| School Shootings | |
In light of the recent school shootings, special guest author Barbara Sehr, has written a
very powerful and insightful essay on the important lessons we need to teach our children.
The National Hand-Wringing has begun again, - just as it did just a few months ago - when America's silence was shattered once again by bullets flying in a school yard.
What can we do?
What can the Legislature do?
What can parents do?
As usual, we seek someone to bear the cross and resurrect our national character. Yet, the answer will not come from the halls of state or national government, or even a tear-soaked PTA meeting. The answer is within all of us who can understand the simple chemistry that causes us to respect a "No Smoking" sign at the gasoline pump.
We have, unfortunately, a society made up of volatile elements that can explode when exposed to an incendiary neglect, together with the proximity of gasoline in the form of freely available weapons. In Springfield, Oregon, Jonesborro, Arkansas; Pearl, Mississippi; Paducah, Kentucky; and too many other places in this country, the result has been far more damaging to our national consciousness than a series of underground nuclear tests in India, just a week ago. I am not a chemist, nor am I a doctor of psychology, a government official or even a PTA member. So who am I to offer my observations?
Tragedy in Springfield and Parental Responsibility
I am someone who can identify all too much with the young teenagers who vented their anger in blazing gunfire. True, I grew up in a different generation, and to this day, I could never imagine taking out my anger on an annoying housefly, nevertheless fellow students. Fortunately, I was blessed with an ability to put my anger into written words. But not all who face the slings and arrows of a society that places huge reward in conformity are equally blessed.
"We want an America that is more like the Waltons, and less like the Simpsons," President George Bush told America not long ago.
All of us want our children to grow up and be popular, morally upright and motivated by visions of leadership. Woe unto those who don't meet the standards of white middle class perfection. Perfection in the school yard, is rarely defined by high intelligence, superior knowledge of subject matter, or even leading the debate team. Remember that being a teenager is a time when a misplaced zit can bring on suicidal ideation. Being a non-conformist as a teenager means letting your hair grow long, wearing your baseball cap backwards and wearing the same jeans as everyone else. Leadership is rarely appointed upon those those who would celebrate diversity.
I still remember living the silent anger of my continued shunning at social events and other situations in school. I faced not only the public humiliation of being an immigrant with still little command of English, I faced the internal pain of dealing with gender identity issues. Yes, I was a good student, did well in tests and often had teachers who were friends. I overcame my challenge with English by not only learning the language, but celebrating it like few natives.
But in the atmosphere of a school, I knew that even trusting a teacher with my private thoughts would mark me with a Scarlet brush that would be more enduring than the feared "permanent record." Worst of all, I couldn't even imagine or trust that there were other students in the same school who faced a similar private silence because of their own issues.
Once the subject of ridicule, the road to trust in fellow human beings is forever clouded. Selecting a road marked by gunfire or other violence, as opposed to a road leading to individual understanding, is more complex than piloting a space shuttle through a meteor shower. Even at this point of my life, several solar systems from my youth, the showers still surprise me and, on occasion, add another dent to my battered exterior.
We live in a society that is forced to send adults to "sensitivity training," in order to accept living and working with others whose exteriors and interiors show signs of battering. Yet, the sensitivities learned are rarely passed on by a parent whose children may encounter a Kinkel Kipland in a schoolyard. We teach our children to look for the other Walton children that we know we are sending to school each day. We teach our children to be tolerant, even if you should run into "one of those deviant homosexuals." We teach our children to "celebrate people from other lands," just don't bring them home to dinner.
Children are not born capable of killing.
Children are not born capable of hate.
These are learned behaviors. It is time we told "John-Boy," that there is a brighter future ahead if he and everyone else began to reach out to the struggling Bart Simpsons. The choice is building sensitivity detectors in our children's minds, or building metal detectors around our communities.The choice is building sensitivity detectors in our children's minds, or building metal detectors around our communities...
Please stop by our bulletin board and leave your comments or opinions about this very important issue.
Other About Links:
- School Shootings Addressed
US Government/Resources Guide Robert Longley has an excerpt from the Presidential press briefing held on May 21, 1998 focusing on the tragic outbreak of school shootings. - Kip Kinkel's Parents Were Normal Parents of Teens
Parenting of Adolescents Guide Denise Witmer looks at Kip Kinkel's parents' efforts to help their troubled teen.