Children Alarmed by Teacher's 'War of the World's' Style Abduction
At a Sussex-based elementary school, an event designed to inspire student creativity and engage their imagination backfired when one staff member was 'abducted' by a pretend UFO, reports the Telegraph. Aided by local police, who provided flashing lights and sirens for the performance, the headteacher informed the 360 students that a spaceship had crashed near the school, and the pupils should "follow a trail of debris" before finding the craft. As a part of the invasion, a teacher was snatched, distressing some younger children.
Parents of early grade-schoolers were agitated that they had to calm down their youngsters when they arrived home. While inspiring children through engaging activity is always wonderful, it is difficult to tell how convincing or frightening the alien invasion felt to smaller children. Also, general rule: never subject children to any sort of extra terrestrial kidnapping without first informing their parents that aliens may indeed be landing on the playground that afternoon. [From: Telegraph.co.uk]
[Ed. Note: Oops! 71 years, not 61. Maybe aliens came the day we learned math... Thanks, Noel!]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Angela said 1:37PM on 7-16-2009
Nothing to scar the psyche of young children like having them follow a trail of debris to find a space ship that's eating people.... I'm sorry, but this is so stupid, it's funny.
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Frank said 3:38PM on 7-16-2009
For all the kids whose fragile psyches were scarred, there were probably 10 that got over the fright, got the joke, and laughed like normal people. People are getting too thin skinned, but I'd guess a lot of that comes from looking for lawsuit liability in every human activity. Someone will always be offended or "damaged" by something. I plan on suing the rentire reality TV industry for turning peoples' brains into pudding, and it's offending me.
Angela said 5:52PM on 7-16-2009
Frank, this happened in London, so they will simply apologize, not do it again, and there will be no lawsuits... kind of a normal reaction. As for suing the reality tv shows, there is no basis when you apply the "assumption of risk" clause. You know, if you are stupid enough to watch them and believe for a second they are "reality," you are responsible for your own brain damage from watching. BTW, all reality shows are "constructed" reality, albeit construction of base materials in most cases.
pjbl2223 said 1:59PM on 7-16-2009
Oh well said Angela!
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marigwanna420 said 3:04PM on 7-16-2009
kudos to the teacher.... trying to make school more interesting.... even the police thought it was a fun activity.... enough to participate but parents dont want to parent thier kids and take the 15 minutes to explain what happened..... instead they assume their kids are stupid and cant understand things so they just try and blame everyone else for everything........ they dont want their kids to feel fear, happiness, anger, jealousy, sadness..... none of those.... they are hiding the kids from life... whenever my son asks me questions about "questionable content" i am very honest about it and explain why things are the way they are..... that way when he grows up, he wont find out the truth and start to distrust me.....parents need to stop shielding their kids from life.... parents are supposed to teach children all there is to know about life, not hide them from it......
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brandyd1az said 3:07PM on 7-16-2009
thank you
Nor Cal Amy said 8:21PM on 7-16-2009
Yep. Well said.
Lauryn said 3:27PM on 7-16-2009
Wow, that must have been awful for the kids. It doesn't even seem like there was in a lesson in it, like if the teacher was doing something risky or foolish and the lesson would be that such behavior could lead to bad outcomes!
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aj said 3:14PM on 7-16-2009
why would anyone want to deliberately frighten children. They have a hared enough time believing there is not a monster in the closet or under the bed. These teachers seem to check their brains at the door. If you want to inspire creativity try drawing, music, writing stories, etc.
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aj said 3:15PM on 7-16-2009
you must not have any children
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Joe said 3:22PM on 7-16-2009
For all the people who think this was something terrible for the kids and shouldn't have been done TO the kids, you basically a fool. You read only a very short article about this yet you want to talk down to the school and teachers and even the police for doing what they did becuase a "few" kids got a little upset. Maybe, next time "before" you talk such stupid things you should find out the FACTS before hand huh? Ofd course that would mean you wouldn't just rely only on AOL for their great news articles and I think we can all agree, you wouldn't dream of thta now would you lol.
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drtom said 4:33PM on 7-16-2009
I'm basically a fool, but I bet you're not a parent.
drevean said 3:38PM on 7-16-2009
Now this is a real story. The "adults" we've allowed to be the teachers of our young, and the men we charge with protecting our communities, lack the insight to realize this was going to be the dumbest school activity ever. Now their parents are going to try to convince them that aliens don't exist, and those kids are going to grow just that much duller. I predict more backfire to come.
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drevean said 3:41PM on 7-16-2009
If this was in the U.S., I'd be convinced Palin must have set this up. What a fun and exciting activity!
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prariwolf said 3:47PM on 7-16-2009
Three words would have ended the confusion for the kiddies "It's just pretend." This won't scar them. By the time they are in high school they'll be laughing at how they cowered. It's no worse than seeing a horror movie that one is too young for and not being able to sleep for a night or three.
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Dani said 3:48PM on 7-16-2009
They would never try this with older kids. Know why? Because older kids wouldn't believe it. The school took advantage of the fact that these children were young enough to still trust in their authority figures (even the police were involved?). There are so many ways to have children interacting creatively in school, why use their trust in adults against them? When a real situation occurs, they may think it's simply "an exercise". This was a really irresponsible decision.
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kcdgenius said 4:28PM on 7-16-2009
Hey you know what else would be educational? Pull the kids aside one by one and tell them their parents and siblings have been murdered by a terrorist with a rifle. What would they learn? Who cares, it sure would be fun to watch them cry and bawl. And then we'll say "JUST KIDDING" . These teachers should be fired for fcking with kid's minds.
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Tyggie said 4:29PM on 7-16-2009
Oh please. When mine were small like that and something scary came on TV it was simple enough to say "that's not real, it's TV". Fear gone, acceptance that it wasn't going to hurt them. The kids were on an adventure. You can't tell me that none of even the little ones have played cops and robbers, cowboys and indians or pirates. It's a game, it's pretend. It would have been simple enough to explain that without everybody getting their drawers bunched up. People are just too frikken PC today, we're raising a bunch of sissies that expect everything done for them.
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Wish Belkin said 4:52PM on 7-16-2009
Next year they shoot Santa.
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jbjg24m said 6:25PM on 7-16-2009
and then the Easter bunny will be next !