Monday, April 18, 2011

School Shootings: Remembering Columbine.

School Shootings: Remembering Columbine 
By Jeff Bennington author of Reunion

According to Wikipedia, the first recorded incident of school violence occurred on July 26, 1764, in what is known as the Enoch Brown Massacre where a group of Indians retaliated against the community in what is now Franklin County, Pennsylvania. According to David Dixon ten students were scalped along with their teacher in a single-room schoolhouse. All died except one student who escaped(1).

The first recorded school shooting occurred in 1871 when Chauncey Barnes shot and killed Anna Dwight, who rejected him as a suitor(2). He then committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. Since that tragic day, there have been many more school shootings. I never heard of a school shooting until that horrific day on April 20th, 1999 when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 15 (including themselves) and injured 24 others in Littleton, Colorado. To me, that was a day that marked a turn in my world-view that has since been reinforced due to the many acts of violence that have followed.

School shootings didn’t start in Columbine and they haven’t stopped since. 

Did you know there have been more acts of school violence after the Columbine massacre than those that occurred the entire century before? That’s right, there have been over 100 acts of violence, including shootings, stabbings and other methods in American schools after Columbine. 


The worst attack in school shooting history occurred on a college campus in Islamabad, Pakistan in 2007 leaving 154 students dead and another 44 injured(3). Closer to home, there was the Virginia Tech shooting among others and a school shooting as recent as February 7, 2011 in Youngstown, Ohio where one student died and 11 were injured(4). And then on March 25, 2011, in my home state, there was a school shooting in Martinsville, Indiana where a 15-year old shot another student(5). The most recently publicized shooting occurred in Rio de Janiero where 11 elementary students were gunned down(6). Of course there are many, many more that I didn’t mention.

The point is... school shootings are an ever-growing reality for us and for our children. They shoot fear into our hearts, but do they still shock us like they did in 1999? Our society has grown numb to many things, but I hope we never become so calloused that we shrug off this disease that has infected the entire human race.

The death toll is staggering. The number of students who will live the rest of their lives with scars or in wheelchairs is frightfully unfathomable. School violence is an enormous problem and yet the solution is elusive because we cannot predict the future, and according to the U.S Secret Service, it’s just too hard to profile a school shooter; their profiles are too varied(7).

As a novelist, I feel a responsibility to include social issues like school shootings into my work, because the world needs to do less escaping and more watching. When it comes to our kids I believe we need to change in a few areas. Here are a few:


  • Focus less on ourselves and pay attention to what’s going on around us. It’s not enough to hear the news that a school shooting occurred at your school and then suddenly become passionate about the cause. When that day comes, it could be too late. Your son or daughter could be the next victim, and so could mine, an absolutely frightening and unimaginable thought.

  • Be aware that there are hurting children in every school system that are on the brink of losing it and they have learned that violence has become the attention-getter-of-choice. We need to find them, listen to them, discover the source of their pain and get them help. 
  • Reject school bullying policies that are too lenient and ineffective. It's amazing how fast the government responds to a new flu strand and yet we can't seem to respond to the bullying epidemic that is spreading like wildfire.
  • Understand that human nature cannot be put in a box and that students who are bullied are absolutely unpredictable; their frontal lobes are not fully developed, leaving them susceptible to reckless and impulsive decision making.
  • Put an end to bullying now. I’m not just talking about teenage bullying; I’m talking about adult and workplace bullying as well. Children act according to the examples we set. I often sign my books by writing “Bullies Suck!” or “Life is short, don’t be a bully” but you know, bullies aren’t the only ones who suck. If I watch someone getting bullied or mistreated and do nothing about it, I’m just as guilty!

Passivity is killing us.
I’m not an expert on school violence and bullying, but I do know that people enjoy their personal space—their comfort zones. I do too. The problem is, when we live passively, life begins to get turbulent around us and we get caught off guard when reality smacks us in the face. We have to proactively investigate our children’s friends and the particulars of our kid’s social life. We have to have open lines of communication. We have to listen, and we have to find ways of helping instead of cowering to fears, ignoring the red flags and silent expressions of distress.

Ultimately, every school shooter, every bully and every victim has a story to tell. There is almost always a trail of warning signs, patterns and cries for help that were somehow overlooked. Unfortunately, knowing the stories after the violence occurs doesn’t do anyone any good. The dying spirit of a young person will only leave so many breadcrumbs on their trail to destruction before they implode and decide to take matters into their own hands. 

According to the current trends, there will be more school shootings this month and more this year than ever. Before we let another massacre hit the news, will you do something to create change? I’m not exactly sure what that is, but we have to talk about it. We have to call out the bullies. We have to reach out to the lost ones. We have to do something! What we’ve been doing isn’t working.

I believe we need to ask if this is a spiritual matter or if this is simply a matter of policy? In my opinion, the human condition is too complicated to fix by tweaking the numbers. We can’t leave this to government and bureaucratic red-tapers. Hearts and souls are not logarithmic or statutory; they’re tender and hardened and everything in between. This is a matter of personal contact and interaction, a matter of the soul, literally in our own backyards.

As a writer, I’m trying to do my part. I’m creating the impetus for a discussion and I've written a book that I hope will bring an awareness to the many issues that surround bullying and school shootings. What about you? Will you continue the conversation? Will you Twitter this article or share it on Facebook or forward it in an email? Will you talk about this with your children? Or will April 20th, become just another day awaiting the next murderous headline? We’ve had twelve tears since the Columbine massacre to think and act and change? How are we different?  How are you different?

Remember Columbine, and pray it never happens again.

Written by Jeff Bennington, the author of REUNION, a supernatural thriller that addresses school shootings, bullying and the long-term effects of trauma. Available wherever books are sold online and in stores.


1Dixon, David(2005). Never Come to Peace Again: Pontiac's Uprising and the Fate of the British Empire in North America. University of Oklahoma Press)
2New York Times. Retrieved 2011-03-12.
3BBC News. 2007-07-19. Retrieved 2008-05-13.
4ABC.News. February 7, 2011.
5Indystar.com. March 25, 2011.
6Associated Press and Salon. April 7, 2011.
7THE FINAL REPORT AND FINDINGS OF THE SAFE SCHOOL INITIATIVE: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PREVENTION OF SCHOOL ATTACKS  IN THE UNITED STATES, June 2004.

14 comments:

  1. Thanks for reading. Please, comment and retweet/share this post with everyone you know, and then ask them to do the same.

    Thank,
    Jeff

    ReplyDelete
  2. It look a lot of willpower to read this post. School shootings scare and depress the hell out of me. I'm a pretty brittle person when it comes to stuff like that and I find myself becoming really sad when I hear about something like that. I remember watching the news a couple of years ago and reading about another school shooting in Germany. I shed tears when six students were reported dead. It's just so awful when you think about it. Those students had their whole lives ahead of them. It saddens me to know that these incidents won't be the end of it, too.

    I really admire you for writing a book confronting such a distinct and ever present issue. I look books challenging moral points :).

    And I agree on needing to do more, to notice the warning signs before it's too late. When I was at school, bullies were let off with such leniency. You would be shocked if I told you some of the things bullies got away with.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Nik. Thanks for reading through it. I don't think I'd be shocked, however, if you told me your experience. I've been bullied and have seen my fair share. I had to stand up to one myself. Got a black eye, but he never messed with me again.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm sorry that you were bullied, Jeff. But I'm glad you stuck up to him and that he never messed with you again.

    I was bullied once when I was about ten-years-old, but it was only a bit of hand bags. We had a scrap and ironically enough, the same boy ended up being my best friend even to this day. We still laugh about it today :).

    I did witness 'real' bullies in secondary school, however, and after reading your post, I'm ashamed to admit that I could have done a lot more to stick up to the people that needed help. I occasionally waded in at times, but due to the complex social hierarchy of high school, I tended to turn a blind eye. Much to my disgust today.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love that you are addressing this issue. My senior year of high school (2003) a fellow classmate of mine was stabbed to death in the hallways of our school. The school was locked down, with the attacker hiding in a classroom with other students. I happened to be home sick that day but my little sister saw it happen. I think it affected her in more ways than even she really knows. My 10 year reunion will be coming up in 2013 and I'm sure the events of that year will affect our class of over 750.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Bwyatt,
    Im so sad to hear about that, and I definitely feel for your sister. If she watched it happen, she will have those snapshots embedded in her mind forever. I do feel for her. I wrote Reunion because I wondered about what she (and others like her) have gone through and how it has affected her/others over the long haul. Thank you for sharing. Please pass this on.
    Jeff

    ReplyDelete
  7. Aww Nik, I certainly don't want to make anyone feel guilty for the past. i'm a more forward thinker than that. I do appreciate your honesty and humility. We could all use a little more of that. We can't look back, but we can look within.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Bullying is a big problem and I think it’s great that you bring this and other important issues to your blog/books. I haven’t ordered Reunion yet, but I definitely will.

    On bullying – Sure, I was bullied as a kid and I will never forget it, but I think we should learn from the past and not live in it. I think in order to even begin to make a change, parents and teachers need to step up and take action. Bullies need to be held accountable for their actions and parents of bullies definitely should not condone or encourage what their children are doing. I understand that there’s a feeling of helplessness, but there has to be something, some way to begin making a difference.

    On School Shootings – There was an adult shooter in this case, but I think the one that hit home most for me was the Amish School shootings in Pennsylvania in 2006. I grew up close to the school and my friend was one of the first responder EMTs. I can’t even begin to imagine the level of insanity it would take for someone to take the life of another human being. I often wonder if this and other shootings could have been prevented. I read that coworkers of the shooter had noticed a change in him for a couple months before the shooting and then the week of the shooting he seemed happier and even upbeat.

    I sure hope our society is not becoming numb to bullying, shootings or violence of any kind; if we are then what hope do we have to stop bullying/criminals? What hope do we have to make a better future for ourselves and our children?

    That’s my 3 cents…

    Jen

    ReplyDelete
  9. Great 3 cents. Jen. Thanks for your input...appreciated.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Just relieved we made it through a couple of anniversaries without anything tragic occurring this year.

    ReplyDelete
  11. hi Jeff! that was an interesting post - intense and scary but good in a people-must-know way. c",)

    ReplyDelete
  12. This is a subject that I could discuss and give speeches on, having been bullied for years in school and now as a parent watching my son struggle with getting picked on because of his size. There's so much to it from every angle - the kids involved, families, schools, community, etc. Definitely an indepth topic. In addition, I'm a huge supernatural fan and from this aspect, from years of thinking about myself, my bullies and all the other situations around the world we're hearing about, and thinking much like you do - I have to say it again, this is the perfect story for me.
    Kimber

    ReplyDelete
  13. Thank you, Chaos. I hope Reunion helps you in some way.

    ReplyDelete

Any comment not directly related to this article will be deleted and marked as SPAM. Authors... this is posted because of all the CRAZY porn spammers that have hit me lately. If you are an author, writer, reader, please leave a reply.