On Feb. 27, a teenager -- reportedly a victim of bullying and something of a social outcast -- walked into a Cleveland high school and opened fire in the cafeteria, killing two students and wounding three others. The teenager, identified as T.J. Lane, has been taken into police custody. Now media pundits are speculating on who or what is to blame for this latest spate of violence.
Yet we've been caught in the grip of a cycle of school violence that started almost 20 years ago. It was February 1997 when a 16-year-old Alaskan boy pulled out a shotgun and killed his principal and another student. Two years later, on April 20, 1999, two teenagers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, opened fire on classmates and teachers at Columbine High School, killing 12 students and one teacher and leaving 24 others wounded.
Then, on October 10, 2006, a 13-year-old seventh grade boy, apparently fascinated with the 1999 Columbine High School bloodbath, carried an assault rifle into his Joplin, Missouri, middle school. Dressed in a dark green trench coat and wearing a mask, he pointed the rifle at fellow students and fired a shot into the ceiling before the weapon jammed. This was no spur-of-the-moment act. It was a planned attack. The student's backpack contained military manuals, instructions on assembling an improvised explosive device and detailed drawings of the school. Moments before he fired the rifle, the boy said to a school administrator, "Please don't make me do this."
The outbreak of school shootings that have taken place over the past two decades has forced school officials, public leaders and parents to search for ways to prevent further bloodshed. In their attempts to make the schools safer, students have been forced to deal with draconian zero tolerance policies, heightened security, routine locker checks, guard dogs, metal detectors and numerous other invasions of their property and privacy.
Despite the precautions (all of which have proven to be altogether ineffective), other student-led shooting sprees and bloodshed followed, culminating with the most recent incident. To be sure, the instinctive response to this latest school shooting will be to appease parents by adopting measures that provide the appearance of increased security. However, enacting tighter zero tolerance policies and installing more metal detectors in the schools will do little to advance the dialogue on why such shootings happen in the first place.
One thing is clear: there are no easy solutions. In fact, there's so much that we don't know about school shooters. For example, a 2002 U.S. Secret Service report on school violence, based on interviews with students who had planned and executed school shootings, found that there is no profile for a school shooter. Shooters come from many types of families and from all incomes, races and academic backgrounds. And there are no easy explanations -- such as mental illness, drugs or video games -- for their actions.
Moreover, as the Secret Service report found, the shooters plan their shootings in advance. They "did not snap." According to the report, most shooters told their friends what they were planning. But the friends neither reported what they had been told nor tried to stop the shooters. And when the Secret Service asked former school shooters what they would have done if a teacher had asked them what was wrong, the shooters said they would have told the adult the truth, including their plans. But are we adults listening? As one school shooter recalls, "Most of them don't care. I just felt like nobody cared. I just wanted to hurt them."
In struggling to understand the teenage mind -- and find some motivation for the rash of school shootings of the past several years -- public leaders have targeted everything from the negative influence of movies to music to violent video games. Now the scapegoat seems to be bullying and peer pressure.
Evidently, something more sinister than disgruntled students is at work here. While there are conditions -- such as peer pressure, low self-esteem, childhood abuse, etc. -- that can trigger or facilitate violent behavior, we're facing a crisis that goes much deeper, one that has as much to do with a lack of spirituality and morality as it does with education, relationships and culture.
Young people have unfortunately become the casualties of our age. They know that something is dreadfully wrong, but many adults, busy trying to make ends meet and keep pace with the demands of work and raising a family, often do not hear when the kids scream for help. For example, at least one in 10 young people now believe life is not worth living. A 2009 survey of 16- to 25-year-olds by the Prince's Trust found "a significant core" for whom life had little or no purpose, especially among those not in school, work or training. More than a quarter of those polled felt depressed and were less happy than when they were younger. And almost "half said they were regularly stressed and many did not have anything to look forward to or someone they could talk to about their problems."
Paul Brown, director of communications at the Prince's Trust, noted that the study showed that there are thousands of young people who "desperately" need help: "Often, young people who feel they have reached rock bottom don't know where to turn for help." Family relationships help, but too often because of the fractured modern family, little support can be found in the family setting.
Indeed, our young people are members of a lost generation -- raised in a world where life has little to no value, the almighty dollar takes precedence and values are taught by primetime sitcoms and Saturday morning cartoons. They are being raised by television and the Internet and nourished on fast food. They are seeking comfort wherever they can find it -- in sex, drugs, music, each other. They are searching for hope and finding few answers to their questions about the meaning of life.
More so than any previous generation, young people are growing up in an age of overwhelming mass media, mixed messages and multitasking. The average American child lives in a house with 2.9 TVs, 1.8 VCRs, 3.1 radios, 2.6 tape players, 2.1 CD players and a computer. Forty-two percent of American homes are "constant TV households," meaning that a set is on most of the time. The average American watches television about four hours per day, and it consumes 40 percent of his or her free time.
Gone is the innocence of childhood. In a multitude of ways, children have been adultified, and their childhood is disappearing. Today's young people often know more about sex, drugs and violence than their adult counterparts. By the year 2000, 25 percent of U.S. teens were involved with weapons; 70 percent admitted cheating on tests in school; more than 15 percent had shown up for class drunk; and five million children -- including three-year-olds -- were regularly left home alone to care for themselves. As University of Edinburgh professor Stuart Aitken writes,
In short, the sense of a so-called disappearance of childhood is, in actuality, about the loss of a stable, seemingly natural foundation for social life that is clearly linked not only to laments over the lost innocence of childhood, but also a growing anger at and fear of young people.
No wonder life seems so meaningless to so many. According to a June 2009 study, 15 percent of American teens who were in 7th through 12th grades believe they will die before age 35 -- a perspective strongly linked to risky behavior. Activities related to such a pessimistic view of the future include attempting suicide, using illegal drugs, sustaining fight-related injuries that require medical care, engaging in unprotected sex, being arrested by the police and contracting HIV or AIDS.
Wherever these young people turn, life is chaotic -- wars, violence, environmental crises, oil depletion and terrorism, to name a few. Children are confronted on a daily basis with issues, images and material of all sorts -- abortion, drugs, alcohol, pornography -- and preyed upon by sexual predators, marketing mavens, even the government. Although teenagers can cope with a number of emotional hazards, with each additional hazard introduced, their resilience -- like soldiers in combat too long -- diminishes to such an extent that breakdowns are imminent. As Cornell University professor James Gabarino recognizes, one of the key factors leading to violence is a "spiritual emptiness" that brings on a feeling of not being connected to anything, of having no limits for behavior and no reverence for life.
Dr. James P. Comer, professor of psychiatry at Yale University's Child Study Center, suggests that in order to treat the damage done to the next generation,
We're going to have to work at systematically recreating the critical elements of community that once existed naturally. We can't go back to the past, but there was a time when people cared about each other and would look out for each other.
Is anyone listening?
Follow John W. Whitehead on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rutherford_inst
Greg Perreault: Faith Fueled Violence Invades Video Games
My husband's family are overseas so I do not have that to lean on.
When the kids have come back from overseas they went through an unhappy period. They started blaming me for a lot of things. They are over it now. There were a lot of words to ensure that they were of the utmost importance to me. They like living here because there is more public activity. However I also realise that they miss overseas and the wealth of family connections. Watching TV is not the same as interacting with someone.
This site is quite interesting in explaining the different brain waves that happen with different activities.
http://www.causeof.org/brainwaves.htm
I also have my kids in after school activities. They swim, do athletics and soccer. I find that they also get very edgy and worn out.
From such little things a mindset that dehumanizes can arise. Angry? Upset? Feeling disrespected? just shoot some of those 'things' and you'll feel better.
It remains to be seen if Subliminal Distraction caused this one too.
Anyone with a computer at home or a child in high school, college should be aware of Subliminal Distraction. It makes a difference where you locate your desktop computer and how you use your laptop.
That being said, I think the biggest part of the problem is bullying and isolation. I also think social networking has made the problem worse because now the humiliation and torment are shared internationally. We can say "It Gets Better" until we're blue in the face, but saying it doesn't make it so. Eavesdropping at a restaurant, listening to parents, reading the paper, TV, etc., and it's clear that the bullies still thrive. And watching their parents work and work and work and still get nowhere while some bully on TV says it's their own fault for being stupid, watching reality TV where it's all about taking advantage of the weak.
Unless this whole country has a miraculous metamorphosis and start celebrating ALL individuals, acknowledging that people have value just being human, nothing is going to change, and if we continue the path we're on, it can't help but get worse.
it is guns because they are available in numbers that you do not see in other western developed countries and those other countries do not have the shootings.
See Larry Tucker's comment about computers and Subliminal distraction. This is a broader explanation of a lot of incidents not just these shootings.
But the shootings have only happened since computers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting
STOP!. It is long past time for a paradigm shift. How about, instead of obsessing over the object used, we instead focus on the actual causes of violence? Things like ethics, education, economics, and the glorification of violence?
If our kids throw rocks through windows, we don't restrict access to rocks. We address the behavior and what caused it.
"While there are conditions -- such as peer pressure, low self-esteem, childhood abuse, etc. -- that can trigger or facilitate violent behavior"
The description peer preasure and low self-esteem sounds like elements of bullying to me. The author does not list any experience in mental health or school administraton and yet he takes bullying out of the equation? Looking at the authors bio there is no reference to teaching, counseling, or mental helth of any sort. So why should I take his opinion on mental health as an expert opinion?
Imagine the increased pressure of such environments then add a few gallons of angst and poor coping skills - maybe a scoop of bullying, a dash of unsupportve destructive home environments, easy access to a Glock or Mac-10, and constant yammering about 2nd amendment solutions. Why is anybody surprized at the outcome?
I was a senior in High School in NJ when Columbine happened. I still don't think I'm over it. I keep thinking of different articles I read not long after it happened. They had things depicting violence all over their room and had written about this in journals. How did they buy guns unnoticed? The parent's weren't paying attention. Teens might not out right say their thoughts but if something troubling is on their minds, their behaviors are altered. Attentive parents notice that change and talk with them about their issues. Being a teenager is hard, guidance (without feeling like you are being told what to do) is needed.
My son is 2 1/2 and started preschool in January. It didn't take long for him to talk about "angry birds" I used to hate the "trash pack" toy my mom got him but I'll take that over something that associates "angry" with "cool". That's not how I want his views to develop.