Without Remorse: Violence, Schools, and Our Kids.

An 11 year old arrested with knives, a gun, and 400 rounds of ammunition.

A 14 year old murders his teacher.

A 12 year old kills a teacher, shoots two others, and kills himself.

That was this week alone. As a school principal, a parent, and a citizen…I am disgusted.

With each event, we have to look this ugly monster in the face and dissect it. We can debate gun control, bullying prevention, metal detectors, cameras, arming teachers, and whatever other temporary school safety fix we can think of until we are blue in the collective face. Where has it gotten us to? I don't aim to discredit these discussions but the essential questions that we have been grappling with are: "Why?" and "How?" No matter how useless it may seem to ask these questions, they always surface. Why? Why this school?  Why this student? Why these teachers? How do we stop this from happening again?

I have grown up with these incidents as a disturbing emergence of normalcy in the news. I remember Springfield, Paducah, and Columbine, all of which occurred before I graduated high school. Add to that Red Lake, Virginia Tech, NIU, and Sandy Hook. One of my earliest memories of school violence occurred twenty miles south of my home, at the University of Iowa. In 1991, a graduate student shot and killed three professors, two students, and himself out of anger over an academic award.

School violence and violence toward children and educators is nothing new.  One of the worst events took place in 1927 in Bath Township, Michigan. A school board member who was upset about his farm being foreclosed upon, blew up the school, killing 45 and injuring 58 (Staff). However, the notable increase in occurrences each year seems to be on the rise, steadily, since the 1980's.

Are some instances the result of copycats? Perhaps. Are some of these instances of a bullied kid attempting to take control? Maybe. I believe there is a deeper and more haunting issue here. Our children believe they have the right to take someone else's life and they do not feel remorse.

I hate to sound old fashioned, but what are our kids raised by? Who do our kids look to for role models, if anyone? How do our kids escape harassment when they are connected day and night? There is little sense of community.  How many of your neighbors do you know? Not too long ago, we heard that it takes a village to raise a child. What has happened to our village? The school I serve as principal of is in a small town. Even here, kids would just as soon give you the finger than wave hello.

I know I'm painting with a pretty wide brush here, but respect for our fellow person and the awareness of each individual's sacred worth is nearly nonexistent.  As a Catholic school principal, I can talk openly with my students about our Christian duty to love and serve one another. In fact we have a little motto that I stole from my first teaching position: "Every day we are to treat each other as we would treat Jesus Christ- with all of our hearts, our minds, and our souls." I've taught in public schools and while spouting off religious ideology may get you fired, it is not out of line to reinforce the importance of respect and dignity for every creature. But to what avail? Even here, our students pledge not to bully- yet I see students regularly who say or do unkind things.

More and more gets piled on the plates of schools. It seems as though more often than not, we are in the business of raising other people's children rather than helping guide them to new understandings and explorations of knowledge. Home to school connections and relationships are critical. Relationships with our students are essential to save them from a cyclical and cynical world.

We need to foster a sense of community. We need to empower parents to actually parent. We need less celebration of classless and unsavory behavior. We need to respect each other so that our kids see that every person has worth. Most of all, we need to teach our kids the value of each person and that problems are not solved with a weapon or filthy rhetoric but through seeking to understand and working together for a solution. Maybe I am old fashioned…or even…help me God…more conservative than I ever thought I would sound. But we cannot keep doing what has always been done in hopes that kids stop killing others. At what point will enough be enough?

I look forward to the Governor's Bullying Prevention Summit on November 4th.  Maybe we'll have some ideas and solutions. Time shall tell.

References
Staff, P. (2013). School safety timeline Leading Issues Timelines. Retrieved from http://sks.sirs.com

What's Your Guiding Philosophy?

This is our building's guiding philosophy: "The Student is Always Worth It!" Every day, every student is worth our time, our effort, and our best. Our students are the reason our school exists. Anything less than quality instruction, strong relationships, and a positive attitude would be wrong.

As a school community, we have discussed our mission, vision, values, and goals.  We have taken time to study the status quo and dream about what we could be and what we want to be known for. Needless to say, our former mission had been around for a while and had grown to be wordy and in need of new life. Coming in as a new principal, this was an area I wanted to focus on.  Without a meaningful mission, the vision, values, and goals, and the school community as a whole plateaus, rests on its past successes and becomes irrelevant in our changing world.

In a time when we focus so greatly on a number of pressing issues, it can be unintentional, yet easy to ignore the culture and health of our learning community. Taking time to reevaluate our purpose and commitments can be a great culture builder.  Last week during our staff meeting, we worked through an activity from "The Ten-Minute Inservice" by Todd Whitaker and Annette Breaux. We brainstormed 10 things we are proud of at our school.  My plan is to share this list with parents and community members to showcase our pride in St. Patrick School and the good things we are doing.

In preparing for my role as a principal, I had numerous opportunities to reflect on my beliefs about education and what I would dream of as an ideal school.  Ideal schools do not exist in and of themselves, they are created. It cannot be the work of one administrator, teacher, or parent to create the ideal learning community.  It must be a joint effort, with all stakeholders sharing in the conversation. Our personal philosophies and values drive our passion for what we do.  Capturing the philosophy for an entire building or district requires monitoring, evaluating, and above all listening to the people served by your school.

This is what we discovered at St. Patrick's School. The student is always worth it because parents trust our school to provide unique and transformational learning experiences for their children.  The student is always worth it because our staff is here for each child, ready to meet their needs. The student is always worth it because our students will be the leaders in the community sooner rather than later and they deserve the best preparation to be successful.  This is what guides us. What guides you?