Link

-- John Galt (still@doom.er), February 14, 2000

Answers

May their spirits find rest and peace.

Columbine has been on my mind too much this week as it is. [sigh] There was a rumor I heard from someone whose judgement I trust, that the uncle of one of the athletes shot at Columbine went to our local high school, where the athlete culture had terrorized my friend when she was a student. There was a contentious Board of Education meeting in our town last week with heavy student turnout over an issue important to the athletes. The students and their parents heckled and shouted down speakers who didn't agree with them. My kids will be going to that high school. I've already had qualms about the behavior of both kids and parents in the athletic teams on the grade school level. Things like the T-ball coach telling the second graders 3 weeks after Columbine to hit the ball like they meant to kill it. Many families have rifles for hunting. Not too much violence from strangers here in the country, you are more likely to be killed by domestic violence.

I'm concerned at whether the athletic culture breeds such a contempt for those who aren't athletes that it may still make life hell for those other kids. Is our local school a Columbine in the making? And is yours?

-- Firemouse (firemouse@fcmail.com), February 14, 2000.

The "athletic culture" is not monolithic. Do you mean just the negatives that can arise within it (e.g., uncontrolled aggression, arrogance, and/or sense of entitlement), or are you including the positives as well (e.g., self-discipline, teamwork, and/or sportsmanship)?

Every group I ever dealt with in high school, whether it was the jocks, geeks (math/sci wizards), socs (popular/leader types), greasers (cars and 'bikes), stoners (duuuuude), artsies (music/drama/painting/you-name-it), or any of the myriad other "clans", had its plusses and minusses. Some kids stayed within one of two of these groups, others moved between a number of them. There were some "bad apples" in every group. All jocks weren't over-muscled, hyper-aggressive knuckle-draggers, and those that were tended to be in the minority. That didn't make dealing them any easier or more pleasant, but one develops resources to take care of such things.

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), February 14, 2000.

This is very sad and disturbing. My heart goes out to the families.

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), February 14, 2000.

My God, when will this madness end?

-- haha (haha@haha.com), February 14, 2000.

I wonder if Subway is going to get into trouble for employing a 15 year old who was "often was assigned to shut down the restaurant" at 10 p.m.

Federal DOL standards say if you are under 16, you can only work between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. during school season.

And why wasn't this 15 year-old kid's parents concerned when their boy wasn't home by 1 a.m.?

-- Die Fledermaus (shadow@alliance.org), February 14, 2000.

Thank you,Die...whatever...for pointing out this weirdness in the story. I have three kids who worked while 15, but the responsibilities of closing are MASSIVE, and NOT placed on someone who has not worked at the place for quite some time. You don't get that kindof responsibility until you're older [and presumably out of the "restricted" environment of the 15-year olds.]

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), February 14, 2000.

At this rate there soon won't be any students left...

-- the last one to leave should (turn@outthe.lights), February 14, 2000.

DeeEmBee, I wasn't seeing that "self-discipline, teamwork, and/or sportsmanship" at the meeting I described. Granted, it was a highly charged emotional issue that they were pleading before the Board, and granted that these are after all children. But there seemed such a willingness to let other kids be hurt by the decision they were pleading for, a total lack of empathy and understanding of the issues. I spoke before the Board on the minority viewpoint (which the Board suppported), and I've never felt such animosity from any public situation before. It was chilling, it began to feel like a German rally in the Thirties might have felt. One child was screaming in my face until his friends pulled him away. And these kids were the ones that we'd probably call "good kids," but when they get in a pack over an emotional issue things get out of control.

One doesn't always develop the resources to deal with these animosities at that age. A lot of kids get traumatized by the behavior of the bullies of whatever clique, as witnessed by the torrent of commiseration that poured out after Columbine from kids who had been victimized at school. School must be a safe place for children, and parents and staff have a responsibility to make it so.

One could argue that the Harris and Klebold developed the ultimate resources for dealing with the kids who they felt made life miserable for them.

-- Firemouse (firemouse@fcmail.com), February 14, 2000.

This is sobering indeed. While returning from a Yellowstone trip a few years ago, a friend and I stopped into Subway in Wyoming to pick up a late night meal. The store was staffed by one high-school aged woman and the lobby was still open, even though it was almost 11:00 pm!!! We felt sorry for her. One person to close a store. The Subway Corporation is irresponsible, IMHO. I certainly wouldn't allow any child of mine (if I had any) to work this kind of a schedule.

-- haha (haha@haha.com), February 14, 2000.

Firemouse -

As you noted, this was a highly charged issue. Were these teens? If so, I would expect some of them to fly off the handle. I have two (14 and 16), and am constantly amazed at how little is required for them to "go off". That said, neither of them would get away with verbally abusing someone, and especially not in a public forum. There would be serious consequences for that kind of behavior, and public apologies to you just for starters.

Agree completely with you re the requirement for school to be a safe place. My daughter made it through her freshman year at a local public HS, then absolutely begged to be somewhere else, almost anywhere else, for her sophomore year. She simply couldn't deal with all the "hallway hassles" and the generally oppressive and aggressive atmosphere. In this case, it wasn't jocks, it was gangbangers and stoners handing out the grief. The school is badly overcrowded (currently almost 100% over its rated capacity), so the staff are doing well simply to keep classes going. Private school was not an option financially, so we ended up homeschooling her this year, which has been an real adventure and a surprising success. We're just glad we were able to come up with an alternative for her. In this case, we were the resource, which is as it should be.

Kids like Harris and Klebold result from failures right down the line, from parents to schools to community resources. It took a number of "misses" at some key points for these two to put their plan into action, in much the same way that it took some "missed" inspections and a few key decisions to allow that tail assembly to lift off and fail on Alaska Flight 261. The results were equally tragic.

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), February 14, 2000.

Forgive me if I'm in rant mode tonight on this subject, but Columbine left a LOT of unanswered questions in my mind, and the recent thread about a teen "abusing" a parent perhaps exacerbated that.

I have 3 kids, and they're all beyond the age of this particular happening, but I DO remember a time when the kids in junior high thought my son was gay. Why? Well, because he wasn't yet interested in girls, and many of his schoolmates had been "going with someone" since they were 10. My son was still building castles with legos when he was 12. [Go figure.] Did I discourage his interests and suggest that he should be "dating"? Of course not! Oh..he wasn't really a sports enthusiast either, although he DID enjoy soccer until the REAL teen years kicked in and he preferred studying math and computers more. [What a pervert, eh?]

Regarding the town meeting, you DO need to attend the ones that are important to your family. I remember attending one when my three were in pre-school. The town wanted to convert the pre-school to administrative offices. I spoke out at that meeting because already at that time pre-schools were showing up in the news having perverted employees and this pre-school was exemplary in that it provided a safe environment for kids to learn and interact. The board closed it down anyway, but the pre-school moved to another location, so we were unaffected.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that DESPITE what happens at these meetings, and despite what happened at Columbine and Sub-Way, WE are the parents of the children we bore. WE are the ones who MUST make the decisions for our children. The responsibility doesn't lie with the board, the school, or Sub-Way. The responsibility lies with US...the parents of the children who go to the pre-school that the board wants to close, or the school that honors the sports-teams at the exclusion of perhaps OUR children who are not sports-inclined, or the employer that would allow OUR children to work beyond the hours the laws defined.

WE bore these kids. WE raised them, and some of us did it on our own without the help of society or a supporting mate. That does NOT absolve us from being responsible when they get into trouble. It does NOT absolve us when they kill because WE chose not to care that they were making bombs in their bedrooms. It does not absolve us when they get killed because WE chose not to care that they were 15 years old and asked to close a fast-food place.

We can blame the schools, we can blame the government, we can blame the fast-food place, we can blame the other students for making fun of our kids, but this does NOTHING but point the finger at someone else when it was OUR job to raise these kids, set the boundaries, ensure they were met, talk to them about life, etc. SURE it's hard to raise kids as a single parent. Sure it's hard for kids to cope with times today........but WHAT ARE YOU DOING, AS A PARENT, THAT'S MORE IMPORTANT?

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), February 14, 2000.

I was wondering why someone who is that young, who was only working there ONE month, just happened to have his girlfriend there(the day before valentine's day), and his parents didn't notice he was gone, either. More convenient stuff: the police were looking for a twenty- something year old male with 'flared pants' even though they stated that they hadn't checked the surveilance tapes or the cash register yet. Also, they couldn't enter the building until 7a.m. because they didn't have a search warrant!? Who knows why. It all seems a little strange to me.

Also, I graduated from high school over five years ago from a small Minnesota farm town, and there were definitely coaches who taught violent behavior and aggression.

-- J (noone@the.door), February 14, 2000.