Commentary, by Dr. Eileen B. Raymond,Teacher Education Department, SUNY Potsdam
Broadcast on WSLU (NPR, Canton, NY), on May 4, 1999

I, like many of you, watched and listened with horror and sadness the events unfolding on April 20 in Littleton CO. I listened to the interviews with Columbine High School students that day, hoping to gain some understanding of how such horrific events could occur. What I heard, in that first day before the events became colored by media rehearsal and speculation, was a description of a group, the Trenchcoat Mafia, as "outcasts", as "scum," as "freaks" (to use the students' own words). I heard students describe a school social structure in caste-like terms, with the "jocks" at the top, and the "outcasts" at the bottom. I heard the shooters and their friends described as loners, as kids who kept to themselves, as kids who appeared to like it that way. I heard teachers admit that even though one or both of the shooters had been students in their classes, they really didn't know much about these students, and much less about the families they come from . . . and I have heard such stories before, in other schools, and other communities.

I have become increasingly concerned over the past two weeks about the focus of our public discussions regarding this event. I find very short-sighted the single-minded focus on guns, the media, or computer games as the problem. While each of these certainly plays a role and must be addressed, it seems far too easy to choose something outside ourselves as the source of this evil.

As I reflected on these events and discussed them with my teacher education students, I concluded very strongly that these events and others like them are based in the feelings of worthlessness many of our kids develop over their years in school. It is the daily harassment and "taunting" that convince many kids that, individually, they aren't very worthwhile. Most just withdraw and die a little every day. Some change who they are to become acceptable to whatever group seems to be able to provide them with some validation, a sense of belonging. A very few respond explosively. The current calls to identify and intervene earlier with youth with the most explosive potential implies that all the others don't matter very much.

As a parent of two sons and three stepchildren, I have seen this cost in their own lives. Each of them has encountered verbal and emotional harassment, and even physical assaults, in the halls of the public schools they have attended, in five different states. In one school, it was the football players who targeted one of these precious children for abuse. None of our children has shot up a school, but each of them has been harmed greatly by school environments that have diminished their spirits, that have not provided a community where each of them is of value. Depression, underachievement, even dropping out of school and thoughts of suicide ... these are the fruits of such environments. How long can we as parents, teachers, and community members stand by and watch this loss of human potential during these important years of childhood and adolescence?

To me, the real issue seems to be how do we assure that this inhumane treatment of kids stops. When teachers, administrators, coaches, and parents do not take seriously the notion that a safe school and a safe community is one in which there are no put-downs of any kind, and where each and every remark that belittles another requires a response, we will keep losing the precious human potential that is our kids. Telling the "victim" of a put-down just to ignore it, or to change themselves to prevent such hurtful notice in the future, blames the victim. Every time an adult hears a racist, sexist, ablist, homophobic, classist, or anti-religionist remark, and says nothing, we tell the kid who said it that such things are OK . . . and we say to the kids at whom these remarks are directed that such attacks must be valid since they go unchallenged.

When I consider all the issues involving guns and media, the problems seem much too large for any one person to make a difference. However, when I consider the impact I can have in the life of a child by affirming that young person as a unique and valuable person, and when I respond immediately and forcefully to verbal abuse of any kind and do not shrug it off with "kids will be kids," I realize I CAN do something . . . something very important.

As students return to their classes in Colorado this week, as our own North Country kids head off to school each day, I keep thinking about my kids, your kids, about all of our communities' kids. I urge each of you to join in this work, until the day when every child, every person, is valued for the unique human being he/she is! This is something we ALL can do!

Eileen B. Raymond, Ed.D
Associate Professor
Department of Teacher Education	home: 63 E. Main St.
SUNY-Potsdam	Canton NY 13617
Potsdam NY 13676
315-267-2788 (work)	315-379-0513
FAX: 315-267-4802
e-mail: raymoneb@potsdam.edu

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