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The Stanford Prison Experiment was recently thrown into questioning for bad methodology, but hearing things like this often reminds me of a not-well-remembered story in Singapore in 1999 – the Jin Tai Secondary School Total Defence Day Incident https://t.co/FwsoDPzyLf
So. Every year, on the 15th of February, Singapore commemorates Total Defence Day. It's the day that the British surrendered to the Japanese. It's a rather somber occasion, and it's a good time as any to teach the children about our dark and painful past https://t.co/CFoaWTSALg
In 1999, I guess JTSS was looking to do something different. And so NCC teacher-in-charge Ms. Norris Mawaty got a group of teenagers to come & stage a "mock attack" intended to "simulate the Japanese Occupation of SG" and "teach students the importance of psychological defence" https://t.co/QH3TDVEYRO
NCC – the National Cadet Corps – is like a youth military organization. It's a sort of... play-pretend military dress-up activity in schools, that's supported by the SAF and the Ministry of Education. Y'know, teaching kids life skills. Foot drills, rifle drills, discipline, etc https://t.co/kHQyZ9Cbon
Anyway– so these boys (16-18yo) were not from the school. They painted their faces, wore ski masks. They tied up the students (13-14yo), slapped, punched & kicked them. The teachers who invited them were outside the venue. 14 students were injured, 3 had to be warded in hospital https://t.co/KW6WNziv8Q
Somebody re-shared this news on EDMW (local forum) recently, & a couple of posters had personal links to the story – one sat next to a kid, another claims to know one of the culprits. 7 years later, Jin Tai was merged with Ghim Moh to form Clementi Woods– ie, it no longer exists https://t.co/dzdypz6hcx
to reiterate: in 1999, a group of 8 older boys walked into a singaporean secondary school, with the (ignorant) blessings of the school administration, physically beat the students, and then left! apparently without ever facing any consequences. life before social media was wild
I think more importantly, the point is there will always be people who get off on causing physical harm and emotional distress to others they will look for means they can get away with they become cops, soldiers, teachers, volunteers and they choose their victims carefully