Why is there so much violence recently in schools?
It is almost too much to wrap my thoughts around, with the recent shooting in Pennsylvania, it seems the violence is coming closer and closer to home.
From Foxnews.com, a list of the most recent shootings in the country:
A list of some fatal shootings at U.S. schools in recent years:
— 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.
— 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.
— 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.
— 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.
For the rest of the list, here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,217102,00.html
I am not sure what these shootings mean overall, but I know the implications cannot be good. The only way to have an affect on others seems to involve a gun and innocent children...when was this ever condoned as an appropriate form of action, and why is it occuring more and more frequently?
Bush plans to have a summit next week to discuss with educators and police about action to take within communities where such horrors have happened. But, how can it be prevented?
How can it be that after YEARS of shootings, NOW is the time for action? What about all of the shootings after Columbine? Why not THEN? Why do we have to wait so long before SOMETHING, ANYTHING is done? With all of these mindless killings and copycat murderers, there should be repercussions!
Considering the path we are all on, toward becoming teachers, I am strongly thinking about the danger and risk involved in entering this profession. While this weighs heavily on my mind, I am absolutely sure I would risk it. Though I say this, I do not believe it should even be something we have to consider...there is enough to worry about now...testing, reading, writing, students' literacies, etc... without having to fear for our lives.
When did our schools become a stage for violent upheavals to spill onto from society's retributions?
Why?
1 comment:
I was substituting at Homer JHS one day last year when the school was put under lockdown because two kids (sixth-graders) had threatened to bring guns to school and shoot the place up. The situation was under control, though, and I really didn't feel like I was in too much danger. I wasn't totally comfortable, but I wasn't really scared either. I just thought "hey, this is something different" and "this will make a good story."
And then I got home and watched it on the news. Seeing images of the school on my TV, I imagined what it would have been like had the kids actually brought the guns into the school and started shooting. I was ten times more scared seeing the school on the news than I was sitting inside of it.
What can be done to stop this? I have no idea. I just know that it's become painfully obvious that it can happen anywhere, and that is about as frightening as it can get.
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