Dear Old Golden Rule Days
March, 2001
For
the fourth time in as many years, I've written about school shootings
in this country -- starting with Mikael Nickolauson, a young man
buried with full military honors after being shot in the cafeteria
in Oregon -- and ending with the killing of two and the wounding
of 13 at Santana High School in Santee, California. And that's
how we hear it today, again and again, the killing of two and
the wounding of 13. Names? Oh, they're there someplace but the
emphasis is on the perpetrator and not at all on the victims.
We may scan the growing floral tribute before interviewing the
best friend of the gunman. We learn all about shooter Charles
"Andy" Williams, right down to his chummy nickname, and try to
determine why this nice boy would do such a thing.
Over these years of shootings where those interviewed later offer
some variation of "this happens in other places, but never here,
not in this neighborhood, not in this school," we see a sick pattern
emerging. One student ran home to change before local camera crews
started asking them how they felt. Another spoke of media attention
to them not the loss of their classmates. They appear to be desensitized
-- is it because of television or movies or is it from seeing
the news playing out previous tragedies so graphically, showing
grieving students so dramatically, so noble in their hours of
mourning? They play a role. No criticism here. Someday they'll
be embarrassed but right now they're kids. This is what kids do
when their pictures will be in the paper.
It's the spin the grownups put on these tragedies that defy explanation.
"It's a gun problem." So, we have zero tolerance for guns and
last week California Congressman Duncan Hunter sponsored H.Con.Res.57
"condemning the heinous atrocities that occurred on March 5, 2001
at Santana High School ... a gunman opened fire ... killing two
students and wounding 13 others."
In part, the Resolution stated: "That the Congress .. encourages
communities to implement a wide range of violence prevention services
for the Nation's youth; and encourages the people of the United
States to engage in a national dialogue on preventing school violence."
The resolution was unanimously passed.
We'll see what happens there and, as for here, I'll offer my half
of the dialogue on preventing school violence. Young Williams
father was in complete compliance with gun safety and his handgun
was locked in a cabinet. His son stole the key. He didn't obey
his father and he stole something that didn't belong to him.
The school was in compliance, entering the end of its three-year
period using a grant from the Department of Justice to study the
school's poisonous "culture of bullying." More psycho-babble.
The bullying Williams endured was having his new skateboards stolen;
a classmate harassed him in front of everybody, and his closest
friend from his old neighborhood was killed.
The first incident was thievery -- report it. The second was bullying
and embarrassing. The third was serious because that friend could
have identified with how he felt and talked him through it. He
needed that friend, he wanted that friend, and to take my supposition
further, he wanted to join that friend -- but taking his own life
without fixing blame elsewhere would admit weakness, an impression
he was trying to live down.
After all the other shootings, we tried to profile the typical
gunman. Statistics gave us fatherless homes, yet Williams lived
with his father, functioning very well in this motherless home.
There is no common denominator in any of the shootings of the
past few years. We keep trying to attribute these "happenings"
to some bonafide condition or syndrome so we can cure it. We don't
want to believe it could happen so we make up reasons why it did.
The police psychologists classified young Williams as an "avenger
mentality" profile -- whatever that means. In layman terms, I'll
suggest it means, "Don't get mad, get even."
The answer must be somewhere, we reason; so, it must be in the
schools. Do they need more money? Not according to New York's
Mayor Rudy Giuliani who was booed by a national conference of
teachers and administrators for suggesting more money was not
an answer. He then said, "Excuse me, but I don't think [public
school education] is working the way it should be. The reality
is, New York City spends $12 billion on its school system. If
you can't do a better job than you are doing right now, it is
not because of the money, it is because of the system." Or, maybe
it's because God isn't in the classroom. After a long quiet time
I decided that God's absence from the classroom is not the reason
for the presence of violence. My entire eight years in elementary
school were spent under portraits and statues and the watchful
eyes of Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the angels and Saints. We prayed
before, during, and after ... everything. And yet, after devoting
thought to this today, I have to say I learned nothing in those
years that I didn't already know before First Grade.
During those years when God was in the classroom, in both public
and parochial schools, I learned recitations and committed to
memory the seven deadly sins as easily as the multiplication tables
... but knowing the names of sins is not what prevents your committing
them. I had an invisible angel on one shoulder and an invisible
devil on the other. Which one was going to win my attention when
I faced the forbidden cookie jar? I was being gently guided to
form my conscience.
Before I ever entered a classroom, I knew that I had to honor
my mother and father. Why? Because they said so. Okay, so Moses
showed us the writings first, but we don't need him in the classroom
to reiterate what our parents tell us is right. Parents appropriately
punish bad behavior or they give permission for it to continue
-- and worsen, as children stretch the boundaries ... and they
will.
Can we not question the assumptions the experts are making about
teenage violence before accepting what "they" say? If every person
who is bullied pulls a gun and opens fire -- and then has defenders
trying to understand his motivation so as to excuse his behavior,
well, we're looking at what is known as "the orphan's plea," you
know, where a kid kills his parents and then throws himself on
the mercy of the court because he's an orphan.
That was once a joke! Now it's a syndrome. As a nation, we're
becoming just like the battered housewife who keeps going back
to the same old situation expecting it to change. We have a problem
and we have experts to solve the problem yet all they seem to
do is conduct polls to see how we would deal with it. And, we'll
blame everybody -- but not us. The schools say it's the parents;
the parents say it's the schools; they both say it's the media
and the kids have nothing to say. That part, at least, is as it
should be.
There is still another answer coming which, to me, will be the
least effective of all. New to what we might call a career path,
there is the Violence Prevention Consultant. Two career educators
are leaving their administrative positions in education to travel
across America. Why? Consultant Howard Haas, had this novel idea
of "carrying an extremely simple and complicated question to our
children: 'Why are you killing each other?'"
Mind you, this is a whole crusade. Wanting to take nothing away
from their zeal, I will applaud their looking for answers. http://www.childrenscrusade.com/meet.htm
But the question, "Why are you killing each other?" is the problem,
and the problem is in asking children ... anything.
There are certain things you learn by living long enough, and
I've learned this: You don't ask children anything -- you tell
them. You tell them early and you tell them often and you tell
them over and over again. They'll learn the rules, especially
if you start with the golden rule and use it at home, regularly.
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