Armed and Educated
I am troubled by the fact that lockers, kit bags and lunch boxes weren't searched today at the Rural. I would love to hear the reasoning on this. I have heard rumours that searching a students belongings violates their rights, but surely this can't be the reason. Every student has the right to an education, and also the right to safety. No child should be sitting at school worried that the emo kid or the class bully may pull out a gun and start shooting.
I hate the idea of guards and metal detectors at Island schools but what else can be done. I feel this would only be a band-aid solution to a much larger problem. Why are kids showing up at school with weapons? Is society to blame? Is it bad parenting? Is it TV? What has changed?
During my time in school, I never once worried about getting shot. We had a few weirdos, and of course there were bullies, but the threat never usually got much higher than being locked in a locker or getting a swirly at recess.
I think every parent needs to take some time to think about this issue. Discuss it with your children. See how they feel about it. Find out what they know. Often times, they know about problems long before the police, or even school authorities. I also think that parents should be pushing for random locker searches at school. I think once a week a number of lockers should be randomly chosen and searched. I bet you'd be amazed at what might turn up.
I think the real issue is understanding why this is happening. If we can find the reason behind this, we have a much more likely chance of solving this problem, than if we just punish the offenders. Perhaps this was just a prank as the Guardian article implies, but how long before someone really does show up with a gun? Our wonderful little laid-back Island really isn't that different from anywhere else except we supposedly have better gun control.
I'd love to hear some thoughts.
2 comments:
While these incidents like this are extremely serious in nature, the best thing that can happen is having the media stay out of it.
Ever notice that when you hear about a problem at School A, within the week, there's rumors about something similar at School B?
All it takes is one person, with malicious intent or not, to get the information wrong and suddenly this incident and let's face it, kids can be prone to embellishment.
Like you, in the generation before you we had no bigger worries than bullies (that's another whole rant for me as I was a victim from elementary right through high school). Drugs were not really a big issue, and nobody ever thought they would be stabbed or shot at school.
Is it the media coverage, video games, TV shows, peer pressure, bullying or a combination of two or more factors that makes another child do something incredibly stupid? Or is it a cry for attention, even though it's the bad kind? A 15 minutes of fame? What?
I sat glued to my TV when Columbine was happening and wondered what on earth would provoke children to act in such a way towards their peers. It sickened me and of course there have been a great many incidents of smaller and larger proportions since then, and before.
Is too much hype being attached to fairly innocent "pranks"? Parents and caregivers need to be concerned that the right messages are getting through to our children and grandchildren. It is NOT acceptable to bring any kind of weapon to school - real or toy.
The Gentle Island....are we fooling ourselves?
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