Where Do We Go From Here? - October 05, 2006

Okay, I can't even muster a little bit of tact or humor at the moment. I've sat and thought...tried the ole counting to 10 approach, but try as I might...I can't come up with even a little bit of calmness or find my "happy" place about this subject.
WTF is WRONG with society today??

— April 24, 2003: 14-year-old James Sheets shot and killed the principal in the crowded cafeteria of a junior high school in south-central Pennsylvania, before killing himself.

— Nov. 22, 2004: Sixteen-year-old Desmond Keels is accused of fatally shooting one student and wounding three others outside Strawberry Mansion High in Philadelphia. The attack apparently was over a $50 debt in a rap contest. Keels is set to stand trial on murder charges later this month.

— March 21, 2005: Sixteen-year-old Jeff Weise shot and killed five schoolmates, a teacher and an unarmed guard at a high school on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota before taking his own life. Weise had earlier killed his grandfather and his grandfather's companion.

— Aug. 24, 2006: Christopher Williams, 27, went to an elementary school in Essex, Vermont, looking for his ex-girlfriend, a teacher. He couldn't find her and fatally shot one teacher and wounded another, police said. Williams also killed his ex-girlfriend's mother, according to authorities. He shot himself twice in the head after the rampage, but survived and was arrested.

— Sept. 27, 2006: Duane Morrison, 53, took six girls hostage at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo. Morrison, sexually assaulting them and using them as human shields for hours before fatally shooting one girl and killing himself.

— Sept. 29, 2006: 15-year-old Eric Hainstock brought two guns to a school in rural Cazenovia, Wis., and fatally shot the principal, a day after the principal gave him a disciplinary warning for having tobacco on school grounds, police said.

— Oct. 2, 2006: A milk-truck driver carrying three guns and a childhood grudge stormed a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, sent the boys and adults outside, barricaded the doors with two-by-fours, and then opened fire on a dozen girls, killing three people before committing suicide. The toll is now 5 little girls dead and one that is currently on life support that is planned to be removed soon...two of the girls were from the same family.

Over the past 3 weeks, but increasingly so in the past 4 to 5 years...the amount of violence aimed at our children and educators in places once thought to be safe harbors (at times even from their home lives) has been increasingly escalating. It used to be the worst thing we had to worry about was the occasional fist fight or catching students writing in the bathroom stalls or maybe smoking on campus. In this electronic age, we now also battle cell phones, over medicated children and lack of respect for authority...nothing too unexpected and are still more or less dealt with without too much angst.

What we now have to deal with is real physical danger to teachers and students alike. For some reason, the gloves are off and societal rules seem not to apply anymore...our children and those that teach them are considered fair game for anyone with a grudge to settle...for anyone that wants to go out with a bang, but is too cowardly to do it by their own hand and instead chooses suicide by police. But hey, you'll be famous and remembered, right?? Never mind the fact that you're ruining countless lives of people you don't know AND of those in your own family in the process...it's all about satisfying your OWN urges and ending your OWN problems, at anyone's expense...RIGHT??

I have sat and watched the last tragic event that has unfolded this week in that one room schoolhouse in Pennsylvania. An adult...that had no connection to the school or it's children walked in and changed so many lives in the attempt to end the torment of his own demons. It was not only a senseless brutal crime, but a horrific one that graphically illustrates that boundaries have been breached that we once as a society thought sacred.

Just today, there were several more incidents...one of which involved a called in bomb threat that closed an entire school system in one county in Virginia on Thursday as they searched the schools. In yet another, 2 girls are being sought over a threatening phone call one high school received about their Freshman football team. It goes on and on. We can't afford to let even the slightest innuendo or perception of a threat pass anymore on the chance that it's a hoax.

I wish I could say that I think such incidents will stop here...that somehow we'll grab hold of the problems and fix them in some way...but I'm afraid I don't truly believe that will happen. In my heart, I know that this is only the beginning. Some schools are already being turned into places of high security, but most haven't caught on yet to even basic security precautions that could be in place. Doors are left propped open...visitors allowed to wander freely...and in Georgia, schools are used as Voting/Polling places even during school hours bringing tons of strangers in contact with children. None of which has EVER made sense to me as a parent or teacher.

Yes, as in air travel...such things as actually KEEPING doors locked, checking in at the office and having to have a visitor's pass even to have lunch with your child or showing ID to check out a child (or be on their approved list) might be inconvient and time consuming...but it IS neccesary. No one hates the thought more than I do of having to have metal detectors at the entrances of schools or of spreading fear to our kids, but the growing trend of making a final stand in schools for anyone that has a problem or psychosis is growing.

In a seminar about 5 or 6 years ago for educators, I sat in the course...watching an instructional video tape that included information about the "best" least threatening way to break up a fight in the classroom or hallways and then went on to show the proper way to try and turn your body if someone pulls a gun on you so that IF you're shot, it might miss vital organs....and wondered how education had gotten to this point. I wrote a "funny" ironic view of the future of teaching a while back that I always intended to post as a blog about teachers being required to undergo a training course at Paris Island before getting their degree, that is now too close to home given the events of the past few weeks.

As a parent and a teacher I'm outraged that it's now becoming acceptable to bring such violence into our schools. School should be a place of learning...of fun...a time for innocence before the weight of adulthood overtakes us and we lose our childlike outlook and optimism...a safe habor from harm. It should NOT be a place where we have to fear...to worry...to constantly add even more pressure and stark reality that the world isn't such a nice place anymore to those we should be protecting and raising. The lessons we even have to teach in guidance and health nowdays make me shake my head over having to shatter illusions that could be held onto years ago for a little while longer before we grew up.

Do I have hope though? Yes...I do. I look into the faces of the children I teach...I still see so much hope and possbility in their eyes. I hope we can keep that hope alive...let them be children just a little while longer. One day they will have so much to face in this changing world and we as adults will pass the torch on to them to carry. I hope we haven't totally disillusioned them before that happens.

Our children are our future. As adults, it's our job to show them the way...the RIGHT ways to behave...not to selfishly put ourselves first or to put them in harm's way. We better wake up, and it better be soon.