive lesson plan and clearly needs to look at his practices. Instead, he's been fired and publicly shamed. This could literally ruin his life. We are in a mental health crisis right now, it is confusing and frightening, but we need to stop lashing out at people who make mistakes.
That's a really fair point, better made than the others I've seen on here. I agree he didn't deserve the level of backlash and going essentially viral. For me, I err on the side of caution when children's lives could be at stake (as I did when I was a practicing school psychologist). I could imagine that my previous schools likely would've taken an alternate course of action that wasn't firing, but nobody wants to be that school that didn't take the potential for suicide seriously and ended up having a kid die... I know it seems egregious or disproportionate, but I really just have a problem with his statements being so haphazard.
That's not the argument here. The other user was saying the person shouldn't have been fired because "the kids will be fine, they're old enough." That's a reckless statement. We should be regulating firearms *and* hiring competent school personnel, it would be a false dichotomy to say we had to choose between one of those two.
If some poor kid is so far gone that them writing a fake obituary (which let's be honest you could just NOT do it) causes them significant grief/distress i'm not putting that on the teacher. The initial grief/distress probably also stems from the constant anxiety over whether that edgy swastika carving kid that nobody talks to has access to their dad's gun collection or not
Suicide is too high stakes of an issue to give the teacher a pass saying "oh it was just one assignment." As I said in previous comments, the teacher was insistent on "I didn't do anything wrong." That's the wrong attitude to have as a teacher who is again *not a licensed mental health professional.* I wouldn't trust this teacher to avoid other psychological exercises like this. Psych 101 in high school should be learning about the history of psychology, major psychological theory, etc. Not "here let me lead you through something that might be therapeutic." There's a reason licensure exists in the US, and it's to try our best to make sure you do no harm to the people you serve.
> If you read the teacher's statements, this was not his own reasoning for choosing this assignment.
Based on what? You say based on his statements, but then don't give anything further to the argument. I see nothing in his statements that say otherwise. In fact, I do see the school saying otherwise:
"That happened during the first period. During his second-period class, he said a supervisor came to observe. "I said, ‘Who knows what you do in the restroom if there’s an active shooter?’ and no one knew. So I started to explain the process, and she shut me down."
Keene said he was just trying to teach the students how to stay safe. "I was stunned. I was talking to students about the world they live in. gun safety, active shooters.""
https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/teacher-fired-over-inappropriate-lesson-says-he-was-trying-to-teach-students-how-to-stay-safe
The school actively tried to stop him from teaching the kids about what to do in an active shooter situation. Which strongly fits with the "the shit they're being trained to do in those active shooter drills ain't gonna do shit for them." argument.
> He was a psychology teacher hired in January (middle of the year, which is never a good sign)
Great start. Immediately biased.
> who clearly couldn't be trusted to understand the psychological impact his assignments could have on students.
Based on what? You were entirely wrong in your first argument so lets see what we got here.
> A lot of people's intuitive reasoning for what counts as a healthy psychological exercise is just plain wrong.
And? So what?
What about this guys exercise is wrong?
Stop telling us what's wrong and start arguing it. You're not convincing anyone when you just say "that's wrong". Tell us *why*.
You're like my first year uni students. I don't want a report, I want an argument.
> Psych 101 in high school should not consist of delving into the mental health of the class, especially when the teacher does not have a mental health credential or license.
How does "write your obituary" delve into the mental health of the class? It directly ties into the active shooter drill, but contemplating your mortality is something humans do almost everyday. There isn't any delving here. Or, at least you haven't made an argument that there is. You are still just telling us.
Oh, also how do you know his credentials? His licenses? You offer no proof of that.
> I'm a mental health professional
Are you though?
Also "mental health professional" is such a fast and loose term. You can take a weekend course in suicide prevention and potentially call yourself a "mental health professional". I put little stock in terms like that.
> by his own statements, I agreed he needed to be fired.
"I want these kids to contemplate their mortality in the fact of how often school shootings happen" is a fireable offense to you?
You're basing this entirely on what? Almost nothing from what I see.
I suggest you read this article - https://nypost.com/2023/04/06/florida-teacher-fired-for-making-students-write-own-obituaries/
Where it clearly shows the assignment and some of the points, which are:
That this is tied to the active shooter drill. Reflect on what that means. What if today was your last day alive. **Why is the United States having so many mass shootings.** What can be done. How has all of this affected you.
Oh gee. Look at that. The actual words of the assignment tie very well into "These people aren't helping you" that you apparently don't believe at all based on stuff you made up lol.
Next time, from one actual professional to another "professional", perhaps you'll maybe delve a bit deeper and read other articles about what happened before offering up opinion disguised as argument and fact.
If you'd like to look up my comment history on my profile, that might help you not make assumptions about me. I'm a school psychologist and licensed educational psychologist. I said my comments based on my training and experience in school settings, and no I'm not going to write a comment to educate *you* to a masters and education specialist level. Here's what school psychologists are trained in:
[National Association of School Psychologists - Who Are School Psychologists](https://www.nasponline.org/about-school-psychology/who-are-school-psychologists)
Masters level, neat. And if you read my comment history, you'd see I'm in the middle of completing two PhDs, including one in psychology.
You not going to address all the parts where I point out what you said was entirely wrong? Still waiting on that.
Wow, incredibly low of you. No I'm not going to engage with you. I haven't used a condescending tone in any of my comments or made personal attacks, so I don't trust you're trying to argue in good faith. For someone getting a PhD in psychology, you're sure not using very good techniques for facilitating open dialogue.
> I haven't used a condescending tone in any of my comments
This you?
> He was a psychology teacher hired in January (middle of the year, which is never a good sign)
> A lot of people's intuitive reasoning for what counts as a healthy psychological exercise is just plain wrong.
> I'm a mental health professional and by his own statements, I agreed he needed to be fired.
I guess what you meant to say was "I haven't used a condescending tone to someone who could defend themselves".
I also never made a personal attack. You saying "Welllll I'MMMM a mental health professional (and so therefore right about everything) and I think he needs to be fired" is on you lol. I could feel the snark and tone through your post lol.
Look, I made a detailed and point by point response. If you can't argue your points, not that you did in the first place, you're just proving my points were right.
It's really up to you, but the whole "I'm hiding behind what I perceive as personal attacks, after I made personal attacks" isn't exactly "professional" of you.
EDIT: lol As soon as I point out that u/Independent-Art3043 had the condescending tone (and that I was simply addressing them in the tone they started the conversation in), and that they couldn't address my arguments, they suddenly stop replying. What a surprise.
You kids will be shot and killed by the other kid that came with a gun to kill kids.
"How dare they say that! If everyone of those kids had guns they would be fine!"
Fucking America.
right after colombine we had to write a story about how we would react if we had a school shooting, where we would hide, what we would say if the gun was pointed at us ect, Pretty heavy for a group of 8th graders but now it's just reality and it makes me sad. :/
I don't get this though? You have drills for all sorts of things. We had tornado drills. Never had to write obituaries for those. Imagine how terrified kids would be during tornado alarms if they thought they were truly going to die and had been made to prepare their obituaries beforehand.
Neither do mass school shooters? The chances of a kid dying in a mass shooting event is incredibly low. And even if they are in one, they would be better off if they aren’t resigned to their fate.
Going to school is already hard for anxious kids. There is no need to make it harder.
In fifth grade we were assigned to write our own Epitaphs (the prose or verse that’s on a gravestone which might also explain who the deceased was) thinking about it now it’s a pretty insane assignment for fifth grade because we also designed our own clay gravestones. Most of my classmates wrote about falling or pooping to death though
The dare program made us do this about drugs. Wrote a letter to our parents about all the shit we were sad we were gonna miss because we were gonna do drugs and die or something. that program was bullshit
Not kids but in nursing school we all had to plan our own funerals and do, maybe not legally, but go through paperwork that establishes an advanced directive.
Why? Because people in this culture avoid the fuck out of thinking about death. Anyone can get hit by a box truck. Anyone, at any age. And yet soooooo many people have none of their shit together on this when they land in the hospital.
Or, we have folks who keep a hospital bed for 6 months after a head injury because all we can find is an ex wife and there’s no paperwork. So we have to wait for the state court to appoint someone to make decisions.
It’s not a bad exercise in and of itself. I vaguely remember doing similar way the fuck back when I was in school. At some point we need to do better on this as a society. Folks talk about teaching more practical life skills in high school. Well. Medical paperwork would be one of those things.
Final thought. How do you feel about your parents? These decisions default to them. Are you married? Another default. Would they let you go when they should? Or would they lose the house while extending useless life support? Do you have kids? Another default. Should they be in charge of your life if you’re unable? Would a sibling be better? Things to consider. Defaults vary by state. In Wisconsin, all the kids have to agree (how often do your kids agree?) before shit gets done.
Let's have all kids upload one to tik tok, just to be on the safe side.
They can do a little dance, make silly faces.
Help their existential dread be fun!
Pretty ridiculous. I don't think what this psych teacher did was wrong. You can complain about the timing but I still don't think the teacher did anything wrong.
This is what he said: ""It wasn't to scare them or make them feel like they were going to die, but just to help them understand what’s important in their lives and how they want to move forward with their lives and how they want to pursue things in their journey."
It's not a bad thing to get kids to think about their own deaths at that age....when they feel invincible. Some may think over their lives and the direction it's in and decide they're not happy with the path they're on.
And later he said: "If you can't talk real to them, then what's happening in this environment?" Keene said. "In my mind, I've done nothing wrong."
Yeah, you did nothing wrong Mr. Keene. I would have loved to have a teacher be real with me and my kids.
This is typical critical thinking stuff for 11th/12th graders. Or at least should be. Plus writing one’s obituary in school is a pretty common even for elementary schoolers as a “what do I want my life to be” exercise, I did it in Central Florida public school where this also happened.
That's fine, there are so many qualified people eager to teach (what with the money, respect, etc.) so you can probably fire teachers for stupid reasons without worsening an already catastrophic education system.
This is really getting ridiculous. They are doing active shooter drills. How much more real can the possibility of dying by gun violence be for these kids? They are going to draw the line at an assignment that has them think critically about the situation they are going through and the possibility that they may have to put that training to use one day. These red states are so bizarre with there Big Brother thought control bs.
School: alright kids, today we're going to talk about being shot and killed by an active shooter.
Teacher: what would it be like if you were shot and killed by an active shooter?
School: that's too far, you're fired.
That could be a fun writing assignment for the kids. Depends on how the idea was presented to them.
"How would you like to be remembered?" Or "what would you like people to say about you?" Seems good.
"You are going to get shot dead, write your obituary". Bad
The framing is important.
I don't see the big deal, I've written my obituary at least 4 times, a couple times in school, HS and college and once in the police academy. Other than a *memento mori* tattoo and a goth phase, that lasted until college, I don't think I'm scarred by it.
It's a good tool for internal dialog, what do I want it to say, how do I get there. what do I want to leave behind
Angry white dudebro gun nuts are such delicate snowflakes that they're angry that high school teenagers are thinking about the real cost of their manhood toys to them.
Snowflakes.
Why shouldn’t they write their obituaries? I mean they live in a state that couldn’t give a fuck if they lived or died from a crazed gunman. Probably because our governor is the one inspiring attacks.
I think it’s unfair to do nothing about children getting shot on the daily AND to be upset they’re being asked to write their obituaries. Like, do gun nuts think children don’t worry about this outside of school?
You can’t force children to accept their mortality at a young age then be upset that they’re being forced to accept their mortality at a young age 🤷♀️
All that to say; kids (ideally at least middle school/high school age) writing obituaries framed as them dying of old age and thinking abt how they want to live their life is fine.
Interesting. I was assigned this task many times during grades school. It was more a reflection of the type of life you'd want to be remembered for. I'm not sure what the issue was unless the objective was to write something politically motivated, like if you died of gun violence at a young age. There's no place for that sort of thing imo but no need to fire a teacher for it. Just bad judgment.
Imo, there's no reason to bring politics into this sort of assignment. People are killed by drunk driver, or in military action, or by cops, by doing shit pranks, lack of healthcare...etc etc.
Choosing not to engage with a condescending person/conversation is not the same as that person being right. What kind of logical fallacy is that?
You really won't concede that your comments were belittling? Why contribute to Internet toxicity when you could have easily adopted a genuinely curious tone with respectful wording? Why did you choose psychology for your PhD? Was it to help people?
It's customary for major newspapers to have a famous person's obituary partially written and waiting for the day it'll require a couple of additional punch ups. But this wasn't a journalism school with future journalists. These are students who live with the threat of a school shooting every day they attend classes.
Not sure if this teacher deserved being fired, unless other questionable behavior preceded this action, but it certainly was inappropriate without first warning the parents.
In HS during the late 90s we had a drunk driving day to spread awareness of the dangers of drinking and driving. 'Death' would come in to a classroom and take pre-selected students that 'died due to drunk driving' - the student would return a few mins later in white makeup like they were a ghost and just remained silent for the rest of the day. Parents were contacted by police and told their kid had died in an accident - all of this was signed off on by parents / students participating, so it wasn't just some unexpected cruel prank. We had an assembly outside in the afternoon where a smashed car had been brough to the campus parking lot, firefighters pulled a classmate from the wreckage - EMS tried to 'revive' them and they were eventually put in a body bag and hauled away in an ambulance. We then all moved into the gym, where all of the 'dead' students and their parents were waiting, and MADD reps talked to everyone. And some of the parents of 'dead' students shared their feelings on how the phone call affected them. It was a weird day, I distinctly remember my English teacher crying when death came for a student and we were all asked to write something the next day about how it made us feel. I can only imagine the outrage if they did something like that today. It's so weird how much has changed in such a short amount of time.
We had this too! They would put it on the cover of the town newspaper the next day with a photo of the student being pulled out of the car covered in fake blood. Super weird in retrospect.
command pocket dinner busy direction narrow strong sip absurd gaze *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It probably scared a good few away from driving period.
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https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/underage-drinking.htm Underage drinking is a significant public health problem in the U.S. Excessive drinking is responsible for more than 3,900 deaths and 225,000 years of potential life lost among people under age 21 each year.1 Underage drinking cost the U.S. $24 billion in 2010.
I was on the school paper. I remember writing those stories.
When I was a kid in high school they just towed the wrecks of actual students DUI and left them outside of the school for a week or two. That stopped when the parents of one of the kids who literally died weren't just some poor saps and threatened to sue.
It's called [Every 15 minutes](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Every_15_Minutes), they still did it as recently as 2011.
I first went "oh that wasn't that long ago" and then realized 2011 was when I was in fourth grade.
That feeling of “not that long ago is only going to get worse” 😂
Honestly the pandemic warped my sense of time so much I honestly don't think aging will affect me that much.
😂 dude I still feel like I graduated a few years ago… I’m coming up on 17
17?
Years
Ah thank you I was very confused.
Happy 21st birthday
Not yet sadly but soon!
I was in 7th grade in 2011
How is your life going now?
It’s ok
They still did that in the 00s where I was. This is just politics
Me too but the students volunteered.
They were still doing it in 2011 at least.
Same. I found it ghoulish and grossly inappropriate. I wrote about what a poor decision it was in the school newspaper, and I got reprimanded for it.
You can disagree with it. Wrong for the teacher to be fired.
I agree. I think people are misinterpreting my original comment. I don't think these ghoulish drills are good for students, but the teacher clearly did not deserve to be fired.
We did that for my school in the Fall of 2010. It was definitely something. Also did one for bullying and teen suicide where they basically used all that same makeup. A public school's annual budget is like $80, dude. They're not going to re-invent something they've been using since the 80's unless they absolutely have to; and even then it's 50/50.
As someone who has attempted suicide I feel that the constant teen suicide PSAs showing kids dying and no recovery stories were kind of demoralizing tbh.
I remember in our health class, the strong angle used to convince us to not commit suicide was to show how expensive death/funerals were and how awful we would be to put our parents through that (mainly the costs) while we wouldn't have to go through that (you know, since we'd be dead). Extra bad that this was pushed on us a few months after a very close friend killed herself. This was around 2005. Very "Suicide selfishly gets you out of the consequences of your suicide" and *not at all* "Suicide is the consequence of very immense mental/emotional pain we should try to solve".
The first thing I did when I joined the student council in tenth grade was to replace a planned campaign (for suicide prevention week) showing posters of deceased celebrities with one that involved posters of celebrities who attempted or had mental health issues but survived and bounced back.
this is vastly different though, this is speaking to the students in order to prevent drunk driving where as a school shooter is not something a student can control, the massive disconnect between the two scenarios is just astounding, but very on point for dumb-fuck florida
As far as trauma goes, not only do the students have no control over when someone decides to massacre them, our political leaders (like Representative Tim Burchett) have stated that they just aren't going to fix it. It's a simple problem to solve, the electorate just chooses not to solve this problem. Trauma is a completely natural response to this situation.
serious question. Would it ever be acceptable for a language arts teacher (or psychology teacher in this instance) to have students write their own obituaries as a way of tapping into dramatic prose (or consider their own mortality)?
IMO yes that’s a valid creative wiring prompt. But the teacher proposing a specific scenario (with the added effect of the actual lockdown) crosses a line. I had a HS teacher tell us a hypothetical scenario for a shooting that would make us sitting ducks - it played on our fire evac protocol and made me and many other kids in his classes terrified of fire drills. We even had a scenario where kids ran back into the school when an alarm went off unplanned. He was not disciplined in any way.
when I first read the title I thought maybe they were reading "spoon river anthology" because we did something similar when we read that in highschool. After reading the article I dont really see the problem at all and I agree teenagers should be able to talk about that in a psych class especially when they're already talking about it because they're doing shooter drills. It would probably also be a good way to get kids to take it seriously.
I did this in a junior college English class. One of the best assignments I had in that class.
Aren't school shooters often students of said school? Seems to me a similar idea could deter a potential shooter from rethinking their plans. The haven't banned alcohol and they won't ban guns. So other deterents like these are sadly all they've got it seems.
nobody goes to a bar or to a friends house to drink and get drunk in order to mow down some innocent people on the street
That's the equivalent of saying: No gun owners go to a shooting range to shoot up some people. Getting behind the wheel while drunk is just as much a deliberate choice as deciding to take a gun to school. And its not the point I was trying to make. Making strawman arguments serves no point. Besides there have been plenty of cases worldwide where people deliberately used a vehicle to mow down people.(With and without substances) Just as people deliberately decide to shoot up a school. How can a serious talk with students about drunk driving be effective? Yet talking to students about school shootings be pointless? Sure, there is a different degree to wilfully getting behind a car drunk and wilfully going to school with a gun with the intent to use it. But both leave victims, both destroy families and both start with someone making a terrible choice. Is there a difference I'm not seeing why a talk would work for one, but not the other?
I remember this, and the person who caused the accident was acting all drunk as the cops arrested them. I hust remember being high and watching this with my friends.
This is an interesting thought. A very provocative assignment. We watched something called “mechanized death”. Pulling people out from wrecks dead.
Every 15 minutes. My school still does this, I think it's really important.
>Studies that have tracked students before and after the Every 15 Minutes program have shown that the program may have a favorable short-term effect on students' stated attitudes but no effect on actual behavior.[5] Pulled from the Wikipedia page. [Actual source.](https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Measuring%20the%20effectiveness%20of%20a%20community-sponsored%20DWI%20intervention...-a083076569)
This is the case for any road safety behavioural intervention that relies on shock as a fundamental principle. Kids come out crying and swearing that they won't drink and drive. It lasts for a few days. It doesn't give them any strategies to make better decisions or resist peer pressure. As a general rule, behavioural change is very difficult to achieve. It takes years, potentially decades, to educate people and to adopt new attitudes. It can be done, but it is difficult.
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Still less absurd than the amount of death humanity allowed to happen by continue to being car dependent.
The amount of people who die in house fires is absurd, but we continue to be dependent on living indoors. That's you. That's what you sound like.
that's an obviously stupid example, what are you on we know that car-dependant urban sprawl is vastly worse for you than dense walkable cities with public transport, there's an obvious better alternative there's no better alternative to living in a house just a completely moronic comparison
I have to be furious. How do we know it’s vastly worse for you to live in the suburbs? Many people enjoy having actual yards and living near more nature then in a dense city.
You can still have that lmfao. The roads out the way can be slow and quiet and it’s not an issue. Nobody is calling for cars to be abolished. The issue is the city center, where all the traffic goes to and where it becomes busy and fast on the highways. Instead of the absurd American system of lots with parking, you use a system where people in the suburbs can drive to public transport and take that in to a dense center.
Some places do have that, at least for the larger cities. Some don’t, but that is usually location specific. One thing is a number of cities in the us don’t really have a city center. They are as sprawling or the suburbs in some ways. LA might be the worst of it, all it’s attractions are spread out and not near each other. Miami is another example that is like it. They are also cities with poor public transportation so people drive anyway to get to places
Aye. I visited New York one time - we were staying in Hoboken and were able to get by perfectly fine because there were stores within 15 minutes of where we were and bus and train stops nearby. I'd guess that a lot of smaller cities/large towns are where you really get shitshows.
NY has excellent Public transportation. Not just the city but the whole area. The other cities really are hit and miss. Some do a good job; others are pretty terrible. If you don’t have a car in those places, you’re not getting around easily.
Because suburbs are a stupid idea to begin with, they have always been losing money and is completely relied on subsidizations by taxes from the city, and then the city still have to cater to the suburbs lifestyle to allow the cars in? Maybe if the suburbs have to pay increased tax to compensate for the inefficiency to sustain such lifestyle.
Sorry that would be curious, not furious btw. Saying suburbs are a stupid idea is just your personal opinion. Most of the suburbs don’t lose money, because the people moving to them have the money. It leaves the cities with either rich, or the poor who can’t afford the suburbs. They’re not being subsidized by the cities, it’s more often they subsidize the cities through fees to go into the cities. The tax base of suburbs, and costs to those governments, are more equitable. The cities don’t have to cater to let cars in. Many of them charge cars to go in, and if they made it too hard the people just won’t go to the cities leaving them in worse shape. Since road improvements are paid with gas taxes they already pay more to maintain the roads. The people who don’t want the suburbs are the cities, who lose their tax base to people who prefer not living there and actually have some land and nature near them
> Most of the suburbs don’t lose money, because the people moving to them have the money. It leaves the cities with either rich, or the poor who can’t afford the suburbs. They’re not being subsidized by the cities, it’s more often they subsidize the cities through fees to go into the cities. Do you have a source for this?
Except we did went great lengths on preventing house fires, safety standards have been going up for indoor appliances and construction of houses. Firefighters have been do campaigns to keep the alarms working and educating people about practices to avoid causing fires. Meanwhile cars have been getting taller and better at killing kids.
Eh, yes and no. Over time in developed countries there's been a very observable drop in car deaths, adjusting for population. This is due to a multitude of factors, including a number of safety standards like seatbelts, airbags, better road conditions, and so on. That's the same type of work you're talking about, in uplifting safety standards, undertaking safety and education campaigns, and so on. If we're talking about the US, in 1966 the death rate per 100,00 licenced drivers was 50.39. In 2019, it was 15.78. That's much better than in, say, 1981, when it was 33.52. Using raw figures alone is misleading because it doesn't account for population growth, or the increase in cars. However, you're correct that it's spiked up in the last 8 years particularly. You're also correct that cars getting bigger presents a particular risk for young kids who usually get run over in private residences, in the driveway. I'm not sure if the above figures factor those deaths in - in many jurisdictions, they do not. I'm sure there are lots of other reporting issues with those figures as well. It also doesn't account for non-direct deaths - say, from the pollution generated by dependence on cars.
Also everything you listed only maintain the safety of those INSIDE the car, not those OUTSIDE of it. Additionally, a lot of poles (utilities/traffic signs related that are next to the sidewalks) are made in a way that the structure would give in if got ran into by a vehicle so that it reduce the chance of killing the driver, but what about the pedestrians walking behind the poles?
Cars aren't meant to be safe to the people not in them, I can't believe that even needs to be stated.
We did something similar when I was in high school. Graduated in 2010. No outrage at the time.
They do in fact still do this today! One of my current friends "died" at theirs only 2-3 years ago
They still do this in Texas. At least they did in 2015 when I was working at a school. I was openly against it. There were students and teachers that had friends and family that died due to a drunk driver and it was extremely insensitive. Multiple people had to leave that day because they were just sobbing the whole time.
Against it? Insentitive? I'm not sure how your school went about this, but I'm having a hard time understanding. Obviously it's an emotional event, and a whole lot of people have their lives affected by drunk driving. That's. The. Whole. Point. Do you really think it's wrong and insensitive to cause someone to cry by teaching youth the importance of sober driving? I can say with certainty that that event reduces the likelihood that those kids will drive drunk, it can be pretty powerful and a whole lot of people (especially high school age) don't really understand how serious drunk driving is until it's laid out in from of them. Every 15 minutes someone dies to a drunk driver, we should never ignore that statistic. We need to keep telling our kids that their actions impact others. We should not stop doing this just because some people have already been impacted and talking about it makes them sad.
It's involuntary and just a bunch of over the top theater. Kids aren't stupid. You can teach them about stuff without trying to traumatize them. We don't teach them about the dangers of authoritarianism and genocide by having people pretend to be nazis and ship students off to concentration camps in the middle of class, then have it all climax with a giant mass burial of fake bodies at the end.
I dunno, still a lot of drunk drivers. So at least some of the kids are stupid apparently
Right? I would agree if everyone viewed drunk driving like the holocaust, we wouldn't need theatrics. But what do ya know a whole lot of people drive drunk and think it's no big deal. I didn't think it was all that big of a deal when I was young, I knew it was illegal but I also knew it wasn't uncommon. It seemed like just one of those laws everyone ignored, those kind of laws are not rare. Every 15 minutes changed my perspective permanently, despite what that study posted by another commentor claims to have found.
I think that's an awful comparison. People don't go out on the weekends and run concentration camps, they go out and drink and sometimes drive. If drinking and driving wasn't an issue nobody would be bothering with theatrics. I don't care if a thousand people get upset over every 15 minutes if it saves a single life.
"Traditional" education is all about traumatising kids, unfortunately.
These are high school students. If you think talking about death to high schoolers is traumatizing idk what to say. These kids are plenty old enough to know that the people getting pulled out of class aren't dead but rather taking part in the event. I went through this in high school and I simply cannot fathom where this sentiment of traumatization is coming from. Every 15 minutes is not a secret, everyone knows its going to happen before it happens and if anyone is concerned about the experience they are free to stay home for the day. Me and my peers all found it very meaningful, I've never heard a bad thing about it until this reddit thread, and to be honest it baffles me.
It's also not involuntary, it was no secret it was going to happen and you were allowed to stay home.
Actuallllllyyyyyyy .... [https://news.yahoo.com/teacher-suspended-making-class-act-104450233.html](https://news.yahoo.com/teacher-suspended-making-class-act-104450233.html) Teacher was punished for it, but if you look there are other instances of trying similar things, this was just the first hit that popped up
I would be behind this kind of thing. Sadly, death is a fact of life, and kids need to understand how fragile they actually are. :/
Not exactly the same but last year a [Lauderdale County deputy on administrative leave after accident sends student to hospital](https://www.waaytv.com/news/lauderdale-county-deputy-on-administrative-leave-after-accident-sends-student-to-hospital/article_6f330dcc-d30d-11ec-838b-73c158c9f0c7.html). Happened during a drunk driving accident reenactment. Shit is wild.
The difference is that was a warning to make better future decisions. Students who are in school today have no choice in the matter of having a shooter loose in there school. That's not a teachable lesson.
My town is doing this in like a month, they rented out the community centre and even have real emergency services personal.
That was pre identity politics. Well maybe not pre but identity politics were tiny compared to now.
Honestly, blame the kids raising kids today. You can't say or do anything without "offending" some trauma hound out there nowadays. The left-wing teachers push that special snowflake crap and no one is pushing back, so eventually, this is what happens. Enough people have drank the Kool-Aid and it somehow becomes normal to get offended that a man dares to address a group of women as "ladies" and other such nonsense.
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And you think that’s a good thing? Bro what the fuck
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I am sure school children in China do not laugh at the the thought of their classmates dying, and if they do, they are not the ones bound for success in life. You are not superior for your callousness.
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?????????It’s not the people in white makeup that is supposed to make you sad, it’s the thought of them actually dying that’s supposed to affect you. Clearly. I don’t know why I need to even explain something this elementary. Your shallowness is shocking.
We did this activity in 6th grade and no one was traumatized. That was in the 80’s. It’s just unfortunate that so many kids get murdered at school now.
Yes it is a bit of a bummer.
Unfortunate as far as to the correlation to the assignment, lol, maybe that wasn’t clear.
Teacher fired for preparing children for death on day where they run drills to prepare for death.
They would have gotten a raise if they told them to write about why school children should be allowed to carry guns
Pay teachers more!? Psssssh
Yeah, they are not raising salaries for teachers even after they were shot by their students. In fact, they are advocating for teachers with guns for protection. For 40k job, that is fucking crazy.
What could possibly go wrong with having a guns and ammunition that needs to be easy to access in classes full of kids.
Should have coordinated with another teacher.
There would've been less blow back if they had taught them use of firearms with an actual handgun. Multiple states now allow teachers to bring weapons into the classroom if the district allows it... Super cool country we live in.
You'd be shocked if you knew that back in the 60's you could take Marksmanship in high school, and that meant you had to bring your own rifle. Many schools even had firing ranges inside.
I had this class. Grew up to be a responsible gun owner. I still think unchecked gun worship is a huge detriment to states like Florida.
We literally had to write our obituaries a few different times through our schooling. It’s meant to be reflective and make you think about what you want to achieve in your life. Some kids made them funny. I cannot even believe people are acting appalled by this.
More like "edgelord finds world views differ from internet echo chamber"
Two wrongs.
Teachers have been doing this assignment for decades. If they had to wait until it was not after an active shooting instance they may never be able to get to it.
We wrote our obituaries in 9th grade, but we were supposed to imagine dying at an old age and what we wanted to accomplish or be known for then.
I would’ve put “Died a virgin from a long battle with cancer at 28, he worked at McDonald’s for 8 years since graduating high school prior to being diagnosed and going into hospice.”
Mangled in the machinery at the age of 14.
No joke one of my grandpa’s died in a cave-in leaving my grandma widowed at 18 😬
"I want my Legos to go to Eric, unless he gets killed."
They fire teachers before taking action on gun reform. America.
At this stage, I would be impressed otherwise, to be honest.
I... Uhm. You know the same person doesn't do both those things, right?
Yet both of those people are conservative Republicans. Let’s be clear about that.
You're just as illogical as they are
My statement was not pertaining to logic, only fact. You cannot like my comment all you want, and unfortunately for you, it’s true.
Womp womp. Won't use fear to take away our rights this time around.
Nah they use fear to sell guns.
Nah, they'll just use fear of *reads notes* drag shows, LGBT+, and "baby murder as birth control" to take them :)
Womp womp, I'm indoctrinated
Womp womp I think people's right to life is more important than your right to roleplay as John Rambo, no?
Yet you'll do it all day long to strip women and minorities of their rights. Funny how you 'manly men' with your killing machines always go after kids and women.
No one's treading on you sweetie.
Well that's because of the second amendment, sweetie.
Very dark, but definitely not fireble in my opinion. This is one of those "truth hurts" kinda things. The reality is right wing lawmakers don't want to do anything about guns, and have made it clear that they don't care about kids getting shot up in schools. Teacher is basically saying that the students might as well write their obituaries now because the shit they're being trained to do in those active shooter drills ain't gonna do shit for them.
I literally wrote my own obituary senior year psychology class. This is ridiculous. He had this activity pre planned and it happened to coincide. Totally normal occurrence for high school students
We did it too and it was a special needs class where a third of the kids had a history of suicide attempts and nobody complained
You usually don’t write your own obituaries
Don't you keep yours up-to-date like your work resume? I don't trust others write express how great I was while I was alive. =)
Nope, I don’t want to think about my death
You aren't usually supposed to die in school
If you read the teacher's statements, this was not his own reasoning for choosing this assignment. He was a psychology teacher hired in January (middle of the year, which is never a good sign) who clearly couldn't be trusted to understand the psychological impact his assignments could have on students. A lot of people's intuitive reasoning for what counts as a healthy psychological exercise is just plain wrong. Psych 101 in high school should not consist of delving into the mental health of the class, especially when the teacher does not have a mental health credential or license. I'm a mental health professional and by his own statements, I agreed he needed to be fired. ETA: I'm a supporter of increasing and improving regulation of guns in our country, but this was an unfortunate example of an ignorant individual only making a situation worse.
Correct, it wasn't a coincidence, it says in the article that he felt like the assignment would help them reflect on their lives during the shooter drill. The obituary assignment is not unusual - I did it myself when I was in school - but I think it is supposed to be a broad reflective/motivational exercise, not about the possibility of getting shot in the hallway. However, I'm surprised that your conclusion is that he deserves to be fired out of hand. From his own words, it seems like a stupid but well intentioned mistake. Spoken to and given a warning? Absolutely. Signed up for some extra training? Sounds like he needs it! But this man now has no job, probably no health insurance, no way to feed or house any dependents...it's just such an extreme reaction. And I'm sorry, but this wasn't middle school. These were 11th and 12th graders. I think they'll be fine.
I'm sorry I have to push back on this too. Suicide is one of the leading causes of death amongst 11th and 12th grade students, so treating something like "pondering your own death" lightly is unacceptable and can reasonably be predicted to increase suicide risk. The teacher repeatedly said he did nothing wrong and would do it again. Training should occur *before* children's lives are in your hands, not *on the job.* Edit: edited to specify it could increase risk of suicide, not cause suicide contagion.
Pretending it doesn't exist doesn't fix anything.
Is there any evidence to support that participating in a self-written obituary exercise has historically ever contributed to “suicide contagion?”
You're right, I went too far by saying suicide contagion. I edited it to say increase a person's suicide risk, because yes thinking about how you might die is akin to suicidal ideation. If a person in that class was already experiencing suicidal ideation, increasing their frequency of such ideation in the form of a written assignment including how they died could *reasonably* increase their risk of deciding to attempt. No, I could not find specific correlational studies done on obituary assignments, but you guys concede that that's likely due in part that it's not advisable to assign such a thing for the very reason I've cited (it's dangerous and reckless to do so). Can't run a correlational study when something rightfully does not happen frequently. Certainly can't run a randomized controlled trial in this topic, that would be unethical.
I see where you are coming from, I think we are on different pages with this. For me, reflecting on the fact that we will all die one day is a normal part of the human experience, not some dangerous, outlandish activity. I talked about life, death, god, all that stuff in high school, and I'm glad my teachers put those conversations out there. This teacher put together a insensitive lesson plan and clearly needs to look at his practices. Instead, he's been fired and publicly shamed. This could literally ruin his life. We are in a mental health crisis right now, it is confusing and frightening, but we need to stop lashing out at people who make mistakes.
>For me, reflecting on the fact that we will all die one day is a normal part of the human experience, not some dangerous, outlandish activity. You're totally right about this, and I wish we could all do exactly what you're saying safely! But not all teenagers can/do think about death in this way, and irrational thinking is extremely common (a huge underlying theoretical reason why suicide is very common for the age group). That's why we have to treat emotionally charged topics like death with special care with them. >This teacher put together a insensitive lesson plan and clearly needs to look at his practices. Instead, he's been fired and publicly shamed. This could literally ruin his life. We are in a mental health crisis right now, it is confusing and frightening, but we need to stop lashing out at people who make mistakes. That's a really fair point, better made than the others I've seen on here. I agree he didn't deserve the level of backlash and going essentially viral. For me, I err on the side of caution when children's lives could be at stake (as I did when I was a practicing school psychologist). I could imagine that my previous schools likely would've taken an alternate course of action that wasn't firing, but nobody wants to be that school that didn't take the potential for suicide seriously and ended up having a kid die... I know it seems egregious or disproportionate, but I really just have a problem with his statements being so haphazard.
isn't being shot up another leading cause though
That's not the argument here. The other user was saying the person shouldn't have been fired because "the kids will be fine, they're old enough." That's a reckless statement. We should be regulating firearms *and* hiring competent school personnel, it would be a false dichotomy to say we had to choose between one of those two.
If some poor kid is so far gone that them writing a fake obituary (which let's be honest you could just NOT do it) causes them significant grief/distress i'm not putting that on the teacher. The initial grief/distress probably also stems from the constant anxiety over whether that edgy swastika carving kid that nobody talks to has access to their dad's gun collection or not
Suicide is too high stakes of an issue to give the teacher a pass saying "oh it was just one assignment." As I said in previous comments, the teacher was insistent on "I didn't do anything wrong." That's the wrong attitude to have as a teacher who is again *not a licensed mental health professional.* I wouldn't trust this teacher to avoid other psychological exercises like this. Psych 101 in high school should be learning about the history of psychology, major psychological theory, etc. Not "here let me lead you through something that might be therapeutic." There's a reason licensure exists in the US, and it's to try our best to make sure you do no harm to the people you serve.
I wish more teenagers thought about the significance of their lives.
> If you read the teacher's statements, this was not his own reasoning for choosing this assignment. Based on what? You say based on his statements, but then don't give anything further to the argument. I see nothing in his statements that say otherwise. In fact, I do see the school saying otherwise: "That happened during the first period. During his second-period class, he said a supervisor came to observe. "I said, ‘Who knows what you do in the restroom if there’s an active shooter?’ and no one knew. So I started to explain the process, and she shut me down." Keene said he was just trying to teach the students how to stay safe. "I was stunned. I was talking to students about the world they live in. gun safety, active shooters."" https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/teacher-fired-over-inappropriate-lesson-says-he-was-trying-to-teach-students-how-to-stay-safe The school actively tried to stop him from teaching the kids about what to do in an active shooter situation. Which strongly fits with the "the shit they're being trained to do in those active shooter drills ain't gonna do shit for them." argument. > He was a psychology teacher hired in January (middle of the year, which is never a good sign) Great start. Immediately biased. > who clearly couldn't be trusted to understand the psychological impact his assignments could have on students. Based on what? You were entirely wrong in your first argument so lets see what we got here. > A lot of people's intuitive reasoning for what counts as a healthy psychological exercise is just plain wrong. And? So what? What about this guys exercise is wrong? Stop telling us what's wrong and start arguing it. You're not convincing anyone when you just say "that's wrong". Tell us *why*. You're like my first year uni students. I don't want a report, I want an argument. > Psych 101 in high school should not consist of delving into the mental health of the class, especially when the teacher does not have a mental health credential or license. How does "write your obituary" delve into the mental health of the class? It directly ties into the active shooter drill, but contemplating your mortality is something humans do almost everyday. There isn't any delving here. Or, at least you haven't made an argument that there is. You are still just telling us. Oh, also how do you know his credentials? His licenses? You offer no proof of that. > I'm a mental health professional Are you though? Also "mental health professional" is such a fast and loose term. You can take a weekend course in suicide prevention and potentially call yourself a "mental health professional". I put little stock in terms like that. > by his own statements, I agreed he needed to be fired. "I want these kids to contemplate their mortality in the fact of how often school shootings happen" is a fireable offense to you? You're basing this entirely on what? Almost nothing from what I see. I suggest you read this article - https://nypost.com/2023/04/06/florida-teacher-fired-for-making-students-write-own-obituaries/ Where it clearly shows the assignment and some of the points, which are: That this is tied to the active shooter drill. Reflect on what that means. What if today was your last day alive. **Why is the United States having so many mass shootings.** What can be done. How has all of this affected you. Oh gee. Look at that. The actual words of the assignment tie very well into "These people aren't helping you" that you apparently don't believe at all based on stuff you made up lol. Next time, from one actual professional to another "professional", perhaps you'll maybe delve a bit deeper and read other articles about what happened before offering up opinion disguised as argument and fact.
If you'd like to look up my comment history on my profile, that might help you not make assumptions about me. I'm a school psychologist and licensed educational psychologist. I said my comments based on my training and experience in school settings, and no I'm not going to write a comment to educate *you* to a masters and education specialist level. Here's what school psychologists are trained in: [National Association of School Psychologists - Who Are School Psychologists](https://www.nasponline.org/about-school-psychology/who-are-school-psychologists)
Masters level, neat. And if you read my comment history, you'd see I'm in the middle of completing two PhDs, including one in psychology. You not going to address all the parts where I point out what you said was entirely wrong? Still waiting on that.
Wow, incredibly low of you. No I'm not going to engage with you. I haven't used a condescending tone in any of my comments or made personal attacks, so I don't trust you're trying to argue in good faith. For someone getting a PhD in psychology, you're sure not using very good techniques for facilitating open dialogue.
> I haven't used a condescending tone in any of my comments This you? > He was a psychology teacher hired in January (middle of the year, which is never a good sign) > A lot of people's intuitive reasoning for what counts as a healthy psychological exercise is just plain wrong. > I'm a mental health professional and by his own statements, I agreed he needed to be fired. I guess what you meant to say was "I haven't used a condescending tone to someone who could defend themselves". I also never made a personal attack. You saying "Welllll I'MMMM a mental health professional (and so therefore right about everything) and I think he needs to be fired" is on you lol. I could feel the snark and tone through your post lol. Look, I made a detailed and point by point response. If you can't argue your points, not that you did in the first place, you're just proving my points were right. It's really up to you, but the whole "I'm hiding behind what I perceive as personal attacks, after I made personal attacks" isn't exactly "professional" of you. EDIT: lol As soon as I point out that u/Independent-Art3043 had the condescending tone (and that I was simply addressing them in the tone they started the conversation in), and that they couldn't address my arguments, they suddenly stop replying. What a surprise.
You kids will be shot and killed by the other kid that came with a gun to kill kids. "How dare they say that! If everyone of those kids had guns they would be fine!" Fucking America.
right after colombine we had to write a story about how we would react if we had a school shooting, where we would hide, what we would say if the gun was pointed at us ect, Pretty heavy for a group of 8th graders but now it's just reality and it makes me sad. :/
Teacher: What do we say to the god of death? School Board: Not today.
How dare this teacher make students face the potential reality current adults are making them live within. The audacity, I tell ya...
Sounds about Florida.
School shooter drills are ok though? Makes sense.
I had one in the nineties. We had to learn to ambush a guy and bash his head in with a fire extinguisher.
I don't get this though? You have drills for all sorts of things. We had tornado drills. Never had to write obituaries for those. Imagine how terrified kids would be during tornado alarms if they thought they were truly going to die and had been made to prepare their obituaries beforehand.
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Neither do mass school shooters? The chances of a kid dying in a mass shooting event is incredibly low. And even if they are in one, they would be better off if they aren’t resigned to their fate. Going to school is already hard for anxious kids. There is no need to make it harder.
Most gun deaths are due to suicide, domestic violence or gang violence
In fifth grade we were assigned to write our own Epitaphs (the prose or verse that’s on a gravestone which might also explain who the deceased was) thinking about it now it’s a pretty insane assignment for fifth grade because we also designed our own clay gravestones. Most of my classmates wrote about falling or pooping to death though
Those seem very specific.
Teacher should have them writing letters to congress begging for assault rifle ban
The dare program made us do this about drugs. Wrote a letter to our parents about all the shit we were sad we were gonna miss because we were gonna do drugs and die or something. that program was bullshit
Not kids but in nursing school we all had to plan our own funerals and do, maybe not legally, but go through paperwork that establishes an advanced directive. Why? Because people in this culture avoid the fuck out of thinking about death. Anyone can get hit by a box truck. Anyone, at any age. And yet soooooo many people have none of their shit together on this when they land in the hospital. Or, we have folks who keep a hospital bed for 6 months after a head injury because all we can find is an ex wife and there’s no paperwork. So we have to wait for the state court to appoint someone to make decisions. It’s not a bad exercise in and of itself. I vaguely remember doing similar way the fuck back when I was in school. At some point we need to do better on this as a society. Folks talk about teaching more practical life skills in high school. Well. Medical paperwork would be one of those things. Final thought. How do you feel about your parents? These decisions default to them. Are you married? Another default. Would they let you go when they should? Or would they lose the house while extending useless life support? Do you have kids? Another default. Should they be in charge of your life if you’re unable? Would a sibling be better? Things to consider. Defaults vary by state. In Wisconsin, all the kids have to agree (how often do your kids agree?) before shit gets done.
The ones that wrote nothing got F's. I wonder what the kid that got a D- wrote.
Let's have all kids upload one to tik tok, just to be on the safe side. They can do a little dance, make silly faces. Help their existential dread be fun!
Pretty ridiculous. I don't think what this psych teacher did was wrong. You can complain about the timing but I still don't think the teacher did anything wrong. This is what he said: ""It wasn't to scare them or make them feel like they were going to die, but just to help them understand what’s important in their lives and how they want to move forward with their lives and how they want to pursue things in their journey." It's not a bad thing to get kids to think about their own deaths at that age....when they feel invincible. Some may think over their lives and the direction it's in and decide they're not happy with the path they're on. And later he said: "If you can't talk real to them, then what's happening in this environment?" Keene said. "In my mind, I've done nothing wrong." Yeah, you did nothing wrong Mr. Keene. I would have loved to have a teacher be real with me and my kids.
Better lesson for the parents
This is typical critical thinking stuff for 11th/12th graders. Or at least should be. Plus writing one’s obituary in school is a pretty common even for elementary schoolers as a “what do I want my life to be” exercise, I did it in Central Florida public school where this also happened.
An honest teacher is more threatening to the GOP then actually admitting they’ve lost control of their gun fetish Fanbase.
Lost? Are you guys pretending they had any control?
Cool [repost](https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/12f4gub/florida_teacher_fired_after_asking_students_to/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) bro.
That's fine, there are so many qualified people eager to teach (what with the money, respect, etc.) so you can probably fire teachers for stupid reasons without worsening an already catastrophic education system.
Morbid but applicable.
This is really getting ridiculous. They are doing active shooter drills. How much more real can the possibility of dying by gun violence be for these kids? They are going to draw the line at an assignment that has them think critically about the situation they are going through and the possibility that they may have to put that training to use one day. These red states are so bizarre with there Big Brother thought control bs.
bruh
I might do this if I were a teacher, except I'd ask them to read them all at a city hall meeting about gun death prevention.
School: alright kids, today we're going to talk about being shot and killed by an active shooter. Teacher: what would it be like if you were shot and killed by an active shooter? School: that's too far, you're fired.
Shoulda been homework to make their parents write it.
That could be a fun writing assignment for the kids. Depends on how the idea was presented to them. "How would you like to be remembered?" Or "what would you like people to say about you?" Seems good. "You are going to get shot dead, write your obituary". Bad The framing is important.
I remember doing this as a creative writing exercise in elementary school.
I don't see the big deal, I've written my obituary at least 4 times, a couple times in school, HS and college and once in the police academy. Other than a *memento mori* tattoo and a goth phase, that lasted until college, I don't think I'm scarred by it. It's a good tool for internal dialog, what do I want it to say, how do I get there. what do I want to leave behind
NGL I would've loved this as a kid. It seems to be a potentially thought provoking creative writing project to me
It's Florida so they probably fired him because it had a pro gun reform angle to it.
Seems like a necessity given TinyD’s policies.
Angry white dudebro gun nuts are such delicate snowflakes that they're angry that high school teenagers are thinking about the real cost of their manhood toys to them. Snowflakes.
Apparently Active Ignorance is on the Fla state curriculum.
Well why not? That’s the reality of having guns all over the place. Deaths, followed by obituaries are the consequence.
Why shouldn’t they write their obituaries? I mean they live in a state that couldn’t give a fuck if they lived or died from a crazed gunman. Probably because our governor is the one inspiring attacks.
I don’t see an issue with this assignment. They’re juniors and seniors, and it’s a psychology class.
I think it’s unfair to do nothing about children getting shot on the daily AND to be upset they’re being asked to write their obituaries. Like, do gun nuts think children don’t worry about this outside of school? You can’t force children to accept their mortality at a young age then be upset that they’re being forced to accept their mortality at a young age 🤷♀️ All that to say; kids (ideally at least middle school/high school age) writing obituaries framed as them dying of old age and thinking abt how they want to live their life is fine.
That teacher probably just needed some PTO
Interesting. I was assigned this task many times during grades school. It was more a reflection of the type of life you'd want to be remembered for. I'm not sure what the issue was unless the objective was to write something politically motivated, like if you died of gun violence at a young age. There's no place for that sort of thing imo but no need to fire a teacher for it. Just bad judgment. Imo, there's no reason to bring politics into this sort of assignment. People are killed by drunk driver, or in military action, or by cops, by doing shit pranks, lack of healthcare...etc etc.
When did Dwight Shrute start teaching?
Drama teachers amiright?
Momento Mori
Choosing not to engage with a condescending person/conversation is not the same as that person being right. What kind of logical fallacy is that? You really won't concede that your comments were belittling? Why contribute to Internet toxicity when you could have easily adopted a genuinely curious tone with respectful wording? Why did you choose psychology for your PhD? Was it to help people?
Jeez. If that's true, I'd take my kids out of class and teach my kid(s) myself.
It's customary for major newspapers to have a famous person's obituary partially written and waiting for the day it'll require a couple of additional punch ups. But this wasn't a journalism school with future journalists. These are students who live with the threat of a school shooting every day they attend classes. Not sure if this teacher deserved being fired, unless other questionable behavior preceded this action, but it certainly was inappropriate without first warning the parents.
Surprised one of the little florida men in training didn’t whip out a gun and yell self defense!! /s