I rarely comment on the topic of school shootings, but this I have to share.
This teacher gets it.
This is exactly the attitude that's needed, in my opinion. It's a cultural problem. It's in our fear culture, divisiveness, authoritarianism, victim blaming, shitty understanding and lack of regard for bullying, our media that heaps shitloads of attention on violent events to make it a worthy goal for disconnected children who long for attention by any means. Our culture that heaps on pressure pressure pressure to produce and consume, rewards and idolizes indecency, sensationalizes and frames every difference between people as competition or war, encourages people to divide from others, to make them feel abandoned or worse, fails to notice as they build up resentment, and entices them over and over again with the promise that when they feel so emotionally broken that they have nothing to lose, that at least they can make themselves infamous and in a single day send an entire nation into mourning for making them feel the way they do.
I'm in favor of gun control. But gun control won't address that. You raise children in this and some are going to snap. And it just keeps getting worse. We can try to make it less damaging when people inevitable lash out, but it won't address the root of the problem. We should want to change things to stop making people broken more than we should want to mitigate the damage broken people can cause. And maybe believing that there's any hope of addressing the root of the problem is unrealistic. But that doesn't change the diagnosis.
But at least one teacher gets it and seems to have a pretty good grasp on what she can do within her sphere of influence. I hope this story gets spread around.
With the preface that I'm not saying we should go back to the way things were or that the past was somehow better. But... there used to be a sort of relief valve.
Kids used to beat each other up. I'm not talking about today's ultraviolent shit that ends up on youtube and facebook, and later on the news as an example of "kids these days" and how "something needs to be done." The fights I was involved with started with maybe a punch or two, and then a scuffle on the ground and things got broken up, either by friends before anything serious happened, or by adults. If adults got involved, there'd be some punishment, but nothing that couldn't be worked past. Unless someone got REALLY hurt it'd just be a few days out of school and then you're back in again like normal.
We've gone so far into into "zero tolerance" mode of violence. That doesn't happen anymore. There's not the same sort of mild scuffles that leave people bruised, but otherwise fine. You can't get away with a minor tumble anymore, since the minor tumble results in more or less the same punishment as the battered and bloody beatdown. So what happens? That violence and resentment builds up until it all bursts out in a single, meant to end it, attack. The kids know they can't get away with anything small, so they hold it in, they bide their time, until they have the perfect moment or they just can't hold it in anymore... and all that time, all that planning, it doesn't lead to a black eye and a stern talking to. It leads to crippling injuries and death. When you know you've only got one shot at someone, you don't just go in to throw a few punches and pull away, satisfied you've dealt a little pain. When you only have one shot, you go in for the kill.
Now, once again, I'm not justifying it. I got my ass kicked in school a number of times. I also threw a few punches myself. I hated it. I hated recieving it, and while it felt good at the moment, I hated having done it afterwards. I wasn't, and I'm still not a violent person. But it happened, and I can't imagine any other way it could have gone, given the circumstances. And I'm thankful I got out of it without more than a few bruises and torn shirts myself. I don't think I ever even bruised anyone else. I never paid attention to the results, but the couple of kids who seriously messed with me backed off fast once I started landing punches on them.
I'm not saying it never got worse for anyone else. I saw worse. I saw kids bloody. Missing teeth. And I'm sure it got even worse. I'm sure people have died under those circumstances as well. But it was a level of violence between none and murder. A sort of relief valve. A way for hormonal kids with poor self control to make their mistake and learn from it and everyone to still come out the end, more or less intact.
I wish I knew a better way so that people could avoid what I experienced and saw. But I also believe in trying to improve upon my and prior generations experience, we've led ourselves into a potentially worse scenario.
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Topic: AmeriPol thread (Read 4216946 times)