Saturday, September 15, 2007

The wrong kind of ged

One of my favorite Cheers episodes revolved around Cliff going in for an appendectomy. After none of the Cheers gang comes to visit, he decides it's because of his obnoxious behavior, and decides to try to change. In order to fix himself, he seeks out electroshock therapy, and tests it out at the bar, where, of course, hilarity ensues, including a scene where he has the electroshock buzzer, points it at the therapist, and then, shocks himself - because the electrodes are still connected to him. You have to be there - it's funny. But it was funny because it's what he asked for.

It would be a completely different story if I took my kid to a school and that school "handled" their discipline problems by electrocuting them. I would have a bit of a serious problem with that. But, apparently, that is the approach of one school - to shock kids into behaving using a "Graduated Electronic Decelerator" or ged. This is disturbing to me, and I'm not surprised one of the parents filed a lawsuit against the Rotenberg Center. You can read pieces of the article here, an education-oriented blog that I happened upon yesterday while searching around. I'm also not surprised, though, that there are parents who not only laud the program, but are there to defend it in the wake of the suit.

I won't go into any detail - you'll have to read the article yourself, but it's shocking, if you'll pardon the pun.

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