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[theinevitable]

and now the question becomes... how many teachers have thoughts like this without anything ever coming of them?

for some reason I am having thoughts of the film Minority Report.

[wombat]

So... what exactly did he do, prior to this, that singled him out as particularly imbalanced? I've read the stories he wrote that were so "shocking," and quite frankly... they tell me nothing. Lots of people write creepily violent stories-- some of them make lots of money at doing this. He harassed girls? This (depressingly) goes on so much that not much notice was taken, apparently. It seems to me that a lot of the stuff we're hearing is a clear example of hindsight being 20/20, you know?

Or am I missing something?

This is from the Washington Post:

Cho (whose full name is pronounced joh sung-wee) appears first to have alarmed the noted Virginia Tech poet Nikki Giovanni in a creative writing class in fall 2005, Giovanni said.

Cho took pictures of fellow students during class and wrote about death, she said in an interview. "Kids write about murder and suicide all the time. But there was something that made all of us pay attention closely. None of us were comfortable with that," she said.

The students once recited their poems in class. "It was like, 'What are you trying to say here?' It was more sinister," she said.

Days later, seven of Giovanni's 70 or so students showed up for a class. She asked them why the others didn't show up and was told that they were afraid of Cho.

It's hard for me to imagine that this would have only seemed like a big deal in hindsight. This isn't just a couple of teachers thinking he was a weird kid.  It's scary that someone can give as many signals as this guy seemed to and yet he didn't get any help - to make him better or to at least keep us safe from him.

[theinevitable]

dang, OK then. What little I had read seemed like it was just... hindsight. OK.

[side_show]

Just to riterate.  I'm not at all talking about creative expression.  I didn't mention that once.  I'm an artist myself, and I know there is a separation between my work and me.  Not everything is autobiography.  Except maybe 90% of the first novels out there.  Anyway... Half the kids in our film programs think their Quentin Tarantino, and... I'm not worried about most of them.  I never judge students by the ways they choose to express themselves artistically. 

and now the question becomes... how many teachers have thoughts like this without anything ever coming of them?

I'm sorry the inev, but this is not rad - I get that you say you didn't know the facts when you posted this, but why suggest teachers aren't competent when this wasn't even on the table?  I work with educators every day, and the vast majority are there because they care about their students, and expressing caring and concern for a student is never wrong.  In the case of suspected abuse, it is the law in Canada - and as far as I understand it in the US too - that we report this to Child and Family services and leave it to professionals in the field to assess whether our concern is legitimate or not, whether action is required or not, and if so how much.  There is no similar system for if we suspect a child of having serious mental health concerns - there should be, but there isn't - it's dealt with in the schools by councilors who are overwhelmed in dealing with special ed, esl, career & post secondary counseling, "regular" students who've misbehaved, sex ed, etc.  School councilors are not psychologists, they are not equipped to handle the profound needs of someone having a psychological breakdown. 

I deal with trouble makers and odd balls every day , and often these sorts of kids are my favorites, because they can most benefit from being given a voice, but those with serious mental health issue are an absolutely different ilk and stick out like a sore thumb.  I stress that I'm not talking about kids with mild issues here, I'm talking about young people who are unable to function appropriately, who are isolated by their illness, their own actions and/or other students' fear or disdain of them.  I know exactly what to do if a student exhibits behavior that points to him/her being abused, but there is similar route to follow if a student's behavior points to him/her suffering from mental health issues.

The instructor of Cho's class mentioned in wombat's post said she would quit if he was not removed from the class.  In response to this the head of the English department sent him an email request stating that she needed to meet with him, he replied with a threatening and incoherent message, she pressed him to meet with her, he did, and since he agreed to see a councilor the English chair said she was was unable to expell him due to policy and had no option but to independently tutored him since he couldn't possibly go back to that class.  She was very concerned for his wellbeing, felt he was seriously ill, and a danger.  She went to the campus police repeatedly, first with the email he sent to her, then with verbal reports of behavior that worried her.  He was accessed as being a danger to himself and others by a school councilor in 2005, then very briefly committed due to being accessed as suicidal.  Then what?  It would be almost amusing if it weren't so tragic to look at how people are hustled through the mental health system, how after care (unless initiated by the patient) is a joke.  Cho got released.  A lot of people died.

[theinevitable]

I wasn't trying to suggest that teachers are incompetent. What I am/was saying is that a lot of people might think that a kid is "disturbed" if he wrote about that kind of stuff, and in the majority of cases the kid does not shoot up the school. It is more an issue of teachers not being psychologists. It's often easy to misinterpret stuff.

Although obviously, it seems that in this case it was pretty extreme behavior, if it was making kids want to avoid class.

[RMJ12345]

Although obviously, it seems that in this case it was pretty extreme behavior, if it was making kids want to avoid class.

I would think that this kind of situation would have to be really extreme for students to miss workshop. I've been in a lot of creative writing workshops, and I've seen violent and disturbing stuff. Not once have I ever, ever, ever thought of skipping class for fear of a student being a danger. It takes a lot to make 90% of a class of serious students see something that goes beyond creative expression and into this other realm.

I don't know. I just can't imagine encountering a student like that.

[side_show]

Indeed teachers are not psychologists, which is why, like I said before there needs to be an option in place similar to the sort of action taken if a teacher suspects abuse - where if a teacher suspects mental illness that s/he can report the issue to a professional psychologist who can analyze whether this is the case or not, and if any sort of treatment is necessary, put it in to action.  An emergency abuse report is addressed by an agent within 24hrs, and I'm saying mental health issues need to be taken just as seriously.  Having made abuse reports and spoken to CFS agents before they always tell me the same thing - they'd rather investigate a dozen reports that turn out to unfounded, than not be reported to about that one kid who ends up beaten to death by a parent.  And I really feel the same would be said for saving the life of a suicidal student, or preventing a student from acting out in violence.

[theinevitable]

yes-- we definitely agree on that. I just worry about the kids who are going to be freaked-out at after this-- just like what happened after Columbine.

[KeithHernandez]

Well, he is paying to be there.  Maybe public high schools, but in this situation there is really nothing you can do in that situation unless he wants to go or commits a crime.  Otherwise you would have to give him his money back and make him leave I guess, and that isn't going to happen at a University.  They are businesses too.

Also, as to the kids freaked out thing, there was a guy who walked into our college gym at 9am Tuesday.  He was carrying an umbrella because it was raining.  Someone thought it was a rifle, the president sent a warning email, and then, an hour later, another one came saying they think it was a yoga mat.  An hour after that, the guy "turned himself in" and said it was an umbrella.  They emailed us that too.

[theinevitable]

I meant more along the "you wear black, are you going to shoot up the school? The last people to shoot up a school wore black."

[CortJstr]

At work we were supposed to wear Tech stuff on Friday. At the bottom of my drawer I found and old "Partnership for a Hokie-free nation" shirt. Needless to say I just wen ahead and threw that away.

Also, on Friday I drove past the South Korean embassy and their flag was a half staff.

[Carlos del Vaca]

Thanks, AW, for saying something that I've been thinking but haven't seen articulated much.  If we got as up in arms about the killing of random Middle Eastern people as we did about what happened in Blacksburg, things would be mighty different.

Lotta Hokies in my building.  The shooter and two of the victims went to the high school where my kids are projected to go.  As one might imagine, folks are pretty shaken up around here.