My grandson is in a youth group. As a reward for fund raising sales, each kid will get to throw one whipped cream pie at the principal of the sponsoring school for each hundred dollars in sales. These kids are in the 7-10 year age range.
I haven’t made up my mind yet whether this is just some harmless fun at the expense of a willing volunteer, or whether it sends some kind of message to the kids.
I’m leaning toward the message, but I’m not even really sure what kind of message I think it might be.
I’m interested in what Dopers thoughts might be on this activity.
Were you a liberal arts major? Do you look for subliminal messages in Sesame Street? Do you find victorian architecture oppresses the creative spirit in America’s youth?
But then I grew up in Kentucky, where the principal would kiss a pig in front of the student body for situations like the OP described. Pies are lame. Livestock should be involved!
I suppose it would depend upon how it’s presented to the kids. If everybody is talking about how they hate the principal and now we get to throw stuff at him, as hard as you can, then that’s not good. If it’s more of a fun, food-fight sort of atmosphere, where the cool, human side of the principal is revealed, then go to it.
I’ve seen both and it was all in the set-up. On the one hand you have a great opportunity to do the whole bonding, team building stuff. On the other, you’ve started kids down the path to knee-jerk disrespect of authority figures at a very early age.
Naw, I wasn’t some general liberal arts major. I mainlined hardcore in Fine Arts.
