High School Hazing: post #5

On my last post for this book, i want to compare and contrast from this book and the video "Hazed" that we just watched in class. The book focused more on how hazing is bad and why its bad and where its affecting most poeple. The video focused more on college hazing and what happens when alcohol is mixed with hazing. The book touchs the subject, but not to the extent or seriousness that the video had. The video also focused around Colorado University and the story of a young man who died after being at college his freshman year for 1 month. The video was deffinatly more affective on how it struck me and got to me because of the outragousness of the story. But it did not end with any solutions, just the tragedy. The story basically continued onto what happened with the family and the frat house. The book on the other end offered how to pin point bullying/hazing and how to attack it with ways such as: establishing welcome programs for first-year and transfer students, reconsider all traditions in all school groups, don't get caught up in groupthink, urge ur school to adopt a statement of awareness, create a spirit of camaraderie, Tell a parent or another responsible adult when you need help, stuff like that and the list goes on. I think the problem is more serious than the solutions that Hank Nuwer gave. Yes hazing is a lot about tradition and competition and intimidation, but its also about rebellion and being dangerous and pushing the limits. The best example is obviously binge drinking and that is a problem that will be so hard to stop because a lot of people have to a agree to a lot of terms. In a Rolling Stones article, it says that the Phi Delta Theta would average 12.3 liability claims a year and $812,951, but since becoming alcohol free they average 3 claims and $15,388. This is a very good solution that showed big changes but it would be hard to spread this idea throughout other frats.