Getting whacked in school means something very different in America than in other countries. Within the last few weeks we have been appalled by yet more killings in the classrooms of the USA. Sadly, the latest killings coincide with the silly season in America. The mid term elections are getting close and politicians are out in force giving the American people their dumbed-down ideas on what needs to be done. The American media are going along with the leaders of the free world, as they give the most banal and obvious advice on how to respond to the sound-bitten American public.
President Bush has been giving his one-line solutions to the deadly shootings that are a regular feature in American Schools. Last week he urged the nation’s parents to intervene ‘when they notice children are in trouble’. What an obvious piece of advice that is. But the great leader was not finished. In an education summit that he had ordered in response to the recent school killing, he says - schools must encourage students to speak up if they notice any ‘ominous’ behaviour changes. As the younger Americans would say, “Well dah! - But the great one had not finished. Bush had advice for teachers. He told them that there needed to be a ‘cultural change’ inside schools and for teachers to become “more aware and more active”.
Placing emphasis for change on the victims is a standard Bush ploy, and teachers all over the world are used to getting vacuous, obvious advice from parents who are less educated, and spend far less time with children than they do, so they kept their thoughts to themselves but they must have been miffed…
In the last two weeks, there have been school shootings in Wisconsin, Colorado and Pennsylvania. Two involved adult intruders; the other was a student seeking revenge.
None would have been prevented by the Bush ‘advice’ or the solutions offered by the ‘experts’ at his hastily called summit. Almost all the speakers lined up to say that schools get safer when they take bullying seriously, practice their crisis plans, and talk to parents about what's happening. (“Well dah!” Again.) No one mentioned how that would have stopped the three recent shootings. Gun control, which was the elephant in the room at this political photo opportunity, was hardly noticed and quickly dismissed. Meanwhile the number of violent crimes reported in the USA by students in middle school and high school is on the increase. In the 2003 students reported 740,000 – up from 640,000 in 2002.
In India we do not have figures on the number of violent crimes in schools but many teachers are complaining that there are far more disciplinary problems than in the past, and also far more parents blaming the school and the teachers for them. As our society becomes increasingly westernized we need to make the obvious clear to all - that parents are responsible for their children.
Good families make good children, and good children make well behaved students. Teachers can create a disciplined environment in schools but the causes of the bad behaviour of children are to be found in the homes and in society. - Something obvious that President Bush and all politicians should learn before they proffer solutions in schools. It is a lesson many modern, absent and neglectful parents also need to learn.
