Fearful Education

There are obviously many ways to teach a person how to do something or what something is such as viewing examples, directly telling about the subject, or even listening to music. All of these are either used by teachers or students to help them commit to memory material they learn in the classroom and outside of school. There's one way to teach, however, that really doesn't satisfy anyone's method of learning or even how a teacher should think about students, and that is education through fear.

Education through fear hardly ever works in any sense. The main reason some people use it to "educate" others, however, is because of the collective thought process of years past that says "If we tell people about the truth of what we are trying to teach them, that will just encourage them to do it!" So, instead of giving people the truthful and in-depth education about a subject they will truly need, they are instead jipped by people with microphones showing up at an assembly saying "Drugs are Bad!" and then going on to show several gruesome pictures about what happens to "everyone" who has ever done drugs. That's education through fear in a nutshell, spectacularly fail to educate by not even giving full coverage of the material and forcing a specific answer out of people for a choice they may want to make themselves.

Another reason this method of educating people doesn't work is because after a certain amount of exposure to the same exact photos, videos, and whatever else the "educator" can come up with about one subject the more tolerant people become about this kind of education. If you've been dragged into the same assembly that showed people dying over and over again it wouldn't matter whether or not its about drunk driving or drugs or having sex. You end up seeing and hearing similar sob stories so much that you really don't care anymore and actually want to get back to what you were doing before because there's never any new insight into the subject or anything deeper than "Don't do this or you'll DIEEEEEEEEE!"

The correct way to approach these kinds of subjects is not through fear-based education, but through general education. Yes, there are certain risks that come with drugs, driving, and sex, but there are also risks that come with exposure to the sun and watching too much TV. It's better to be told everything there is to be told about a subject in order to make a conscious decision yourself than to have a choice made for you because "you'll die if you chose the other way."