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April 16, 2007

Every So Often

I comment that I may have made a student's "list."

As in, the list of "people I'm looking for the day I take my gun to campus."

I know for a fact that I am not the only teacher in the world to think about these things. I'm not even the only teacher in town to think them.

I teach at a smallish state school in a rural area of a rural state. Lots of people have guns here because, again, it's rural, and many students hunt. I've always assumed that it's possible, but not likely, that someone could snap under the pressure of succeeding in academia and decide to permanently remove those people they see as standing in their way.

It feels much more likely today than ever before.

I don't know anything about the people who have been confirmed dead at Virginia Tech. My guess is that they were just doing their jobs as best they could and trying to finish up the semester. That's what most people are doing, just trying to live their lives.

Me? I try to live my life by being the best teacher I can. By respecting my students' intelligence and challenging them when they aren't using it. I try very, very hard to not use humiliation as a teaching tool because I don't think it benefits anybody in the long run, and I love my students like they're my own babies. More or less. But I also know that I have former students who do not agree with my evaluation of their work. Who believe that I have been biased or out to get them, even though the problem is usually more to do with not doing the work.

They're welcome to their beliefs and opinions. They're welcome to post nasty evaluations about my teaching. (Some have.) And to tell other people to not take my class. They're welcome to complain to the head of my department(s). Because all those things are their right as students and citizens of a democratic and free-speaking society.

So why is it that, sometimes, people cross the line and voice their displeasure with gunpowder and bullets? Where does that come from? I can't imagine that the students in the particular classroom singled out for such horror this morning were to blame for whatever tormented the gunman. How could they have been? Again, they were just trying to live.

I've noticed that many of these incidents (Springfield, Columbine, Mississippi from the 1990s) happen at this time of year. Why? Because the deadline for success or failure is too close to avoid? Because people with SAD finally have the energy to do something (as they see it) about the unhappiness that's been dogging them all semester? And how do those around them miss the signs?

Are they too wrapped up in their own lives to see what's going on with the killer to be? Has there really been no noticeable change in behavior? Do they just chalk it up to, "He's always kind of odd, this is just another one of those things"?

And most important question of all, how do we not let this happen again?

Posted by sally at April 16, 2007 08:06 PM

Comments

In this particular case I think it was much less to do with the pressures of school and much more to do with a person who was damaged and hurt beyond repair. People did notice, people both tried to help him and tried to stop him from harm he was already doing. I fear that when it all comes out we will discover that he was an abused, harmed, deeply maimed person beyond society's help. Instead of examening things like school pressure and gun controls I want to know why we aren't in a societal outcry against the kind of abuse history tht damages a person so much as to make them do this. What breaks my heart too is that there were people who noticed, people who tried to help (his teacher was one of them) but he was too far gone and there was no policy or procedure in place to help him, or if he was beyond help (I think he was) to at least stop him and minimize the damage. The whole thing, is so sad, but I think the real question is: Why the hell are we still pretending that abuse doesn't exist, and if it does, that it doesn't produce people like this?

Posted by: Desiree [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 18, 2007 09:40 AM

See, I'm with you on this. We need to be working to be sure people don't get into this state in the first place.

I hope you're feeling better. My eyes are burning and my throat hurts and I feel like someone has sucked all of the energy out of my body. I'm doing everything I can think of to prevent the bronchitis.

Posted by: Sallyacious [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 21, 2007 10:51 PM

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