A high school near Chicago has been playing Justin Bieber’s hit song “Baby” which may be the worst and most annoying song ever and has said that they’ll only stop playing it at every period break if the kids pony up and donate to save a local arts center.
Consider this Reason to Homeschool Part 3,597.
The HuffPo reports:
A suburban Chicago high school fundraising to save a popular arts center is motivating students to donate with an earsplitting incentive: pay up and they’ll stop blasting Justin Bieber’s “Baby” during passing periods.
Evanston Township High School seniors Charlotte Runzel and Jesse Chatz convinced school administrators to let them play the popstar’s biggest hit over the loudspeakers for one week, or until they’d raised $1,000, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Within three days, students had coughed up enough cash to silence the Canadian singer’s repetitive single.
Between Monday and Wednesday, the pop song, which features tween idol Justin Bieber singing the word “baby” 54 times, played through around 20 times in between classes, NBC Chicago reports. The school reportedly rebuffed student complaints, encouraging ETHS kids to play along and donate money to make the music stop.
Boocoo Cultural Center and Cafe, the high school’s nonprofit beneficiary, hosts music classes, live performances and entertainment events, and offers computer labs and recording space to the Evanston community.
I guess it’s all kind of funny and all in a way but here’s the thing. It’s kinda’ not. You’re asking these kids to shell out some real money in a school that many of them are likely forced to go to.
And let’s face it, if the US government did this to Al Qaeda detainees you’d have people screaming that this was inhuman punishment. But with our kids, it’s OK?
December 18, 2012 at 6:17 pm
Once my daughter came home from school saying she had to "donate" a specific amount of money to a charity or face a lunch detention. I was livid. I complained to the principal that my daughter had been robbed of the experience of giving her money freely.
If you are coerced, it is no longer charity. It becomes dues or, in the case of the government, taxes.
December 19, 2012 at 3:00 pm
I agree that charity should not be coerced. It's not a hugely wealthy district, according to the US News and World report ranking (it's a gold school). To meet the goal, each student would have needed to contribute less than 50 cents Evanston HS has over 2000 students. The fundraiser was to support a community center that it seems many students themselves probably took advantage of. I think it's kind of a funny stunt and pretty harmless. I feel worse for the Beibs than I do for the kids.