Construction crews are a familiar sight at my school recently due to a project to build more classrooms and a new student store. The whole library has been fenced in and an encaged walkway has been provided to allow foot traffic into and out of the library.
As I was walking to fifth period, I noticed a group of about eight (male) students pushing a section of fencing onto two students exiting the library. I don’t know the exact reason why the students partook in this activity, but the joy exhibited in their faces seemed to provide some clues. While the fencing wasn’t crushing the few students it was landing on, it was seriously inhibiting their movement. They would push section back so they could continue their quest to exit the library and the eight students would push it back on them, making grunting noises as if they were in a Rocky movie. A gauntlet of sorts was created for the entertainment of the creators. While this transpired, scores of students stood, laughing at the site of eight students harassing two other students.
As I saw this, I thought about how it must feel to be one of those two students. If that was me, I would be infuriated. I tried to imagine what I would do in that situation, then I thought about how great it would be to have a gun with me when that happened, not necessarily to kill one of my aggressors, but to turn the tables, to take the power they had usurped. Although if one of them were to die, it would add to their fear and subsequently, my glee.
Then I thought about all those stories you hear about students killing other students. This is probably how many of these incidents start. A "weaker" student is being verbally, physically, or emotionally harassed by a "more powerful" student and turns to a gun for protection or revenge.
I thought about it for quite some time. I couldn’t condone the use of violence as a means of protecting students who are being harassed by others simply because it was in their power, but these kids have few choices. What are their options? Discuss the matter with a school official? It sounds like a valid choice without firsthand knowledge of attending school in present times. What will happen? A student gets talked to and possibly disciplined and you are branded as a nark and the harassment increases along with your pain. Are you to ignore it? It will stop after a while. This seems like a good choice if you are not living with the everyday pain of the harassment. It might stop, but when? A month? A year? Who knows?
It’s a growing trend these days for students to kill other students. You hear it on the news nightly, you read it in magazines and newpapers all the time. Something is angering these kids to the point of violence. Much of it is probably a result of just wanting to be free of torment. Although I can’t condone this behavior, I can’t quite bring myself to condemn these people for wanting to be left alone and turning to violence as a last resort. We don’t seem to be close to having a majority of compassionate students in schools. Perhaps the realization that they might take a bullet or fall victim to some other act of violence will bring about a change.