I just heard two news stories that boggle the mind.

In the first one, some teachers and administrators somewhere decided to stage a drill, along the lines of a fire drill or the air raid drills that I'm old enough to remember, and fake a firearms attack on the students. I can see taking some time to talk with the students and say "If anything should ever happen, this what you need to do...". But to actually simulate an attack on the kids takes a special sort of stupidity.

I'm pretty sure I know what happened. A management consultant named Morris Massey used to talk about what he called "The Abilene Paradox". It's a long story, but basically it addresses group dynamics in which a group of people can eventually come to a conclusion that none of them actually wanted. It's also called "groupthink". So, a bunch of educators got talking about what to do in case the school ever got attacked and ended up formulating a drill. But groupthink only goes part way to explaining this one. This was just plain stupid.

And then a substitute teacher somewhere decided to show a bunch of 12-year old kids "Brokeback Mountain", an R-rated film. Then she had the audacity to tell the kids to keep mum about it. Now whether or not you think stories about cowboys buttblasting each other are a good idea, fact is it's a R-rated movie. Period. And educators above all have an obligation to follow those sorts of rules. There's no doubt in my mind that she was taking advantage of a "recruiting" opportunity.