A Dose of Teenage Reality

Every 33 minutes a teen-aged student dies in an automobile accident. Today Lassiter High School gave their student body a real taste of real life teen age driving statistics. We had an assembly in the football stadium that involved Cobb County Fire, Police and Emts. We also had a Life-flight helicopter land in the stadium to take "critically injured" students to the hospital. We had "big-wigs" from Federal Judges to our Cobb County Superindendent Fred Sanderson speak. More importantly, we had fire and police officials really "lay it on the line" about teenage driving. There was a demonstration that involved freeing students from a vehicle with the "jaws of life". And placing students into a hearse because they were dead. During classes, every 33 minutes an Administrator would announce over the PA system that a current student had died in an automobile accident the night before. And,yes, the Grim Reaper would accompany these dead students around the school. As the Broadcast Video Production teacher, naturally, we had 2 cameras videotaping the events in the school and in the stadium. As the students filed into the stadium you could feel the energy that it was a Friday and they were going home after the assembly. But when the demonstration began with the "jaws of life" and the helicopter landed, I looked up into the stands and saw every face (student and faculty) totally concentrating and recognizing the severity of the demonstration. This sobering day was purposely scheduled because the Senior Prom is one week away. My last comment is, that as a teacher, I knew what was scheduled and planned, but I was wrong, the student body took it alot more seriously than I had anticipated.