It's all over Canadian news too.
This has effected me pretty deeply. Probably because I am sick and weakend and so worn out that watching TV is the only thing I can do that doesn't cause my head to spin. Also because I spend a lot of time working for/with large groups of young people. I keep refreshing pages, flipping between news channels. I keep asking myself what I'm looking for, what I hope to find... but it's nothing. There is nothing that will make this make sense to me. The media coverage is disgusting and glorifying, and I can't turn away because it's such a clear picture of what the world is coming to.
Even though I'm anti-gun in everyway, I totally believe this is not a gun controle issue at all.
Other artists and educators are usually in disagreement with me when it comes to my opposition to inclusive education of all children. Incorporating students with mental disabilities, and chemical/emotional problems into classrooms of students of their own age level is basically the standard for all young people here (and I'm guessing in most of the US). For kids with these issues who have mild-to-moderate challenges, I see and know that it's beneficial for both the students with disabilities and the rest of their peers to be in a classroom together. What see more and more, and what I deeply oppose is kids included in public school classrooms that are so significantly imbalanced or delayed that they are not with peers at all - they are with people their own age, yes, but not with peers. I personally know educators who have been physically assaulted a students with a long list of previous inappropriate behavior, and come back the next day to find the student still in the class, the issue barely address with the student and parent(s). My friends are told these students need the socialization rather than to be disciplined or placed in a program where the students' difficulties can be properly addressed. Inclusive education works for some, but not all, and not recognizing this is a huge failing of the school system. There needs to be an opportunity within reach for students with severe disturbances to be removed from a system that can not help them. There needs to be an opportunity for educators to participate in identifying young people who have severe emotional or chemical imbalance, and schools where these students can go to both learn and get the treatment they need. There is this politically correct notion that everyone can fit in and belong, but it's simply not true. Some people need to be institutionalized to protect themselves and society.
I was recently talking to a teacher who told me of an extremely disturbed student in her class - the behavior he exhibits is highly, highly dangerous to himself and fellow students. The actions the teacher witnessed and described to me were so outside the realm of healthy behavior that I was shaken. The school system sent an agent in to assess the child. The agent observed the child for less than a half hour, with absolutely no interaction with the child, and upon leaving, the agent told this teacher that as far as he was concerned the child did not need a teaching aid, or to be taught differently than any of the other students. Treatment is too expensive to be dolled out. This teacher was nearly in tears as she told me she was left alone, with nearly thirty students and this one child who at the very least would grow to live a very unhappy, lonely adult life, and at very worst become one of those young men who make the news for lashing out.
When I hear about a young man like Seung-Hui, all I can think is that I've met kids just like him. Kids I know will end up doing violent, horrible things - maybe in the privacy of their homes to people who will suffer it in silence, or in a grand media splashed public event. I've know people so mentally ill that both they and society would benefit from their placement in a mental health facility for as long as it takes to make their conditions manageable in significant concrete ways, even if that day never comes. But we don't do that. We wait for kids like this to act out in worse and worse ways, waiting for them to get caught doing something criminal so we can finally toss them in the justice system. A frustrated teacher, physically assaulted by a student once asked me "what does it take? Does a kid have to kill someone now for anything to be done?"
This is not at all to excuse this horrific act. No matter how unhealthy the person, they do not get a free pass. But what I am saying is the problem is deeply systemic.
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Topic: Massacre at Virginia Tech (Read 12399 times)