Agh, tommyrot, that's awful.

When Emmett broke his nose a couple of years ago, his teacher managed to make a complete hash of explaining why he wasn't there to the rest of the class, and a couple of kids became convinced that he'd died in an accident and went into complete hysterics. I literally can't conceive of anyone deciding to do something like that to schoolkids on purpose. That's a world of WTF.

Also -- how effective as a "scared straight" technique did they think that was going to be in the long run? I can't believe it occurred to absolutely no one involved in the planning of this kerfuckery that the students wold likely walk away thinking not so much, "Gee, it would be awful if my friends really and truly died," as, "Grown-ups will lie about fucking ANYTHING to get you to think they way they want you to."

Which is, in itself, not an un-valuable lesson, but probably, just barely, not quite what the planners intended.

What a bunch of completely shitty people.

Also -- how effective as a "scared straight" technique did they think that was going to be in the long run? I can't believe it occurred to absolutely no one involved in the planning of this kerfuckery that the students wold likely walk away thinking not so much, "Gee, it would be awful if my friends really and truly died," as, "Grown-ups will lie about fucking ANYTHING to get you to think they way they want you to."

Do they not watch South Park (My Future Self n' Me)?

I'm sorry, but the person I would blame is the education assistant. Fine, you go to psychic, free country and all that. But then you take the psychic's word verbatim?!?!

Fine, you take the psychic seriously, you ask some questions, talk to the kid's peers, whatever. You do not go straight from psychic to CPS. And this is just the education assistant? Didn't the actual teacher or principal stop and say, "Whoa, I appreciate your concern, but before we call in CPS, let's see if we can get something, anything more concrete than hearsay?"

If I was on that schoolboard, there would be some serious questions being asked of that chain of responsibility.

The death of a classmate may be the one thing that freaks out kids the most. I can still remember the day in 8th grade when it was announced (with complete accuracy) that a classmate had died. The thing that gets me most was the complete and utter silence between classes. Because if there's anything 8th graders aren't good at, it's changing classes quietly.

Creating that situation as a "learning experience"? Insane.

The Mississippi has overflown 19 levees.

Hmmm, overflown. . . overflooded? Nothing seems right.

I am in happy tears after watching the documentary For the Bible Tells Me So, about religion and gays. It was on the Sundance channel if any of you want to catch it. Really moving and important information for LGBT youth and adults. It made me think of Ariel Schrag and her struggle with accepting that being gay is "natural."

ETA link: [link]

I'd love to have a follow-up to that detailing occurences of school vandlism. They were lucky not to get a riot.

But things got worse when school officials used the "evidence" and accepted the completely unsubstantiated word of the seer by reporting the case to Children's Aid, which promptly opened a file on the family.

"They reported me to Children's Aid," Leduc declares, still disbelieving. "Based on a psychic!"

WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK??!?!?!!? I want her to sue the damn school and moved to have the report expunged from her record. She now has a record with child services because of this bullshit.

The conversation should have ended after "my psychic told me..."

Weirdly for a small school (about 100 per graduating class), we had a lot of people die. There was the kid who stole my neighbors moped that I mentioned the other day, a girl who fell out of the back of a pick up truck, someone who had leukemia, a teacher who was killed in a car accident, a janitor and father of 2 young men who had a heart attack (the young men were taken in by a teacher), and the son of a female janitor who died at the school. Oh- and another someone who died in a car accident who I forgot about until my grandfather was buried next to him, as well as a guy who shot himself and a girl who was murdered.