Developing Murderers

We have been inundated with images, videos, and sounds from the Virginia Tech mass murderer. So much has been said about mental illness, medication, guns, motivation, isolation, education, school security, that it almost seems meaningless to add to the conversation. I think, however, that we need to look at this from an additional perspective.

We examine the problem as we see it in the current time and place. What can we do to prevent this in the future? How can we protect our schools? Why were officials either unprepared, or unwilling, or both, to take control of a situation which seemed to present problems long before these murders took place?

We must look back, not merely into Cho Seung-Hui's past, but into the past of our culture as a whole. As we look back, we might not like what we see.

Our public school system has shifted its focus from the education of our young people to the protection of our young people. From what? From everything. Our educational administrators do not want these children to experience unhappiness, failure, stress, hard work, or challenge. We classify them endlesslessly, recommending Ritalin at every corner. When behavior problems begin to occur, we brush them under the rug, avoiding punishment in favor of conversation and attempts at guiding children into discussing their actions, without ever having to atone for them.

Long ago, we dropped with words "wrong" and "right" from our vocabulary. Instead, we apply the lie-riddled misnomer "inappropriate" to everything from forgetting a homework assignment to stabbing a teacher with a pencil. What we hope to achieve with this lie is beyond understanding. Evidence is beginning to show that the the adults who emerge from these childhoods are weak, unable to handle the challenges of the world around them, and, frighteningly, they are deeply, deeply angry.

Without every having had to learn to control or vent their anger, these children-approaching-adulthood lash out at everything around them. Not content to merely slaughter others, they turn their weapons on themselves, thus giving up whatever hope might have been within them. That hope had long ago been crushed, with the medications and the lies that administration plied them with.

Why does this occur? The administrators live in dread of parental frowning, and thus, they enable the children to hold the school, and everything that the school should represent, hostage, filled with fear of the next pencil-stabbing. Administrators will not take charge of parents, establishing strict codes of conduct within the school, and the resulting anarchy spreads like a rumor throughout the classrooms. Curse at the girls? Terrorize students in the playground? Talk to the teacher as if he/she is the child's slave? Everyday occurrences in our ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS.

Parents want to be friends with their children. They do not want to say "No" to their children. But it is baffling as to why. What, precisely, is being accomplished? The resulting pool of children is a slag of disrespect, not only for parents, school, and authority, but most sadly, for themselves. They do not even have the wherewithal to stand up for themselves. Seven years later, a college classroom holds students who have been shot in the head, none of whom had the self-respect to try to stand up for themselves.

Not surprisingly, the hero of the story is a 76-year-old Holocaust survivor. What a different picture he casts from the youngsters in his charge! He has endured the worst, has lost the most, has faced the greatest dangers. The thug Cho Seung-Hui seems not to be a threat to him. He places himself between his students and the murderer, saves the children, and loses his life.

What does the media fill us with 24/7? Disgusting, abhorrent, vicious pictures of a monster pointing a gun in our face. What might it be like if our children were to see Liviu Librescu and learn the story of this man's life? They might come to realize that we can overcome even the most horrific of challenges. They might discover that strength, courage, and self-reliance exist within each of them.

Instead, they abuse themselves, each other, their schools, teachers, and parents. And then they are given medication.