School Shootings

[teknotexan]

Mreik, maybe your avatar should be Batman, rather than the big blue.

I don't see how raising teachers' salaires will benefit the depraved criminals from not doing this thing again.

But having an armed police officer on the premises can deter the sickos. Believe me, you will think twice when you see the black and white. OH, BUT WAIT A MINUTE!! Our police departments are understaffed state wide, our border patrols are next to non existent, and our state troopers are a rarity to find these days. WTF? Budget cutbacks, baby. From the state and the fed. (Not for the prison guard union. Just do a little research and find out how influential their lobby is) Now, how in God's creation is that NOT the fault of policy makers, is beyond me. Politicians send the kids to private schools, so they really could care less about public institutions. Additionally, public schools are funded by subsidies from the property taxes of the area, hence the reason why there are really nice schools in really nice neighborhoods, BUT the state subsidies remain the same for all schools. Raising the salaries of teachers will do nothing to deter "scholastic violence", and metal detectors will only filter out some of the "bad guys". What our country needs is educational reform, and THAT starts with the people but ENDS in the White House. So, yeah, Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Ford, Carter, Nixon, JFK are ALL at fault for ignoring our public school system (but surprisingly LBJ did a good job with his programs). And everyone under them at the federal and state levels too! And I hate the blame game, but I have to blame ALL elected officials for listening to their politcal advisors and lobbyists instead of the needs of the people.
And Gray Davis is/was a Democrat!!!

/end rant

 

[goal2befit]

I work in a small school and disagree that teachers are not making enough money. I live in a rural area where there are few jobs. You either work at a prison, school, post office, government building or grocery store. When you look at the salaries of the local people, the teachers are paid very well and they have excellent insurance. They have a great union and have lobbists working hard for them. I don't blame them or our government for the crazyness of a few people. I blame parents. I see students in our office all day that have major baggage. We have three guidance counselors, a social worker, a psychologist, a lady from the TRY program and a SRO Officer and they can't keep up with the influx of problems kids come in with each day. From what I see, the students with all the problems are kids from broken families. Kids that get moved around a lot. Kids that the parents are not around. Kids that have no supervision or litte. It amazes me when kids move into the district and the parents admit they are both working in NYC and they are leaving the kids in the sticks with NO supervision. Parents are not disciplining their children. The kids I see are telling the parents what to do and how to do it. They run the show. Have you seen the TV show where a lady goes into a families home and teaches them how to discipline their children? Those kids are so bad and if not corrected, they will be the next disaster. I could go on and on with this topic. I feel so strongly on this. I feel that the only way things will change is if we as parents are held accountable for our kids. Thanks for listening. I had one hell of a day at school. Just needed to vent.

 

[evolution]

I work in a small school and disagree that teachers are not making enough money. I live in a rural area where there are few jobs. You either work at a prison, school, post office, government building or grocery store. When you look at the salaries of the local people, the teachers are paid very well and they have excellent insurance.

Except that a lot of teachers are working extra years because the insurance is not that good and everytime the salary goes up, so does insurance. The insurance is very expensive. For your town, the pay might be good but overall...teachers get paid very little for the amount of time they go to school to get their degree, spend in the classroom teaching, have to go to workshops, continue with college credits, buy material for their classroom (my mentor teacher alone has spent 3 grand out of her pocket to buy materials this year alone for her classroom).

This is not really a gripe towards you. Teachers go into the profession with eyes wide open (for the most part). I know rural areas tend to be a bit different but in the inner city where I'm at...it's pretty bad.

I'm debating on whether to start wearing a bullet proof vest in the classroom. Last Friday the school I'm at had a riot...twas pretty interesting trying to teach while the police are macing some of the students outside in the courtyard and a gang of students are throwing fists and feet at each other right outside my classroom. It's been pretty peaceful since then.

We have four armed police officers at all times and it really doesn't do any good. Since most of these people that are going in and shooting students are shooting themselves, I doubt an officer with a gun is going to scare them.

 

[deschain]

Isn't it interesting to look back on what has changed in our society since these things have increased....

Back in the day...there was violence and drugs, etc, but by far not nearly as much as now...

*Then - dad went to work and mom stayed home and actually raised the kids
*Now - dad? what dad? Men aren't needed to raise kids! I don't need a man! How dare someone imply that a mother-father home is best for a child! It's perfectly fine if the mom spends 50 hours a week at work, didn't you know? daycare is good for kids - it "socializes" them.

*Then - Kid acts up - spank him
*Now - Kid acts up, sit down and have lengthy discussion about his feelings, and if all else fails, resort to a "time out"

*Then - kid came home from school, mom gave him a snack, he did some homework, then went outside and played until dinner
*Now - Kid goes from school directly to any number of structured "enrichment" activities, eventually goes home to eat take out and spend hours online doing homework before crashing around 11:00 or so

*Then - kids went outside to mess around with neighborhood kids
*Now - kids sit around IMing friends online while playing insanely violent video games

...and the list goes on and on....

 

[Hoss]

Mreik, maybe your avatar should be Batman, rather than the big blue.

I don't see how raising teachers' salaires will benefit the depraved criminals from not doing this thing again.

Not so much teachers' saleries, but to up the funding to schools to allow for: gates, gaurds, security, more staff to look out. Numerous things could have perhaps prevented one or two of these. We obviously live in a time where things like this are needed, screw privacy, I wanna live.

(Don't get me started on the whole Amish(sp?) thing... wtf.)

 

[Hoss]

There's capital punishment and that doesn't seem to stop anybody. They see it (or just killing themselves) as an easy way out. It would be much better to keep them alive to suffer in their own guilt, and to show everyone that people DO and WILL get caught.

Suffer in their own guilt? You mean in a state pen where you can get a degree, and have cable? Oh ok.

 

[LeiYunFat]

We have four armed police officers at all times and it really doesn't do any good. Since most of these people that are going in and shooting students are shooting themselves, I doubt an officer with a gun is going to scare them.

I hear that.

At my school, we were considered a better school due to it's location near the suburbs. We had unarmed security staff and atleast one police officer on campus at all times.

But ultimately, if someone is ****ed up enough to go in and kill innocents in such a fashion, deterrence will be hard to come by or if there were say, 15 cops on campus at all times, said person would just need to work around them.

That is to say that some of these recent shootings would have been most likely averted if there were cops around (the Amish school). But you can't go back in time and you can't always garuntee safety in some school just by putting some cops around.

However, I agree with your part of your conclusion, Texan. The people NEED to wake up and start taking action for these things. That's where the problem lies. The rest is an extension of people's inability to take responsibility.

 

[junkfoodbad]

About the Bush thing, of course there are other people that can be blamed, but how is it not his fault? He could be the one to take these events and make a change in the distribution of guns. In my opinion

So what you are saying, its his fault these people chose to shoot up a school, because he didnt do something after the fact? thats rather contrary to logic. And the day ANY president has the power to change the distribution of guns is the day we are no longer living in a free country...that would be a dictatorship.

 

[Fly]

Out of interest, what makes you think you are free?

 

[junkfoodbad]

one example...i can go to a store and buy a gun and shoot it if i want to. To me thats freedom.

 

[deschain]

Out of interest, what makes you think you are free?

Is the implication that because there are laws that dictate some of our actions, we are not free? Or are we talking big discussion of political differences?

 

[Hoss]

Keep On Point.

 

[MilitantGeek]

kudos to the people laying the responsibility on the parents. When I was in school we had no cops, no metal detectors, and all of our campus security were hideously obese and in no shape to stop anything. Total number of people shot and/or killed during my 13 years in the public education system? 0. I don't think it's the kids that have changed that drastically in the interim, I feel it's the way we handle our children anymore.

When I was younger it was very common to see a misbehaving or bratty child get his butt spanked right in the middle of the grocery store where he was throwing a tantrum. Nobody batted an eyelash, business as usual. Now you can lose your children to DHR for blowing on your kid's bellybutton and making those funny farty noises that make them giggle (this actually happened to a friend of a friend, but I digress) and you certainly don't strike a child in public, too many concerned citizens to report you for trying to instill discipline and a sense of what's right and wrong in your child.

We are a selfish, lazy generation raising a selfish, lazy generation, and it's time to lay the responsibility firmly where it lies. You refuse to play an active role in your child's upbringing, bad things occur. You cannot plunk a kid in front of the tv to catch some quiet time, you need to be there explaining things like seperation of reality and fantasy, escapism, and morality. Too many people refuse to be active and then blame the standins - TV, Media, Videogames - for the problem when the problem was you didn't care enough.

Side note: eye for an eye is great, now let's limit appeals, speed up the transit time through death row, and bring back public executions. Hang someone in the town square for a brutal crime, and make sure it's shown everywhere over and over, and see if crime doesn't drop. Right now you can spend a full life in jail making appeals and living a better life than I do right now for commiting a violent crime. Show people the direct, ugly consequences of bad actions and see if they don't think twice.

/rant off

 

[teknotexan]

one example...i can go to a store and buy a gun and shoot it if i want to. To me thats freedom.

Unrestrained consumerism is NOT equivalent to social freedom.

I honestly believe that we are not free, only privledged at different levels.

But back to the point!

Now, I have a query for the Brits on the board: didn't just the thing happen in the U.K. back in the late 1990's (man shows up with shot gun and kills kids in school), but the controversy was how did he get acces to the gun, when he was deemed "unfit" for possesion of firearms? And is it true that the English have a strict set of parameters for judging whether or not the person can buy firearms, above and beyond a simple test and safety course (i.e. psycheatric eval.)??

 

[Tomahawk]

This is what happens when you take religion out of school and teach only the evolution theory which devalues life and makes it seem okay that the strong survive and the weak die. This along with the acceptance of abortion everywhere has devalued peoples value of life.

Personally, I believe in evolution I just think God set it up to make the earth evolve and all species evolve over time to were we are now. But how is it wrong for a teacher to teach evolution and then say other people perscribe to the Adam and Eve theory. At least get some opposing views in our schools. i mean it is a school afterall.

This is a result of the breakdown of society here in America. Everyone should read Bill O'reilly's Culture Warrior book avialable everywhere including amazon.com

 

[teknotexan]

This is what happens when you take religion out of school and teach only the evolution theory which devalues life and makes it seem okay that the strong survive and the weak die. ...[/url]

So that 15 year old kid who shot the principal was against creationism and was privvy to drifting allele frequencies, and by his "more adpated" behavior he found the need to make it known and kill the principal. OK, what ever you say.

Creationism and Evolution aside, the kid was a punk ass with dumb ass, "don't care" parents and not an evolutionist!

 

[Hoss]

One more off topic post, and this thread is done. Next person gets banned.





On a side note, it's the kids fault. The parents didn't help. And that's all I got to say about that..

 

[tonymcclellan]

There's capital punishment and that doesn't seem to stop anybody. They see it (or just killing themselves) as an easy way out. It would be much better to keep them alive to suffer in their own guilt, and to show everyone that people DO and WILL get caught.

Ya but it takes years to actually assess the DP. Guys will just appeal as long as they can, even if they were caught in the act, it doesnt matter.

Teachers are underpaid, and its sad that athletes and actors get paid so much for so little. Those salaries should be reversed!