‘Popular’ kids reason for school violence
To keep children from getting into trouble, help them from becoming troubled

Last week, there were two school shootings and multiple arrests of teens threatening violence. Two teenagers were killed and 13 injured at the hands of a 15-year-old boy. The next day, a 13-year-old girl was shot in the shoulder by a 14-year-old girl.

Let the blame game begin: Whose fault is it?

The parents for not raising the children right and not being there for them? The gun owners for making weapons available? The educators for not teaching children right from wrong? The administrators for not providing a safe school environment? The media for reporting only bad news? The entertainment industry for marketing violent movies, music and video games to children?

Maybe. It could be any one of those.

Correy Jefferson/SKIFF STAFF

Most likely, however, it’s a combination of all those factors and more. There’s no question that there are problems that need to be solved. But in the midst of all the blaming, a big problem may be overlooked in the search for scapegoats.

Education Secretary Rod Paige said Sunday that “alienation and rage” are the biggest factors in school shootings. Most people probably missed the importance of this statement.

While Paige may not have come right out and said it, I think he and I may have been on the same level here. The blame shouldn’t lie just with gun owners, parents or the media. Put the blame where it should be — with the students.

I’m not just talking about the shooters. In fact, I don’t see them as the root of the problem at all. I’m certainly not blaming the victims; there is no reason they had to lose their lives or sustain injuries.

I’m blaming the bullies, the “popular” kids, the ones who tease others.

How many times have we heard reports that the shooter was “frequently teased” or an “outcast?” We heard it said about Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris in Columbine and we’re hearing it again about Charles “Andy” Williams, the latest fatal shooter, at Santana High School near San Diego.

We hear it, we preach about being more accepting and we forget about it in a week. It happens each time another school shooting occurs.

And it doesn’t seem to sink in.

Why? Because it happens all the time. In every school there are the “cool” kids and the “nerds” and the lower of the two is never allowed to forget it. It’s happened from the beginning of time — there has always been teasing and bullying.

I remember the day after the Columbine shooting; it was my senior year of high school. We were all so freaked out. Our first period teacher abandoned the lesson and we all talked. We talked about the teasing that went on in our school. All of us could think of someone who just might snap.

I’ll bet anyone could think of someone who they went to school with who got teased every day. The kid who ate by himself in the lunch room and hung out with a few other kids who were treated the same way.

And nothing’s changed.

During Spring Break, I went to work with my mother, who teaches math to ninth graders in an urban middle school. It was exactly the same as it was five years ago when I was a high school freshman. Notes were passed, rulers and pencils combined to become helicopters, children were picked on and teased at every turn.

The day before I visited, my mother helped break up a brawl in the hallway. Three girls and a boy got in a fight because two of the girls called the other girl a bitch, and she and her brother fought back.

The only bright side to this is that no one was seriously hurt. Everyone walked away alive and under their own strength. No weapons were involved, but the problem still remained. The whole thing started because someone got picked on and couldn’t take it anymore.
Every school has its potential Klebolds, Harrisses and Williamses — we just don’t do anything to prevent them from going over the edge.
Unfortunately, even Paige missed the mark a bit, recommending parental involvement and after-school programs. This places the blame on parents and other role models in children’s lives and shifts it away from where it really should be.

Paige’s other suggestion of character education seems to be a potential solution, but we don’t need adults to fix the problem alone. It may need to start with adults, but it needs to be carried out by children.

Sure, it’s gone on forever, but it doesn’t need to continue. The sooner children stop picking on those they don’t view as “cool” enough, the better. It won’t matter how many guns are available, how much bad news is reported or how many violent movies are screened. The chances a student would want to take a gun to school and use it would be greatly decreased.

Instead of blaming the factors that send troubled children over the edge and give them the means to act on violent impulses, let’s keep them from being troubled in the first place.

Michonne L. Omo is a columnist for The State News at Michigan State University.
This column was distributed by U-Wire.

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