Stop School Violence!
There has been lots of media coverage over the tragic shooting rampage at Northern Illinois University at DeKalb, which left 6 people dead. It now appears that the shooter was an excellent former student with a history of mental problems. Apparently he went off his medication and the result is numerous injured and six dead.
In the wake of the reporting of the tragedy, many comparisons are being made to the Virginia Tech massacre. And, in a spirit of trying to understand what is happening on our campuses, the arguments for and against gun control have been renewed and the slayings at Columbine have been hashed over.
On this blog, I try to share with you all the information I can gather about problems in our education system, and the rare but wonderful techniques that ARE working with students in the USA and around the globe.
The information I have for you today is scary. While most of the news stories have been focusing on NIU, there have been shootings and killings going on in schools across the country at an ever-increasing rate.
2008 may well be remembered for the number of students killed on campus.
Starting early in the year:
- Jan. 4th, a 17 year old junior was shot and killed by another junior at Tacoma’s Foss High School.
- Jan. 11th, at Mitchell High School in Memphis, Tennessee, a sophomore girl shot a senior girl twice in gym class, wounding her critically. The shooter then handed the gun to the coach, saying, “It’s over now.”
- Just this week alone, there have been five shootings and a shooting threat, in addition to the UIN rampage.
- Last Thursday a school shooting took place in Portsmouth, Ohio.
- On Friday, Louisiana Tech in Baton Rouge was the shooting site.
- Tuesday, at a Junior High School in Oxnard, California, a student was left brain-dead from a gunshot wound.
- Just yesterday, on Friday, drive-by shootings took place in Las Vegas, Nevada at both Palo Verde High School and at Whitney Elementary. A 9th grade boy later died.
- Finally, also on Friday, Lakeside Middle School in Anderson, South Carolina, discovered a student with a history of mental illness threatening to “create another Columbine”.
We have so many problems in education in the USA. Everyone is scambling for solutions to the dismal reading, math and science results that have made our schools the laughingstock of the globe. Some blame teachers, others blame parents, and some blame the media and society at large. There are some teachers who should not be teaching. There are parents who are unfit, and many more who don’t know how to parent. The media glamorizes sex and violence 24 hours a day. And there are so many societal problems contributing to the breakdown of families, homes and schools that something MUST be done.
Why is it so difficult to make people realize that we must unite to force the needed changes in our schools and in our society?
If it doesn’t get better, it can only get worse.
Brennan Kingsland, RN, BSOM, CHN
Filed under: Education News
When I was in high school there was such a thing as a “fair fight”. Not that I’m condoning violence, not at all.
But now kids are bringing knives and guns to school. This has to STOP!
Perhaps the first place to start is with logic. It’s clear that we that are parents need to do a better job raising our children - and many of us don’t want to admit this. when I was a child this type of stuff didn’t happen very often, at the same time ammunition and guns were much easier to get than today. So guns and knives are not the problem.
So perhaps a better method would be for parents and teachers (mostly parents) to teach respect and responsibility to children. stop blaming violent tv, violent games, knives and guns because basically you’re just making excuses - get to work on the hard stuff - raising moral and good children.