Bomb threats in our Nation's schools
By some brilliant Uppity Women

It has come to my attention by two parents from children at Rondout Valley Middle school in Accord, NY that 2 consecutive bomb threats have been made at their school. Hateful words and swastikas including when the bombs were to blow up the school were written in both the girls and boys bathrooms. The children were sent home with notes telling the parents of the first bomb threat so many kids did not go to school the next day. The first bomb was to go off on Tuesday and the school called in the police to check the building for a bomb at 3:00 PM on Monday and again on Tuesday morning at 7:00 AM before school started, to find nothing. However, the other bomb threat on Wednesday detained all of the children from class and were evacuated for many hours into the high school's cafeteria next door as they searched for a bomb, and found nothing. Today, the children all entered through one entrance under a metal detector.

I know personally one parent who has removed her daughter from the school to go to a "safer" school but I wonder if there is such a thing when somebody in grades 5 through 8 would threaten an entire school like this. The trouble is not just "out there" but right in our own neighborhoods.  "Our" schools are not safe and the public should be alerted to this.

I tell you, if this keeps up, I will be forced to home school my kids past elementary school...unless the madness seeps in there too before long & I have to yank them out. I want my kids to be unafraid to go to school and to return safely, not in a body bag! I'm really frightened at what is happening with our kids these days.  I can't understand what is happening. Perhaps some of you have some insight as to the dangers looming in our society. 

Why is there so much anger that fills our nation's schools?

Have we any hope for our kid's futures?
Rochelle Jourdan

I have thought about this violence that is so prevalent among young kids, and it stumps me.  I am not in favor of censorship in any form, but I cannot help but wonder how much the violence on TV, movies, music and video games is making a distorted impression in kids minds.  No answers here, that's for sure. I have wondered if even our sports arenas are to blame, in part.  Who are the heroes for our young people to use as role models? Sherry

"Why is there so much anger that fills our nation's schools?"

Yanno, I have picked this question apart time and time again. The closest I can get to an answer is that it may not be hatred at all that drives these kids to harm classmates and teachers in the school. It may be that kids who perceive their lives as empty and unfullfilling, seek to gain notoriety through their horrendous actions.  Take a good look at the contents of the video tape the Columbine police recently released (to the media before the parents which was bullshit). Those kids KNEW they would end up being notorious. They even speculated that their story would be fought over by famous Hollywood directors......such as Quinten Terrentino (who's movies are always full of guts and gore, IMO).  I think that they felt like social outcasts stuck in a rut and wanted to stand out....to shine...to be remembered. They were obviously dissatisfied enough with life that they committed suicide before being caught. With no fear of death, they slaughtered classmates and teachers and then ended their own lives, knowing full well that within 24 hours they would be heroes to teens all over the world who exhaulted their bravery and daring. They would be on the front page of every newspaper in the country, the subject of countless talk shows and cheap movies. They knew this because they discussed it in advance. What started out like a fun war game simply went all the way. Those boys knew they would probably never be famous so they simply made themselves INfamous and whacked off a few kids who they felt belittled them all through high school.  I think, by the simple virtue that the media is now so much more widespread than it used to be, that stories like these literally create infamous individuals who, a day before, nobody even knew existed. That probably has a big draw for kids who are even slightly troubled or feel inferior.

"Have we any hope for our kids futures?"

WE are the hope for our kid's futures. It is up to US to teach them better ways to gain attention than by having their names on the lips of every top newscaster. We need to teach them to be satisfied enough with themselves to not need that kind of attention or infamy. We need to discuss this whole mess with our kids and get them to see exactly how "UNCOOL" this new trend is. Kids who have suffered the loss of a loved one, are especially able to see how death affects everyone it touches, I think. My children mourn a sister that all of them (except Ryan) never met. Her death affected them deeply even though they were born long after she died. That realization alone, would keep my children from ever picking up a gun and taking another's life. Talk to your kids. Know them well. Teach them all about the world......good and bad. Channel their energy in positive directions. Stay interested and nosey when it comes to their friends and their activities out of our sight. Perhaps that is how we save our kids. I want my child to understand that the joy he gets out of pulling a good grade out of weeks of hard work. That is a much deeper (more real) acclaim than having his picture on the cover of Time magazine or his name on a tombstone. I try hard to make each of my children feel special in their OWN right. Not one child in my house feels like his success is tied to anyone other than themselves. Not one child is made to feel like they are better or worse than a sibling or other child. I taught each of them that ANYTHING is possible if you plan for it in advance and set small goals for yourself and try your best to accomplish what you set out to do. I have also taught them that much of our lives is based on a path that twists and turns. You may go to college thinking that you are going to be a teacher and end up being a social worker instead. You may set out to be a mother and find yourself unable to find an appropriate mate or be faced with infertility, in which case you could consider adopting and bringing love to a child that wouldn't get as much love otherwise. I teach them that the plans they make may not always turn out like we expect but if we emphasize the positive, a positive end will result. I think it makes them deal with disappointment easier. I honestly think if more parents took the time to take an active role in their children's lives, kids would not feel the desire to do something utterly horrifying for fame.

Much love,
JeanJeannie

Last night, I was watching 48 Hours. The subject was 2000 kids. There were some great stories of overcoming external challenges that some of these kids face. There was also a segment about the drug issue.  48 Hours
interviewed teens from a very affluent town in Texas.  This particular town has a really huge problem with cocaine and heroin. One girl they  interviewed said that she did it to escape all of her problems.  The interviewer asked her what problems she could possibly have at 13 that would make her want to do this.  She replied, "well, you know, grades, and stuff."

In my humble opinion, this was a huge cop out. Kids from families that provide all the nurturing, attention, with out abuse and other horrors do NOT have problems that are so terrible.

I hope that I am teaching my children my "meaning of life."  Nothing is so horrible that it can't be overcome.  We are here in this particular life for such a short time, and that life is FUN! Learn everything you can...who you are, who your friends are. Help others. Be kind. Be caring. Love yourself as much as I love you.  Know that you are special, know that you are important. If you look at your life as a big game, one that you can't lose, then you see things differently. You understand that these are experiences you choose to have, and you can change the way you play at any time.  You can change how you respond to situations once you realize that what ever it is you are doing doesn't work for you anymore.

I don't know what the answer is about the violence.  I do know that those kids that committed the shooting atrocity were very angry, and they knew they were. How their parents didn't see this is beyond me.  Why is it that parents don't see problems and nip it in the bud?  The hardest thing for me to do was to send my beloved son to live with my parents for a few years.  He was having problems in school, and starting to get into trouble.  I had no choice but to take drastic measures to do what was right by him to get him going in the right direction.  Sometimes we have to sacrifice ourselves for our children...that is life, and that is responsibility. We take on this responsibility as soon as our children take their first breath.

I often wonder what was going through their head when they actually pulled
the first trigger, downed the first classmate. Did they realize that it wasn't what they thought it would be?

Saddened without answers,
MaryO

Trying to deal with your question? So long as we have a culture that glorifies violence...that makes it so commonplace for children that they can
no longer separate reality from fiction...these things are going to keep happening. I also believe that when our society changed from an adult-oriented to a child-centered one, we gave up the one thing (in a nutshell: me adult, you kid, this is not for you PERIOD) that made schooling a variable life pattern.

IMO, school has always been a "prison" (in terms of their mindset) for so many youngsters for generations. I don't believe that that has changed. They are at the mercy of their teachers...each other (dog-eat-dog and the bully mentality that has always existed)...desperately trying to find a place in their peer group where they can fit in (the great gawd popularity)...how many of you can remember your own school years as being a predominantly positive experience? Mine were certainly a nightmare.

However, I think the attitudinal difference today is a twofold one: I believe that much of the anger you are seeing especially as they age is sheer frustration and a sense of feeling cheated.  Who said school was supposed to be fun? School was what you had to do in order to reach the coveted status of adulthood. Sooner or later, learning is hard work.  Yet today's kids have been so conditioned by play theories that when reality hits home, they are outraged. Further, when the theories don't work and they come up empty at test time, the frustration level is enormous.  Why is this important? Because this generation is the first one to have ready access to tools and concepts to *do* something about it. Actors out in my day pulled the fire alarm to generate chaos.  The same kids today (assuming they can read...if not TV provides the info) have built-in lessons hyped by the media in how to do the same thing on a more deadly and sophisticated level.  They have no idea of the reality of the concept of consequences because most of them have never experienced them.

Finally, an extension (again...my in this case VHO) of our child-centered society glamorizes kids over adults. We've been brainwashed on the innate wisdom of children. That thinking adults should abrogate their status of control and "a little child shall lead them".  Well...Rousseau thought that one up a couple of centuries ago. It didn't work then and it doesn't work now.  When did "no" become a dirty word? When did "sorry we can't afford it" become somehow an admission of failure to be avoided at all cost? Look at the Christmas hype...what do you see?  Parents buying everything in sight and doing terrible damage to the family as a functional financial unit in the process.  By me, when we see teens on TV and in films outsmarting adults and *getting away with it*...when parents and adults in general in this child-centered universe are portrayed as stupid and inept, the kids are being empowered in ways that were unimaginable even a generation ago.

Oh there are a million other contributing factors I'm sure, but we have opened a Pandora's box here, and without the kind of social change that this time and this place sees as impossible, I seriously doubt if Hope is clinging to its bottom.  Just my two cents worth...???
Ellie

I share your concerns but there is another perspective. I'm involved in
emergency management with a varied group of folks - one who was involved in the Springfield incident and several who went to the Columbine aftermath - and one thing all schools are struggling with is how to deal with this.

In the month after Columbine, our county sheriff's office received notification from local schools of more than 40 threats of similar mayhem. FORTY THREATS!!! They are investigated, extra patrols are assigned, but if each one went to the newspaper can you imagine what chaos there would be? The threats continue. And they are being repeated across the country. Ninety-nine plus percent are empty; but all need to be investigated.

The Columbine case was remarkable only because of the yearlong, sophisticate planning efforts by the two kids. What I hadn't heard before was how many lives were saved because of - and this is ironic - a plastic clock.

Seems our two lunatics did have a sophisticated bomb system. They had bombs staged to go off not only at school, but earlier at an empty field (brush fire) and several other places, thus taxing the emergency response personnel.

The big bomb was timed to go off last, and had it succeeded, the entire wing of the school would have been destroyed. The only problem was that the timer was - just like in the movies- one of those clocks with the metal bell ringers on the top. When the alarm went off, an arc would go between the bells and set off the explosion. Just one problem.

The "metal" bells were actually plastic painted to look like metal. So the arc did not complete and they were forced into Plan B, which was to shoot as many students as possible.

Another tidbit - their first plan included killing the school security officer. On that day, the officer decided to eat his lunch in the car, something he didn't usually do. So his life was saved, even though he was in a parking lot full of cars rigged to explode.

This is long and rambling, and I don't have an answer, but the media is cognizant of the fact that the "blaze of glory" enjoyed by these lunatics afterwards produces copycats. It also thwarts investigations if reported before a suspect is caught.

It's not an easy decision for anyone.
Anne

It's frightening that this has started happening in middle schools, but  it smells to me of a prank a middle-school aged kid would pull.

What a difference 30 years makes, though! When I was in high school (1969-1973), we had bomb scares on a weekly, and sometimes daily basis. We all took them in stride as an anarchist, antiwar, "let's disrupt the  system" type of thing. I can't recall anyone feeling actually threatened by  them. The alarm would go off, & we'd all have to evacuate & end up standing around in the parking lot chatting & smoking until we got the all clear. The kids who were lucky enough to have their own cars would have a place to stay warm, & some would even take off for McDonalds. It was such a commonplace occurrence for so long that the choir director even wrote a piece about it, which the chorus performed in concert. In those days bomb scares were considered disruptive, and frustrating, but never scary! Today, however, it's a completely different social climate, and threats are taken waayyy more seriously by schools, and parents. We need to make sure our kids understand that there is a "zero-tolerance" policy about threats of any kind in most school systems today, to the point where even an " I'll get you later!" said laughingly can get a kid hauled into the principal's office & face expulsion.

The world has been turned on its head, once again.
Robin

Ellie wrote: "Because this generation is the first one to have ready access to tools and concepts to *do* something about it. Actors out in my day pulled the fire alarm to generate chaos. The same kids today (assuming they can read...if not TV provides the info) have built-in lessons hyped by the media in how to do the same thing on a more deadly and sophisticated level. They have no idea of the reality of the concept of consequences because most of them have never experienced them."

I half way agree with this.  In my school days - all the boys had pocket knives they carried to school daily (and would often whittle during  recess, or play mumblety-peg, and such like games with them).  Most of them  either owned guns outright - or they had access to guns at friends' homes. Violence was no less then than it is now, but the lesson that guns and knives were tools and not weapons was a deeply ingrained one.  I've seen fighting kids on the playground either hand their knives to watchers or toss them down and lay into one another with their fists. They had the knives in hand - and discarded them - because they wanted to injure the other kid. You don't injure someone with a tool, that's *blasphemous*!  When knives and guns lost the commonplace association of 'tool' and became glorified as 'weapon', that transition was when we started having problems with children misusing these tools as weapons.  All the bleeding hearts who try to wrap society in cotton wool to prevent anyone from being injured by outlawing guns and knives are largely responsible for the shift in perception from 'tool' to 'weapon' and add that delicious frisson to their usage - and therefore to an extent responsible for the misuse of these tools.  When something becomes forbidden or illegal, it assumes a patina of glory and machismo that is almost irresistible.  Since our children are made to be disenfranchised children for so much longer, and childhood (but not children themselves) is so glamorized (as you said), they feel their special attributes as children have been usurped, and they have no choice but to select adult methods to strike out and regain their own province again.

We really do need to restore the dichotomy between childhood and adulthood, to have a clear demarcation between the two once more, and to refuse to allow children to assume the authority which rightfully belongs to adults, while allowing them the authority which is a child's province. They need something for which to strive, limits to overcome on their own. Then, and only then, can they become true adults.

I really need to dig out my Ph.D. thesis again, and see how much things have changed since I wrote it. It was "The Fairy tale Witch as an Empowering Symbol for the Preadolescent and Adolescent'. It addressed issues of children needing to overcome (even if only vicariously through fairy tales) obstacles and feelings which would allow them to then progress on to adulthood. Our society doesn't let the children overcome anything, so they feel helpless and hopeless, and will do almost anything to achieve that need for internal control and power - even if it means projecting it outward using adult 'tools' to get adult attention.

Only - where are the adults?

We Uppities are a small group of adults, and we are affecting our local neighborhoods to an extent.  We need more adults in this society - and fewer 'adult children' (that has got to be one of the sickest terms I have ever heard - a person is either a child or an adult - or transiting between them).

OK, I'll stop my rant here before I get carried away and offend every one.
Nodigio

I tell you, I am the mother of a four year old and a one year old. I am frightened to death that my little girl might have to go to school next year. In Stockton a man opened fire on a playground full of kindergartners. I am afraid that she will be hurt or or killed and I will not have been there to do anything about it. The news stories one hears today make me want to hold my children tight and never let them go. It isn't the anger at others that makes them do what they do. For generations upon generations children (especially teenagers) have been trying to be different, to get noticed, to be outstanding.

These days now that we are totally desensitized to violence and people are not being held responsible for their actions, kids must do much more to stand out. To feel significant in their world where the parents are at work all day and are too tired or too busy to do much with the kids at night.
Tina

Rochelle's post  has occupied my back burner for a few days. There have been a number of good responses, but here's my take:

There have been many explanations, here and in the media, that have offered such diagnoses as easy gratification, focus on toys, low frustration level, no values, yadda yadda, and whatever-the-hell else. These don't satisfy me as an explanation for Columbine, or Eugene. They're too easy, too flip, too shallow. The youth of every generation since time began have been tempted by the toys in the window, and when thwarted, they didn't erupt into the kind of horrifying violence at Columbine.

It plain doesn't make sense to me that, in the decade of the '90s, kids are suddenly acting like this, suddenly arming themselves with Uzi's and roaming the streets, conducting war, because of the blithe explanations proffered in the press. ("Suddenly" being temporally relative; don't come at me with a lot of stuff about it started before then. I KNOW it started before then.)

Violence on television can't have been solely responsible for it. The tube didn't by itself engender a gang culture that demands of 14-year-olds that they commit murder as a rite of initiation.

I think the answer lies beyond vid violence. When my generation were kids, we soaked up John Wayne, war movies, the Red Baron blown out of the sky, Roy Rogers, cowboys 'n Indian movies -- guns blazing right and left, bodies everywhere. We didn't go insane and rush out and shoot up a schoolyard.

And it sure as hell has nothing to do with "lack of family values", whatever
the blazes that's supposed to mean. That there is no such thing, that "family values" is a chimera, is no surprise to us, bright childs that we are. (More about that later.) Nor will I believe that a substantial percentage of our children have suddenly been struck so dumb, or so crazy, as to lose their minds to such a degree, with no more explanation than some sort of vague unarticulated dissatisfaction with "society".

I think the forces that brought the two killers to Columbine are much more complex and fetch back much farther than that. Human nature, God knows, is quirky, but not THAT quirky.

I think it started with Vietnam.

No. Actually, to understand the real story, we must go back before Vietnam, to World War II.  The United States had a wonderful opinion of itself -- entirely justified. We were the greatest nation on earth. Knowing this about ourselves was both a good thing and a bad thing -- though we had yet to learn about the bad thing.  Even though we were dragged kicking and screaming into the war, when we finally did commit, we satisfactorily kicked Hitler's rear (okay, with a little help). We paid a terrible price for it, but we came back home, and in the postwar '50s boom, we were more full of ourselves than ever. It was a wonderful time, the best time, a time at first of tired relief and recovery that didn't last long, and when that time was over, of a great big BOOM that would not quit.

Our parents were STRUTTIN'! Our fathers had saved England and the free world for democracy, and our mothers had run the home front, manned the factories and raised the children and the Victory gardens (with the help, in a lot of cases, of Victory gin).  We Liked Ike. We put him in the White House.

We deserved to feel good about ourselves. We had earned it.

Then in 1956, some little steam began rising in a far-off bumf-fuck of a country in Southeast Asia ... But we, me, my generation were still in childhood, still wrapped warm and secure in the arms of our caretakers -- parental, school and Government. We pledged the allegiance, we revered the President, over there in his big White House, wisely governing our country and watching over us. Our Dick and Jane primers taught us to read about Officer Friendly, and we were confident that if we ever got lost, Officer Friendly would see us safely home, because Officer Friendly was on our side.

Our parents, joyously free of war worry, loved us lavishly, and brought home the bacon and the roast chicken for Sunday dinner. No hunger here! Our teachers taught us, guided us and cared for us.  My Miss Carrott (she of the red hair: endless joke material there) made us snack-sandwiches of cottage cheese, red jelly and Saltine crackers, and made us take naps, and sent notes home when we talked too much or showed too much fight. More than once, Miss Carrott helped me into my galoshes, which always got stuck on my Buster Browns.

And the smoke grew darker and denser, in that far-off Southeast Asian country.

We grew up, products of security.  (Except for the Bomb, but that was far away and probably wouldn't happen.)  We entered young adulthood, bolstered by our postwar-happy parents, by Officer Friendly, by Miss Carrott and by Ike.  And the knowledge that we lived in the greatest country on earth. No one could harm us, no one could bring us down.

The entire universe was our oyster.

It was 1960. As though life wasn't comfortable enough, as full of possibilities, we had a young handsome President with his Jackie and Camelot. "Ask not what you can do ..." The Bay of Pigs, a moment of quelling nervousness, but Kennedy kiboshed that, and it went away. Then in November 1963, Dallas happened. It didn't, because it couldn't have ... But it did.

First Big Bad Shock.

By now, the little Southeastern country that nobody could've found on a map to save themselves had hotted up.  Much confusion. What had started out as an "action" all of a sudden was a war -- though (post-Ike) Washington was careful not to call it that (and they never did).

No need to elaborate, right? For the first time in our history, we got our asses kicked, colossally.

Thus the Second, Even Bigger Bad Shock.

An eye blink, temporally speaking, after Dallas.

To double the trouble, many of us knew -- and took it to the streets with rage and fire -- that it wasn't the Vietnamese nor yet the Russians who were killing us; it was our very own government.

Ike didn't live there anymore.

So there we were:  Products of security. Freshly grown up, barely learned how to shave, secure in our institutions.  When BIM-BAM-BOOM!!! Kennedy shot!  Bobby shot! Martin Luther King shot!

Thereafter came the Third Bad Shock, the Dernier Cri, that split the blanket once and for all:

One man, Lee Harvey Oswald, had pulled the trigger in Dallas.  One man,
Sirhan Sirhan, pulled it in California, and one man, James Earl Ray, had pulled his in the American South. Maybe, probably, at least one of these men were backed by other people. We're led to believe that truth will not emerge until we are all dead. But all the spin-doctoring in the world would not shield Richard M. Nixon from complicity in the break-in of a suite of offices in a Washington hotel named Watergate. Here there could be no doubt: Our own government, at the highest level, had played very, very dirty, and it lied and lied and lied to the American people.

We had babies. Where our parents had the answers to give to their babies when they became children with questions, we didn't have any answers for ours.  When our parents could say with the conviction of belief: Trust in us, trust in our government, we no longer could say those things to our children. More to the point ... We were more than a little crazy ourselves.  We were returning Vietvets.  We were the ones who had to heal them, and had no clue how to do it. We were the ones who watched Kennedy's brains blow out the back of his head, Jackie climbing onto the roof-canvas, his blood spattered on her suit and on her face, Bobby speaking with his wonderful eloquence one minute and laying dazed and already dead on the stage the next, Dr. King, the hope of millions, blitzed out of existence in a nanosecond ...

And we had a President who held our eyes through televisions all over the country and said: "I am not a crook."

We weren't geniuses! We were only ordinary people! We had -- and I think this is the point of my post here -- sustained too many shocks, too many cracks in our foundation in too short a time, and we were unprepared.  And too lost our own selves to guide our children. But tempes fugit, they grew up anyway, with or without us, and they grew up without Ike or Miss Carrott. Ike was gone, and Miss Carrott had lost her own sons in Chu Lai. Our children grew up in houses run by parents who were so shell-shocked that they didn't know what they were supposed to believe their own selves, much less what to pass on to their kids.

Then THOSE children grew up, and had children themselves.

Two of whom shot up Columbine.

I know I promised some stuff about family values, but I'm tired right now. Maybe later.
Cats

I don't know if your high school days were anything like mine but....I for one got sick of "the in crowd", the elite, the superior, the "with it" group being the reason (in their heads, for having a high school altogether)...The Cheer leaders, the jocks, the athletes, the popular people..That if they spoke to you, wow!!!!!!!! You couldn't believe it because the stars, one of them had spoken to you.......Who was going with who, who was the stars of the class...And I remember it starting early. (6th grade)....

The intelligent people, the honor roll people...The ones that the teachers DID do special favors for, (many times over and over) bent over backwards for...So they would have golden boys and girls.......  I remember especially the athletes getting "let by" with shit grades or their grades being pumped up....The athletes were let to slide on many things....They got special outings, special deals.....The stars of the school, while walking down the hall, parted it so people could worship the football players..... (just like having a movie star, Mel Gibsonish)....

And when I remember, this was a public school, my parents tax dollars paid for like everyone else's......But for it supposedly being all the same because it was public...I know there was VERY SPECIAL treatment of the top 10 percent of honor roll students, athletes, the popular......

My kids are in 2nd grade...They saw their cousin this weekend whom is in 4th grade.....His whole conversation was about how "popular" he was............And he was doing the talking..... And I do remember the PRESSURE of trying to be popular, to be liked, to be one of the chosen ones.....To get so and so to say HI to me.....And I know a lot of people did the same thing....Almost all kids were worried they were not liked, accepted, thought well of by teachers and staff.....Or if they were popular...........

What pressure!!  And kids are singled out...The "Golden boys and Girls" get it all....I can see where the anger comes from, where the competition and bad feelings come from and where they start....And someone is always being EXCLUDED...If you complain, then you are a whiner, retarded, geek, asshole, dumb, trouble maker....Not cool

Yeh, this could be a lot of it....LOLOLOLOL  Patsss

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