‘We Must All Be a Part of the Solution’

As urban classroom teachers, we were not surprised that Columbine happened. We know that people expect incidents like it to happen in urban areas, but we also know that the difficulties of the teenage years are not confined to our urban schools. The most difficult thing for the classroom teacher is to have to deal every day with the kinds of frustrations that confront our students and can lead to tragedies like Columbine, such as their troubles attaining acceptance, success and respect. As teachers, we have to deal with these frustrations with very little support from the greater community.

This has led many of us to overreact to minor incidents that, before Columbine, we would not have considered important. Things we might have viewed as normal adolescent behavior before Columbine, we now replay in our minds as if they might be precursors to another, similar incident.

Teenagers are curious. To express their individuality, they sometimes investigate and talk about the morbid and sensational or dress in a way that we, as adults, don’t always understand. It is difficult, as a teacher, to know what is an expression of a student’s individuality versus an indicator of violent tendencies. Trends come and go very quickly, and it’s hard to determine what is merely a fad and what is a warning signal.

The Los Angeles school district has a well-deserved nationwide reputation for its excellent crisis management team, some of whom actually traveled to Columbine to help our colleagues there and their students. In L.A., our expectations were heightened so that more would be done to make our schools and our students safer. It was front-page news. In response, we expected schools, communities, individuals and politicians to move quickly in committing time, energy and funding to help find solutions.

Many of us wish that our communities would provide schools with the psychological resources to prevent a new outbreak of violent behavior on the part of some students. While crisis management is all-important after an incident occurs, it would be best for all concerned if we had trained professionals whom we could call upon to help a student who exhibits behaviors that we know could lead to a Columbine here in Los Angeles.

As we move further away from Columbine, we are afraid that the societal and personal pressures that led to this tragedy will not receive the attention they deserve. Making schools safe for students cannot be left to the schools alone. We must all be a part of the solution or we will continue to move from Columbine to Columbine.