WE CAN STOP THE KILLINGS- BUT IT WON'T BE EASY



I can't help but respond to the tragedy in  Connecticut last week. It's not that not enough has already  been said about this tragic even, The problem is that with all this talk no one is talking about what needs to be done to prevent  this from ever happening again. There has been a great deal of discussion about treating the symptoms of the problem with most of it focused on gun control but no discussion of a real solution. Gun control will make us all safer but it will not be enough to stop school shootings. I believe,  that a psychotic on a mission is going to find the weapons he needs regardless of how tightly we control guns. The real issue is not guns and it is only part of the solution.

The real issue is that as a culture and a community we have begun to produce, in numbers never seen before, young (people and sometimes even children), who have learned to hate themselves and the world so much that mass killing is the only way they believe they can ease their pain, compensate for their humiliations and be heard. The real problem, that too few people are talking about, is how do we prevent children from ever reaching this point. How can we provide every child with the experiences that he needs in order  for him to learn to  love and respect himself and others. Until we can figure out a way to do this these killings will continue whether we have better gun control or not.

A person must one go through a number of stages over many years before one becomes a psychopath   with the ability to kill. Killers are not born or made over night. The stages have well defined observable behaviors unique to each stage. If you would like to read about this in more detail there is an excellent book titled WHY THE KILL where Richard Rhodes writes about the research conducted by the sociologist Lonnie Athens  www.nytimes.com/books/first/r/rhodes-kill.html. It is an in depth study in which the author clearly identifies and explains these steps and the behaviors that accompany them.

Given that there are a number of stages if we were able to recognize one of the early stages in a student we could then take steps to provide the services the child needs in order to break the cycle.  By so doing we would also be preventing, later in life, the development of a very disturbed adult who would require services that the community then needs to provide. It seems the prudent way to go is to intervene as early as possible. An example of this is the shooter in Ct. who went through 12 years of public school talking to no one and apparently with out any attempt at out reach from the school. Had the school done so who knows how things might have turned out.

The big question is who in our communities will take on this responsibility?
Agencies are not exactly clamoring for the opportunity. Because our schools interact and evaluate our children every day they seem to be the most logical choice. However before this can be happen, we need to modify our schools by: adding required and qualified staff and training teachers and administration on what to look for in a child and by helping schools to embrace this new role, to make it part of their charter.  As it is now teachers believe they are responsible for transmitting a certain body of knowledge to their students and that their success of doing so is measured once a year by one standardized test. They don't consider the mental health of the child as being part of their job.  Now it is true that some teachers take it upon themselves to do this. They watch carefully for signs that a child may be in pain. However once she has done this there is no one to provide services to the child. This must change and schools will have to assume the responsibility for the mental health of the children the same way they now assume responsibility for their academic growth. It goes without saying that this will require additional dollars.



Once schools assume this responsibility we need to be sure that there are psychologists in adequate numbers available to provide the mental health services for those children in need. This can be done by the school or the state mental health agency, it makes no difference, as long as services are available. As part of the services to the child there will also need to be services provided to the family.  To assume that the problems teachers are seeing in children are of their own creation would be ill advised.  Usually when a child is experiencing difficulty there is something happening at home to support it. If, then, we work with the child and not the family it is unlikely that anything we do will have a permanent effect.

We will also need to improve the quality of teachers and teacher training. The job of teacher has become much more complicated and complex in the last two decades but teacher salaries have either declined or remained stagnant. If we do not seriously raise the salaries of teachers, and I mean double what they are making now, we will continue to attract teachers who although well intended are just not able to meet the needs of children. On average teachers come from the bottom 30% of their graduating class. ( I will deal with this in detail in a future blog)

The job requires people who are bright, talented, creative, flexible, infinitely patient, able to read even the subtle changes in a child's moods, is knowledgeable about child development and the latest research in the neurosciences that have implications for teaching.  They need to make 100s of decisions every day about how to handle  situations with different children that if wrong can ruin a child's day, if not his week. This is a lot to expect from any one person and there are not many who can do it really well. The average starting teacher makes 32k a year and this will not attract few people with the skills truly good teachers must have  

As an example it is not possible, on a teachers salary to buy a house, get married, have children save for retirement and then put your children through college while maintaining a decent standard of living. Many talented people, particularly men, who would make first rate teachers never even consider the job because the pay is so inadequate. Our brightest people should be teaching our children and this will not happen until salaries are made competitive.

Until we stop creating people capable of committing acts as atrocious as the shootings in Ct. we will have to accept these shootings as just another part of life because they will not stop. And solving the problem will require a rock solid commitment of both the government and the people and it will take the willingness to spend the money that s needed to make it effective.  The sad thing is that until we make this commitment to keep children from growing up to be psychpaths then innocent children and teachers will die and families will be torn apart and the only reason they will die is that "we" failed to act.

There are of course other ways to attack this problem.  I have outlined only one. It doesn't matter how we attack the problem only that we do attack and with a plan that stands a good chance of succeeding.
Don't let people tell you we don't have the money. If we can fight two wars and give tax breaks to the richest of the rich then we can fund this. Our children deserve it. They have a basic right to attend school without having to be afraid that they won't be home for diner as was the case for the children in CT.

Today is a day to celebrate Christmas with your chilrden and your family.  I hope it is a very Merry Christmas. Try to take a few moments to pause and condsider how lucky you are to have your children safe and happy and also take moment to think of those who will not be able to share this experience with you.

If children are truly our most precious asset and we truly believe this then it is time to start acting like it. 

IT IS TIME TO STOP THE MADNESS.

G