Slashdot Mirror
Voices From The Hellmouth
The big story never seemed to quite make it to the front pages or the TV talk shows. It wasn't whether the Net is a place for hate-mongers and bomb-makers, or whether video games are turning your kids into killers. It was the spotlight the Littleton, Colorado killings has put on the fact that for so many individualistic, intelligent, and vulnerable kids, high school is a Hellmouth of exclusion, cruelty, loneliness, inverted values and rage.
From Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Todd Solondz's "Welcome To The Dollhouse," and a string of comically-bitter teen movies from Hollywood, pop culture has been trying to get this message out for years. For many kids - often the best and brightest -- school is a nightmare.
People who are different are reviled as geeks, nerds, dorks. The lucky ones are excluded, the unfortunates are harassed, humiliated, sometimes assaulted literally as well as socially. Odd values - unthinking school spirit, proms, jocks - are exalted, while the best values - free thinking, non-conformity, curiousity - are ridiculed. Maybe the one positive legacy the Trenchcoat Mafia left was to ensure that this message got heard, by a society that seems desperate not to hear it.
Minutes after the "Kids That Kill" column was posted on Slashdot Friday, and all through the weekend, I got a steady stream of e-mail from middle and high school kids all over the country -- especially from self-described oddballs. They were in trouble, or saw themselves that way to one degree or another in the hysteria sweeping the country after the shootings in Colorado.
Many of these kids saw themselves as targets of a new hunt for oddballs -- suspects in a bizarre, systematic search for the strange and the alienated. Suddenly, in this tyranny of the normal, to be different wasn't just to feel unhappy, it was to be dangerous.
Schools all over the country openly embraced Geek Profiling. One group calling itself the National School Safety Center issued a checklist of "dangerous signs" to watch for in kids: it included mood swings, a fondness for violent TV or video games, cursing, depression, anti-social behavior and attitudes. (I don't know about you, but I bat a thousand).
The panic was fueled by a ceaseless bombardment of powerful, televised images of mourning and grief in Colorado, images that stir the emotions and demand some sort of response, even when it isn't clear what the problem is.
The reliably blockheaded media response didn't help either. "Sixty Minutes" devoted a whole hour to a broadcast on screen violence and its impact on the young, heavily promoted by this tease: "Are video games turning your kids into killers?" The already embattled loners were besieged.
"This is not a rational world. Can anybody help?" asked Jamie, head of an intense Dungeons and Dragons club in Minnesota, whose private school guidance counselor gave him a choice: give up the game or face counseling, possibly suspension. Suzanne Angelica (her online handle) was told to go home and leave her black, ankle-length raincoat there.
On the Web, kids did flock to talk to each other. On Star Wars and X-Files mailing lists and websites and on AOL chat rooms and ICQ message boards, teenagers traded countless countless stories of being harassed, beaten, ostracized and ridiculed by teachers, students and administrators for dressing and thinking differently from the mainstream. Many said they had some understanding of why the killers in Littleton went over the edge.
"We want to be different," wrote one of the Colorado killers in a diary found by the police. "We want to be strange and we don't want jocks or other people putting us down." The sentiment, if not the response to it, was echoed by kids all over the country. The Littleton killings have made their lives much worse.
"It was horrible, definitely," e-mailed Bandy from New York City. "I'm a Quake freak, I play it day and night. I'm really into it. I play Doom a lot too, though not so much anymore. I'm up till 3 a.m. every night. I really love it. But after Colorado, things got horrible. People were actually talking to me like I could come in and kill them. It wasn't like they were really afraid of me - they just seemed to think it was okay to hate me even more? People asked me if I had guns at home. This is a whole new level of exclusion, another excuse for the preppies of the universe to put down and isolate people like me."
It wasn't just the popular who were suspicious of the odd and the alienated, though.
The e-mailed stories ranged from suspensions and expulsions for "anti-social behavior" to censorship of student publications to school and parental restrictions on computing, Web browsing, and especially gaming. There were unconfirmed reports that the sale of blocking software had skyrocketed. Everywhere, school administrators pandered and panicked, rushing to show they were highly sensitive to parents fears, even if they were oblivious to the needs and problems of many of their students.
In a New Jersey private school, a girl was expelled for showing classmates a pocket-knife. School administrators sent a letter home:
"In light of the recent tragedy in Littleton, Colorado, we all share a heightened sensitivity to potential threats to our children. I urge you to take this time to discuss with your children the importance of turning to adults when they have concerns about the behavior of others."
This solution was straight out of "1984." In fact, this was one of the things it's protagonist Winston was jailed for: refusing to report his friends for behavior that Big Brother deemed abnormal and disturbing.
Few of the weeks? media reports - in fact, none that I saw - pointed out that the FBI Uniform Crime reports, issued bi-annually, along with the Justice Departments reports (statistical abstracts on violence are available on the Department's website and in printed form) academic studies and some news reports have reporters for years now. Violence among the young is dropping across the country, even as computing, gaming, cable TV and other media use rises.
Unhappy, alienated, isolated kids are legion in schools, voiceless in media, education and politics. But theirs are the most important voices of all in understanding what happened and perhaps even how to keep it from happening again.
I referred some of my e-mailers to peacefire.org, a children's rights website, for help in dealing with blocking and filtering software. I sent others to freedomforum.org (the website Free!) for help with censorship and free speech issues, and to geek websites, especially some on ICQ.com where kids can talk freely.
I've chosen some e-mailers to partially reprint here. Although almost all of these correspondents were willing to be publicly identified - some demanded it - I'm only using their online names, since some of their stories would put them in peril from parents, peers or school administrators.
From Jay in the Southeast:
"I stood up in a social studies class -the teacher wanted a discussion -- and said I could never kill anyone or condone anyone who did kill anyone. But that I could, on some level, understand these kids in Colorado, the killers. Because day after day, slight after slight, exclusion after exclusion, you can learn how to hate, and that hatred grows and takes you over sometimes, especially when you come to see that you're hated only because you're smart and different, or sometimes even because you are online a lot, which is still so uncool to many kids?
After the class, I was called to the principal's office and told that I had to agree to undergo five sessions of counseling or be expelled from school, as I had expressed ?sympathy? with the killers in Colorado, and the school had to be able to explain itself if I ?acted out?. In other words, for speaking freely, and to cover their ass, I was not only branded a weird geek, but a potential killer. That will sure help deal with violence in America."
From Jason in Pennsylvania: "The hate just eats you up, like the molten metal moving up Keanu Reeve's arm in the ?The Matrix.? That's what I thought of when I saw it. You lose track of what is real and what isn't. The worst people are the happiest and do the best, the best and smartest people are the most miserable and picked upon. The cruelty is unimaginable. If Dan Rather wants to know why those guys killed those people in Littleton, Colorado, tell him for me that the kids who run the school probably drove them crazy, bit by bit?.That doesn't mean all those kids deserved to die. But a lot of kids in America know why it happened, even if the people running schools don't."
From Andrew in Alaska: "To be honest, I sympathized much more with the shooters than the shootees. I am them. They are me. This is not to say I will end the lives of my classmates in a hail of bullets, but that their former situation bears a striking resemblance to my own. For the most part, the media are clueless. They're never experienced social rejection, or chosen non-conformity'Also, I would like to postulate that the kind of measures taken by school administration have a direct effect on school violence. School is generally an oppressive place; the parallels to fascist society are tantalizing. Following a school shooting, a week or two-week crackdown ensues, where students? constitutional rights are violated with impunity, at a greater rate than previous."
From Anika78 in suburban Chicago:
"I was stopped at the door of my high school because I was wearing a trenchcoat. I don't game, but I'm a geekchick, and I'm on the Web a lot. (I love geek guys, and there aren't many of us.) I was given a choice - go home and ditch the coat, or go to the principal. I refused to go home. I have never been a member of any group or trenchcoat mob or any hate thing, online or any other, so why should they tell me what coat to wear?
Two security guards took me into an office, called the school nurse, who was a female, and they ordered me to take my coat off. The nurse asked me to undress (privately) while the guards outside the door went through every inch of my coat. I wouldn't undress, and she didn't make me (I think she felt creepy about the whole thing).
Then I was called into the principal's office and he asked me if I was a member of any hate group, or any online group, or if I had ever played Doom or Quake. He mentioned some other games, but I don't remember them. I'm not a gamer, though my boyfriends have been. I lost it then. I thought I was going to be brave and defiant, but I just fell apart. I cried and cried. I think I hated that worse than anything."
FromZBird in New Jersey:
"Yeah, I've had some fantasies about taking out some of these jerks who run the school, have parties, get on teams, are adored by teachers, have all these friends. Sure. They hate me. Day by day, it's like they take pieces out of you, like a torture, one at a time. My school has 1,500 kids. I could never make a sports team. I have never been to a party. I sit with my friends at our own corner of the cafeteria. If we tried to join the other kids, they'd throw up or leave. And by now, I'd rather die.
Sometimes, I do feel a lot of real pure rage. And I feel better when I go online. Sometimes I think the games keep me from shooting anybody, not the other way around. Cause I can get even there, and I'm pretty powerful there. But I'd never do it. Something much deeper was wrong with these kids in Colorado. To shoot all those people? Make bombs? You have to be sick, and the question they should be asking isn't what games do they play, but how come all these high-paid administrators, parents, teachers and so-called professional people, how come none of them noticed how wacked they were? I mean, in the news it said they had guns all over their houses! They were planning this for a year. Maybe the reporters ought to ask how come nobody noticed this, instead of writing all these stupid stories about video games?"
From ES in New York:
High school favors people with a certain look and attitude - the adolescent equivalent of Aryans. They are the chosen ones, and they want to get rid of anyone who doesn't look and think the way they do. One of the things which makes this so infuriating is that the system favors shallow people. Anyone who took the time to think about things would realize that things like the prom, school spirit and who won the football game are utterly insignificant in the larger scheme of things.
So anyone with depth of thought is almost automatically excluded from the main high school social structure. It's like some horribly twisted form of Social Darwinism.
I would never, ever do anything at all like what was done in Colorado. I can't understand how anyone could. But I do understand the hatred of high school life which, I guess, prompted it.
From Dan in Boise, Idaho:
"Be careful! I wrote an article for my school paper. The advisor suggested we write about ?our feelings? about Colorado. My feelings -what I wrote -- were that society is blaming the wrong things. You can't blame screwed-up kids or the Net. These people don't know what they were talking about. How bout blaming a system that takes smart or weird kids and drives them crazy? How about understanding why these kids did what they did, cause in some crazy way, I feel something for them. For their victims, too, but for them. I thought it was a different point-of-view, but important. I was making a point. I mean, I'm not going to the prom.
You know what? The article was killed, and I got sent home with a letter to my parents. It wasn't an official suspension, but I can't go back until Tuesday. And it was made pretty clear to me that if I made any noise about it, it would be a suspension or worse. So this is how they are trying to figure out what happened in Colorado, I guess. By blaming a sub-culture and not thinking about their own roles, about how fucked-up school is. Now, I think the whole thing was a set-up, cause a couple of other kids are being questioned too, about what they wrote. They pretend to want to have a 'dialogue' but kids should be warned that what they really want to know is who's dangerous to them."
From a Slashdot reader: "Your column Friday was okay, but you and a lot of the Slashdot readers don't get it. You don't have the guts to stand up and say these games are not only not evil, they are great. They are good. They are challenging and stimulating. They help millions of kids who have nowhere else to go, because the whole world is set up to take care of different kinds of kids, kids who fit in, who do what they're told, who are popular. I've made more friends online on Gamespot.com than I have in three years of high school. I think about my characters and my competitions and battles all day.
Nothing I've been taught in school interests me as much. And believe me, the gamers who (try to) kill me online all day are a lot closer to me than the kids I go to high school with. I'm in my own world, for sure, but it's my choice and it's a world I love. Without it, I wouldn't have one... Last week, my father told me he had cancelled my ISP because he had asked me not to game so much and I still was. And when he saw the Colorado thing online, he said, he told my Mom that he felt one of these kids could be me'I am a resourceful geek, and I was back online before he got to bed that night. But I have to go underground now.
My guidance counselor, who wouldn't know a computer game from Playboy Bunny poster, told me was Dad was being a good parent, and here was a chance for me to re-invent myself, be more popular, to ?mainstream.? This whole Colorado thing, it's given them an excuse to do more of what started this trouble in the first place - to make individuals and different people feel like even bigger freaks."
From Jip in New England:
"Dear Mr. Katz. I am 10. My parents took my computer away today, because of what they saw on television. They told me they just couldn't be around enough to make sure that I'm doing the right things on the Internet. My Mom and Dad told me they didn't want to be standing at my funeral some day because of things I was doing that they didn't know about. I am at my best friend's house, and am pretty bummed, because things are boring now. I hope I'll get it back."
Katz reports juvenile crime is down. While this is true, its still at historically high levels, and the violence associated with it is quite high. It may be down, but go back 10, 20, 30 or more years and how many of these school shootings do you have? Nearly zero compared to the carnage of the last 18 months.
My school experience from elementary to highschool was a kind of hellish nightmare. Sometimes people just hate the looks of you. I receieved alot of that hate for 12 years of my youth. I barely came away with any kind of sanity. Now I'm about to turn 22 years old and I'm still trying to clear up everything that was do to me. I don't think I ever really will.
I feel for the victims most of all, and tragic loss of human life is deplorable.
That said, when I was in high school (10 years ago), I was also one of the "outcasts". I laugh now because time is a sweet reward. I make over 100K a year right now while some of my former high school tormentors still work at Wendys.
I went to a Catholic high school; as a non-Catholic, it was a good place to learn.
And I think those nuns would have been a lot nicer if they'd have gotten layed once in a while...
Don't let people tell you that the teasing is just "kids' stuff", either. Unpopular kids in school are often the helpless targets of truly sadistic and evil people and acts who make us feel like our lives are threatened. One friend had someone a full foot taller than he pick him up by the throat in front of an administrator with little consequence. Another encountered some schoolmates in a park at night, said hello to them by name, only to find himself attacked with a piece of pipe, have his arm broken and his bicycle stolen. The offenders got probation when he turned them in, and afterwards he daily felt his life was in danger coming to the same school with these kids. One of my worst tormentors during high school, who daily spit on us and threw rocks and chewing tobacco in an attempt to start a fight, is now in jail. A few months after I graduated, he and his brother decided it would be fun to go out with baseball bats and find some homeless people to beat up. All in a good, white upper-middle class town. This is the type of people that outcasts are forced to deal with every day of their lives for years, and we're surprised when they lash out in revenge?
I have thought about taking out a few people in school many times, if not everyday. I'm out of high school now and I still think about it. I doubt I'd ever do it, but if any of you out there understand the rage you feel day in and day out, it's all it takes.
GEEKS EVERYWHERE NEED TO CONTACT THEIR LOCAL MEDIA PURVEYOR AND TELL THEIR STORY. MAKE THE VOICES OF THE OUTCAST HEARD! CONTACT LAWYERS AND SUE EVERY SONOFABITCH THAT SAYS A DAMAGING WORD AGAINST.
IT'S TIME FOR THE POLITICALLY CORRECT REVOLUTION TO INCLUDE GEEK!
VERTICALLY CHALLENGED PERSONS, COLOR DIVERSE PERSONS, SIZE-ENHANCED PERSONS HAVE ALL HAD THEIR DAY.
THIS MUST BE THE SOCIALLY DIVERSE REVOLUTION.
ORGANISE YOUR LOCAL GEEK YOUTH!
>I would be interested to hear from any UK posters whether this atmosphere has developed in schools there - it certainly didn't exist when I left school (12 years ago).
I don't know specifically about the UK, but I went to school in NZ and their educational environment/attitudes are in general close copies of their British versions. I guess all I can say is that the schools there were the _most_ stratified I've seen. In the US, the only officially sanctioned status marker is a letter on your jacket, and streaming/tracking is often eschewed as elitist. In some of the NZ schools I went to, the "colors" system (equivalent to US letters) was much more elaborate, streaming/tracking was much more pervasive. We had two levels of prefects - house and school, the latter almost equivalent to the masters in authority - and _any_ fifth-year/seventh-form could wield a certain degree of authority over lowly first-year/third-form "turds". In Jolly Olde England the elite schools used to go even further with the "fagging" system, not all vestiges of which have died out even now.
No, my friend, I'm sorry. UK schools are not immune to this disease. At least they give colors out for something besides athletics, though, and streaming isn't all bad.
I would like to offer a different perspective. I am a geek and have always been one. I've loved star trek, played games, and felt kinda out of place my whloe life. However, to most of the world in High School, I looked like the model kid. I played and excelled at various sports, was in honors classes, had a group of friends, was attractive, etc. But I always felt uneasy with most of the people around me. I guess what I'm trying to say is that looks can be deceiving on both sides.
Don't be dense. Ostracism of bright/eccentric kids by stupid peers and stupid adults isn't solved by abolishing public schooling.
These aren't evils caused by the public school system, they're caused by stupid and intolerant people. Which I scarcely think is addressed by private schooling (I know plenty of stupid and intolerant people who came out of private school, they just happen to be rich.)
Better idea: policy that specifically enumerates increased rights for students.
And genuine investigation (and public education) of the psychological / sociological issues involved, instead of a lot of folk sociologist nonsense about trenchcoats or video game playing being causes of or cues to a potentially violent person.
...after all, he *did* invent the internet.
lessee... popular people pick on geeks...
geeks build technology... popular people rely
on technology... technology wages go up...
There is *some* retribution.
Yup, you're right.
t leton_bath.html
Seventy years ago they used dynamite, and killed over 40.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/lit
What I'd like to see is the statistical ratio of such violence as a percentage of the population.
1. Sensational school shootings are picked because they're flashy; they're not necessarily any worse than any other murder (which doesn't happen to be as sensational and doesn't get extended nationwide coverage.)
2. Population is at historically high levels.
Of course the number of violent crimes is at a "historically high" level.
It should be noted that there are lots of preliterate hunting/gathering cultures which have murder rates far in excess of those in detroit.
And there's no reason to think that these are exceptional in any way. Murder will be with us forever.
Jon, and many of the others here, are right, high school sucked. Getting beaten up or called 'swot' [1] every day by idiots who didn't know the meaning of the word was bad....
.n+v From 'to sweat'. Person who studies a lot rather than have friends and a 'social life'. The act of studying a lot. Often applied to 'nerd' types etc etc you all understand what I mean. Most of you probably also realise that the ones get taunted like this are the ones who don't need to study, they are at the top of the class just because they are smart, and spend the rest of their time with computers/sci-fi novels/role-playing games/fill in the blanks
But the very worst time was after university.
Seriously.
Perhaps I hit that 'teen angst' thing a few years later than most but to spend over a year unemployed after getting a damn good physics degree from one of the best universities in the country was the absolute bottom of the stinking pit for me. The message I got was clear, intelligence doesn't matter, you are not needed. Do as you are told and keep quiet and get thrown on the scrap heap at 21.
[1] Swot British English term
Sorry to be the AC for this, but I'm not posting my ID when I don't if people who 'know' me might pick up on the posting.
Man, I had a great time in high school, you all must really really be lame.
Yea, I really feel sorry for the poor picked on geek boys. The bottom line is life is not fair and you have to deal with it. I was the only one back in 1980 that could program in my HS and nobody picked on me. Now I'm making about twice what my jock classmates make, so who's laughing now. These were poor little punks that didn't get enough guidance from their parents.
*sarcasm*
Boo-hoo. These kids have it so tough. Being picked on all the time. Tears are landing on my keyboard as I type. Ok. I'm over it
now.
*/sarcasm*
It really pisses me off that Katz sends these idiot kids off to peacefire so they can learn how to get around Net Nanny or what ever. Doesn't everyone say to look to the parents. So a parent puts Net Nanny on their PC so they can have a little control over their kid's exposure to the net, and that is shot down because it infringes on the kid's right to free speech. Sheesh. You cannot have it both ways!
Personally, I'd rather send any kids of mine to an inner city school than one in Suburbia. The kids in the suburbs are the ones who are truly cruel.
One thing I'm amazed nobody pointed out is this:
in a high school, the easiest people to keep on a tight leash are the jocks. No, seriously. All an administrator has to do with misbehaved jocks is threaten to kick them off their team for a few games. A geek can always study harder on the SAT's and then tell the teachers to go to hell (to a point). A jock who misbehaves, OTOH, can easily be grabbed by the short n' curlies.
I was a jock in high school. I saw this. It worked. This way, we all knew hands off the otehr cliques which is in my high school jocks and geeks actually got along (I was both.)
At Columbine, either the faculty winked at what was going on, or didn't have the spine to keep their jocks under control. That is pathetic.
What's either more pathetic is how the whole country seems to think the way to solve this is to make antisocial geeks even more miserable with these pointless crackdowns.
... and the Man will decide that you're still a dangerous geek and import 1 million foreigners to take your place. Enjoy it while you can; you're still the enemy to straitlaced corporate America.
note: this isnt a personal attack to you =)
.. you wouldnt accept that right?
.. 'computers are bad' - dont sit with them and bs with them eh? dont find out what it is they're passionate about with/on them? just unplug it and say 'no more computer' , or 'no more games' .. bah.. that is wrong.. i would not and am not raising my kids the same way. .. just what are you implying by that? Suits? being part of the average 'norm', im sorry to inform you don't have to 'fit in' to be productive. I agree parents should try to more understand their kids, this dont happen by asking direct questions 'so what do you do on them things, what do you like...?', it's a helluva lot more involved.. you gotta befriend.. be pals, heck just maybe your child has a very passionate reason for what he/she does.. you dont have to know all your kid knows ... for instance.. growing up my dad didnt know/like computers, and would have rathered me be pumpin gas than coding/gaming, but my mom.. bless her soul, would sit and listen to me read off pages of printed code i'd written.. she didnt know it, i knew she didnt.. but some how it felt better. Your military concept of just removing the offending element doent work.. kids will find away that should be obvious since he had written the email =)
You and people that think like you are part of the problem no the solution, so you were a capt in the airforce eh? That explains the mentality you project here, I used to be a marine so no trying to BS on this one. You were an officer.. being an officer everyone supposed to think like you tell them huh? Salute you when you walk by, and by-your-leave when you're in front. You liked that huh? Did you tolorate difference? what did you do when an airman said 'no, i dont think ill salute you today?', did you pat him on the back for being 'different' for having his own opinion?? What if he were to say 'i'll salute you when i respect you, not because your an officer'
Here you are supporting parents that dont try to understand their kids, but take the easy way out.. restrict what they're made to believe is the culprit(sp?)
You say 'productive member of society'
i guess ive turned into rambling.. but this is all just a little to 'silly'. violence on tv eh? heh.. i seem to remember a helluva lot of bloodshed in us-history and various other history classes in highschool. is that not violence? will they remove that next? oh i know it's different right? =)
We've all been through the bad in HS. I graduated in 1989 and had just as bad a go of it as anyone else. But it's funny that in reacting to perceived snobbery, people develop their own reverse snobbery. Just as much as they think the 'popular' people make generalizations about them, they make their own generalizations about the people who reject them. Stuff like they're dumb, they can't think deep thoughts, we have much deeper, more satisfying relationships than they do, I'll have my victory over them later in life with an awesome job/money, etc. These type of thoughts provide a sort of psychological victory over the 'oppressors'. And in doing all this, how does that make anyone any different? If you're contributing to the polarization among 'cliques', then it's not the 'system' that causes all of this, but you're part of the problem too.
To me, it's just engaging in the same type of rejection that you're getting. I was guilty a little of this too, but I was lucky to have some friends who didn't encourage/cultivate these neuroses.
"Two trials or perils of the soul deserve special mention. We learn that every increase in consciousness is accompanied by an increase in self-consciousness, and that analysis can easily become a passion that "murders to dissect." These difficulties of thought in its strength question the ideal of absolute lucidity. The issue is raised of whether there exist what might be called remedia intellectus: remedies of the corrosive power of analysis and the fixated self-consciousness."
I think at least part of the remedy is to not engage in the like, and treat everyone as you would be treated.
Btw, someone mentioned not going to the prom. I didn't go either =)
There is a fundamental problem in our society, and it will continue to fester until it is truly addressed. We all know, having been there, that it is often your apearance and social skills that make you one of the "in-crowd". Intelligence, and creativity are almost universally frowned upon unless channeled into specific outlets that are deemed "acceptable".
This is made terribly obvious by our media. Compare the number of heroes such as McGuyver to the countless Flash Gordon clones (the brainy hero vs. the flashy brawny hero).
For many of us, there are additional problems where, curiously enough, we are "too intelligent". By this I mean, we simply cannot relate to those around us because they simple are not on our level. This lack of ability to relate often retards social development. Combine this with a propensity for anger, and you have a dangerous mix.
We need an organization, a group who will stand up to the media and educate the masses. What we need is not to strangle the youths who are different, but to provide them with more outlets... more gaming, more computers, more places where than can interact with people on their level. A place where they can develop the social skills and the feeling of belonging such that they can actual begin to place a value of human life.
Yeah I spent my teens in the misery of the public school system. I didn't learn a f*cking thing in Jr/High school until I got home and was allowed to actually switch my brain on. Well, now I am an adult and don't have to take the sort of shit one feels obligated to as a weird/scared kid sentenced to 13 years in the psychotic, mind-deadening shithole that is the public school system.
My children are being home-schooled.
Maybe when my kids, or my grankids are in high school, it will take place over the net. Then we will see who is stronger and more popular!!
Online football games.
Etc
We didn't have these problems when ...
... The smartest women in our society ran the schools.
Now we have the lamest, barely graduated college fools trying to herd impressionable young minds. No wonder our schools and society is a craven, don't give a damn, don't bother me, I beleive TV mess.
I remember in my school, in grade 3 they always change the students to separate the school jocks, who have easier classes and go to sport tournaments from the rest. I remember that thanks to that in my class half were geeks.
Each of us had a different computer (i had c128, another atari 800xl, another amiga, another zx-spectrum, IBM (monochrome Prince of Persia still rules), atari 512, vic20)... Each tried to learn as much about hte others to 'screw' the other's guy system. change colors, settings..
Then I moved to Canada (i am from Poland). I got to highschool. Automatically I got called names for being wierd. I was called spanky, running on oil, and russian calculator (even though I am from poland).
I remember that if it wouldnt be for that I play a bit in poland in ping pong and soccer I bet I wouldnt survive physical ed corses.
Yes... I often FELT like killing them, but it was just like an expresion. The worst I got was reply to a football jock, made the class laugh and then walked with a black eye for a month...
Am happy to be in univ, but first year sucks... still too many stupid people who if informed only from media without any judgment..
but then thats what corporations want.. more monkeys (slaves) to make money..... oh well...
Skip High School, go down to the local CC and take the GED test(s) If your underage (18) you'll need your parents permission. After you pass the test forget about High School move on.
Yep, I was in a French school, and even though geeks are not very popular, there is no such thing as jocks. I guess the main reason is usually because sport isn't very important in French school (and sport teacher always complain that they are baddly considered by other teachers and parents).
It's funny that every time a society value sport, discrimination and fascism comes along. Hitler was a ardent supporter of sport. Putting value into the body always decrease the value you put into the mind...
I remember from first grade through high school, and somewhat into college, I was never accepted by the other students, I was picked on, taunted, and beaten up. I was suspended for fighting twice in seventh grade. Onec, after months of daily taunting, I struck out and gave a kid a bloody nose. I was pretty happy about that. My mom sent me to visit my grandparents so my Dad didn't find out for several years. Go mom!
I would have liked to have hunted down and killed the four or five kids that taunted me the most.
Why didn't I?
Three reasons:
1. I didn't have the means. Well, I think I could have taken my Dad's revolver, but I'm not certain where he kept it.
2. I had a moral sense that killing was wrong.
3. I had the self-preservation instinct to stop me from getting myself killed or thrown in jail.
The other main differences between me and the Colorado killers are:
1. I didn't have any interest in neo-Nazi stuff. My persecution wasn't racial, so my hatred wasn't either.
2. I didn't have enough friends to form a distinct group. Mostly, I didn't have any friends, or one or two during a good year, along with several people who would be friendly but didn't hang out with me.
What I can't understand is that this shit is still going on, nerd persecution! I have been out of high school since 1991, and with the absorbtion of alternative culture in the mainstream, you would think that the term "outsider" would be obsolete. I was an outcast, and I gotta tel you, the pain was sometimes unbearable. I't a wonder I didn't end up on drugs or something. Anyway, how does this continue on the eve of the new millineum? When does it stop?
First I would like to thank JonKatz for publishing such an excellent article.
I remember my time in school was horrific. The nightmareish way I was prosocuted still affects me to this day. I survived though, a became better for it. I could go on forever about the downfall of id (like Freud, not the software company) based culture so I will spare you the greavence. However there is one point I would like to address.
The power of the media.
What is worst? Two people who take their hate one step to far and kill 11 people.
Or.. A institution that publishes said event knowing it will cause unwarrented prejudice and hate upon hundreds of thousands of people across the world all for the sake of money.
Contraversial headlines sell, don't you know.
This to will pass, but not before a terrible stereotype is hammered out. The press is better at distributing hate than the KKK, and everyone's buying it(literally and figuratively).
I've said it before and will have to probably say it a million times before this is over:
People don't scare me; prejudice scares me.
- Killjoy
Dear God,
Please grant thy Divine Grace upon the victims of Littleton and thy Divine Forgiveness upon its perpetrators. Please help us all, particularly high school pupils and their parents, teachers, and school administrators to better understand
each other and to have more compassion for others. And most of all, THANK YOU GOD for bringing me into the world when you did, for it was your Divine Grace and Compassion that had me survive high school then, instead of now.
Amen
One thing that most people here arn't really realizing is what those kids did get out of it. I have known two people in my life who attempted suicide.. one succeeded, one didn't. The one that did was brushed off in school, some people even went as far as to say "Good" or "Finally" she had been told things like "Why don't you just kill yourself" or things like that.
The one that didn't succeed has been taughnted ever since as a failure: "Wow, you can't do anything right can you?!".
I bet you have never seen a front page story on one of those kids... most of them are barely even mentioned..
What these kids got to do was create a double-edged knife. they are understood now by more people than ever would have known them before.. and they will/have become martyrs for those who are like they were.. and judging from the respones to slashdot.. there seems to be quite a few geeks/weirdos/oddballs out there who do understand TMC. if not the methods the sentiment. On the other side of the knife.. they have done to their tormentors what was done to them. There are alot of people out there now who a constantly afraid.. and I think that, more than anything else, it what TMC wanted.. to get back at those that hurt them, and everyone like them.
One thing that has bugged me is that people are especially blaming KMFDM for causing kids to kill!! Music does not cause sane people to kill.
:)
I wore a KMFDM shirt yesterday and two people brought up the colorado thing. One person at work said "That shit caused them to do it..." and a freinds mom told me to "be careful" about wearing KMFDM stuff because some people may be offended.
WTF...the return to McCarthyism (excuse my spelling...
And, while I guess my high school isn't as radical as what I've been reading, they put up posters telling us to "Do the _Write_ thing" and they list things that respect and disrespect people.
I just heard today that my old high school is suspending anyone who wears a trenchcoat. It's now considered to be "disrespectful." *wondering how oppressing people because of their clothing choices isn't*
wonder what would've happened if they were wearing dresses instead of trenchcoats?
Well if anyone should be amused it should be the jocks/pretty-boys. Because they still have a grip on your psyche after all this time...I think it's wonderful that you have a life/wife/kids, but why do you even care about the past, why do you have to frame your life in terms of a poetic victory over the 'oppression' of the past? You see the 'abnormal' people as the ones having a future life, while the 'popular' are destined to be losers. There is no victory in thinking like that--everyone is valuable in their own way. If you can go throuhg the fire and still love your enemy so to speak, then therein lies the path to a true 'victory'.
I was a geek in H.S, along with my few friends. Now I am making $150K a year. There are certain benefits to being a nerd (and spending all day/night on a computer) that I wish more young geeks understood. Most of us are late bloomers and your time will come...
Personally, I think the people who blame parents are as bad as the people who blame computer games. While we're at it, why not blame the parents of the bad parents. I'm sure they were involved somehow. I'm sick of everyone trying to find a universal reason for everything. There doesn't have to be something to blame for everything that happens ever. If we blamed then removed everything that might have led to every murder, we'd wind up with nothing left. It's time people just took responsibility for their own actions, and I'm sure many would. The general populace seems more content finding someone that isn't a killer to blame, though. Wacky.
At 33 now, it's all kind of a bad dream. I have become quite atheletic since my mid twenties, and I love how all the popular people in high school are all fat, some with aa few divorces under their belts, and saddled with miserable middle class existences. Whenever I do run into them, they look at me and I can see the embarrasment in their faces. It's kinda funny.
I don't know, school wasn't bad for me, and I was only 1 of 2 real programmers, I was also a good artist. Maybe it wasn't bad because I hung out with the pot smokers and was welcomed into that small community of people who loved cannibus sativa. We were never over treated bad by any one really, not even teachers, and some jocks were actually our friends. The biggest reason I was depressed was because of ladies, the ones that wanted me wanted other guys too.
The truth of the matter is, its not those teens who are anti-social, its the bullies that are anti-social.
In my school the jocks were never a big deal, it was the gangs that got the most attention, and that would bully any one they didn't like.
As for the killers, it seems that it may have been more related to their fasination with hitler, because if you compare them to other depressed teens, it seems to be what made the diffrence.
High shool totally sucked for me. I was fashion-ignorant, I was a brain, I liked to read, i played D'n'D, i played chess, I was tall, very skinny, thick glasses, and as outcast as you can get. I couldn't have been a conformist if i had tried. I was forced to be independent. I got beat up, shut out, picked on, and shoved around.
It was Hell.
Then something happened....I graduated, and entered the real world.
I joined the National Guard to pay for college, and the Army put some meat on my bones. I got contacts. I went to college, and found out that individualism is an OK thing. I finally got laid! I decided to drop out of college and explore other aspects of life. I've had over thirty jobs (by choice, not from incompetence)in the last 15 years. I gained a sense of fashion by working at a preppy clothing store. I gained muscle by doing heavy construction. I met dozens of women by bartending. The independence I developed through those years of Hell has served me well through the years, and my current lifestyle is one that is envied by those who used to look down on me. The real world actually cares more about what's inside you than what it sees on the surface. If you are one of the smart outcasts in high school, then hear these words: It Will Get Better! Know thyself, become strong and self-sufficient now, and you'll be years ahead of the "in-crowd".
Although I'm now in college, I too wore a trenchcoat back in HS. You see, I was one of the 'lucky' ones. I was left alone. I was left alone because I have a decently large frame, and I tried my best to appear to be bad-ass. Trenchcoat, boots, lots of industrial... Jocks wouldn't give me shit, they would just leave me alone. It was a sad existance but probably not nearly as bad as what many others experience. The media blames video games, movies etc. I think what needs to take the blame for this is highschools and their stupid cliques. People's intolerance for things which are contrary to their norms. People need to just chill out and leave people alone.
I wish I could answer your questions, but I have no answers. I too have posed the same questions over the past few days, and most have completely ignored them. From my understanding - life is completely different outside the US. Whether friendlier, or less focused on pop culture, the atmosphere is completely different.
I think there is something fundamentally wrong with the way the US society works. Perhaps its the american dream - get rich, own a big car and sport a big belly. Perhaps its the media driving us over the edge. Perhaps the mass branding strategies of businesses these days.
And to those who must deal with these atrocities day in, day out - stick with it. Every dog has his day, those who are the popular icons in high school are also the ones who are already fading into dullness. Be sharp, be cunning, and open your mind to new and creative ways of thinking. You will have the last laugh.
simon
Society is becoming exactly what Ayn Rand predicted it would become. She created the philosophy of Objectivism that puts rational thinking and thought, intelluct and being an individual over top of popularity and being "one of the group". Unless the world fixes itself we will definitely have serious problems in the future. Although I hate to preach I suggest everyone who feels this way please check out any of the various sites on Ayn Rand and Objectivism.
http://www.capitalism.org/objectivism/
http://www.aynrand.org/
I don't really agree. I believe they used Hitler and the "n" word towards the one black kid as a way to propel their message. If the media looks at it which would make a better story: "Kids kill high school students" or "Racist nazi students kill"? It was a way to send their message that school is pure hell. I do not believe they wanted to kill at all. That is why they told kids to leave the school. I believe they could have done a lot more damage than what was done with the firepower they had. And the large bomb that was found in the library. Why didn't it go off? I don't think they tried to blow the school up. I believe it was an act to get the media to look at this story more.
Katz makes some excellent points. I look back just 4 years ago and think that if this Colorado thing happened then. I would be one of these kids. The inability of people to rationalize why this haapened and then go hunting for easy target excuses astounds me.
Don't forget, Mr. Katz that your allusion to 1984 may be correct. The depressing thing is that the one thing that Winston said he would never give up is his hate. What are the pricipals, andimistrators, and counselors out for? They do not understand the nature of hate, that these kids, including myself, know all to well. So, they seek to stamp it out.
Don't forget the last lines of 1984:
"And he loved big brother"
ranc0r
...and not at the geeks. On my way to work this morning, I was thinking about all of this, and it dawned on me that perhaps now people will now try to be kinder and more accepting towards those they considered 'geeks'. This article shows me that I'm horribly wrong, unfortunately - they're doing the exact opposite, probably provoking kids to do something similar in time. From personal experience, I remember how I wished the assholes in my Junior High died a slow, painful death for what they've done to me. I would get the best grades in class, and of course that was just not acceptible to those bastards. Luckily though, I applied to a High School that was not in my neighborhood, and you needed some amount of Gray matter in order to get accepted. I was far more happier after that.
I grew up in USSR. I, too, was the soviet version of 'geek' -- reading organic chemistry encyclopedia in 8th grade, soldering together my own radio in 7th, programming a simple graphics editor on an Atari 64 (considering that scarcity of computing resources in USSR at that time, this was quite an achievement), etc. I, too, was tormented by some other kids -- up to a point...
Here is the difference. In USSR, in 10-grade system (when I was there), the 8th grade was the last general one. After 8th grade, about 1/2 of all kids -- the scholastically weaker ones -- went to craft school, while the rest -- the smarter ones -- stayed to finish regular highschool. Suddenly, after 8th grade, the atmosphere changed drastically -- I was respected for my knowledge and skills, not ostracized.
Another factor that helped greatly was that, even though kids disliked me, teachers loved me -- I was the one winning chemistry, physics, and math competitions for the school. It sounds to me like in USA, achievement (in highschool at least) does not count; it was quite the opposite in USSR. The teachers, lead by the school principal, encouraged me and helped me; they were trying to be the protective layer between me and a few other geek kids, and our tormentors.
All in all, my highschool experience was quite tolerable; the last two years of school were outright great -- amazingly enough, being smart and educated became cool in the last two years. It is no coincidence that Soviet schools were much more scholastically oriented than American ones. This problem goes hand in hand with the decline of US school system, I think -- when emphasis is shifted from learning onto developing false self-esteem.
While gun control may be part of the answer, it is not an answer in an of itself.
Gun control does not address the fundamental cause of these incidents. Nor will it prevent them.
For instance, in Japan, a student killed 7 of his classmates with a machete...
And don't forget, the bombs can be built from common household stuff. Imagine how much worse it would have been if the set off the bomb rather than gun down their classmates. No to belittle the tragedy, but it could have been much worse.
There are also European countries with more guns
per capita than the US. And they don't have
the school or street violence that we have.
A society is a complex thing. The simple action
of outlawing guns won't fix it anymore than
outlawing DOOM or violent movies. Besides, there
are already laws about shooting up your school.
That didn't seem to stop them.
I must say seeing this posting has both scared and delighted me. Fear for the media using this, but delighted to know that I and a few close friends are not alone.
I do not have children, and the main factor is I'm scare to death of what it will be like for them in the future, especially in school. I'm not assamed to tell people that I too tried killing meself. And that my father wasn't there (at that time) and my mother deceased. I don't hate my father, the relationshiop that toar him and me apart didn't make it (Thank God!) However, it was my friends, that kept me a live. I was lucky, and I realize that EVERYDAY!
I was much like the people that have put their comments in. I hated High School. I still don't like it, and I'm not looking foreward to my reunion. I will go back, just to let people know that I did not go quietly into the night and to get my revenge. I have been blessed with rewards that they will never realize. But it was HARD! I was an outcast, I was not popular, and a few times I tried dating the ones that were. Always humilated and rideculed (NOTE:I cannot spell). for trying so. Luckily however, again, I had friends.
I hope that if ANYONE, and I mean ANYONE thinks of kill themselves/others, at least try to find someone! Just ONE! I know it's hard, I didn't want to talk to anyone, but it was just ONE person who helped me. I am proud to call him my BEST friend.
High School sucks for those who don't fit in. I will tell you that college is GREAT! you will fit in there. If you are not going to college, you will enjoy your life more than you ever did in High School. Trust me on this one! High School is not the rest of your life. You will have it better, you will be better off than the party goers, the prom queen, the prom king. I know this because I have a heart the size of the universe. And it is because I know what it is like to be tormented, humiliated, called names, outcasted by others. I have been there and I made it out! You will to, don't let go, your worth more than that, and you will be better off.
I would like to thank EACH and EVERYONE that shared. I'm not in High School anymore, but it still makes me feel better knowning that I'm not alone, and that others have or still feel the way I felt. Life begins after High School... Don't throw it away before you've lived it!
See for yourself.
- Nathan Myers
I'm dating one now and have always found them.
She's getting her Masters in Bio; I'm finishing up an Engineering Phd.
Biff & Buffy take a hike! We've got Brains, Body, and Soul! Depth in Relationships! Alleluia!
Maybe the problem should be adressed at the root of all evil itself: the schools that drive kids to desperate acts like these. Banning Quake or the internet won't stop anyone from shooting someone else now will it?
.308 AK47 semi-automatic rifle.
For instance: I'm now 29, a computer freak for over 20 years, been frequently harrassed at school for beeing "the odd one out", wearing black clothes for more than 10 years, played Doom and Quake extensively and have my very own
So if all those things combined spell disaster why haven't I gone on a wild shooting frenzy? Simply because there is nothing wrong with all those things, none of them fill me with the desire to go out and shoot anybody! But what else could be so horribly wrong then? The only possible answer seems to be: the schools themselves!!!
If anything it puts the spotlight on each one of us. I don't think we should externalize this and put it on one clique or another. Change always begins with the individual. I mean I may not have been popular in HS, but it's safe to say there were people more ostracized than I was. Did I ever reach out to them, did I ever step out of the comfort zone to make connections with other people, even the 'popular' ones? Or did I engage in retaliatory gossip, harsh words, and recede into the confines of my group. None of us is perfect, and we're all guilty of engaging in these things. Just looking at the posts, I see alot of /.'ers being smug about their 'intelligence', while the jocks/popular people are ultimately losers because they're 'dumb'. This may be helpful in anestethizing ourselves of the pain, but it has nothing to do with reality. I wish there more posts about realizing the need to treat everyone as worthwhile, rather than 'I was smart, and smart was appreciated later in life, therefore I won'.
We don't need to change the system. We need to purge ourselves first.
I grew up in the South Bronx.
My school, P.S 106 , subjected me to
Mrs. Carbone in the 4th grade.
One of the last holdouts of white flight her
most memorable comment to me was:
"You'll never amount to anything anyway..."
[27 years pass]
Today I am President & CEO of my own
corporation and still wishing I could
spit on her grave.
I learned from her that hate and resentment
can be carried for a long time.
P.S. Not a coward when anonymous
Jean L. Francois
http://www.magusnet.com
As a data point:
I went to high school in Sweden (St Eskils in Eskilstuna for those who care), and while there was of course stratification along the lines of what I have read here, it wasn't close to being that inflexible.
It is obvious that cliques form in any social environment and that people with common interests will tend to clump together, but in my limited experience (currently doing a postgrad in Boston) American teens tend to form much more rigorous and inflexible cliques than what I experienced in Sweden.
To completely oversimplify the situation, American cliques seem to be defined by who's excluded, while the ones Iexperienced were defined by who's included.
In my experience, the most one clique ever disproved of the other was a raised eyebrow and a lack of invitation to parties. Most people were members of more than one circle of friends (..which is counter to the definition of clique...), so it was infeasible to discriminate against any group systematically, as you inevitably ended up discriminating against your friends too.
Mind you, I've not experienced american cliques first hand, so while you can trust me on the swedish ones, add salt to taste about the american ones.
--
Johan (johan@ccs.neu.edu) I'll log in as soon as whoever beat me to the "johan" login gives it to me
The experience of attending an American high school has
left me with no sympathy. I myself am not (yet) murderous,
but I fully understand those who are. I can only say that I did
not get out soon enough, and as a result, I have few
feelings. I applaud those who try to preserve themselves;
America has no soul and will never change.
Welcome to the capitalist world.
Remind these people about the Beatles, Charles Manson, and Helter Skelter.
Hey... private schools are not necessarily the answer, either. My very-Catholic parents sent me to our Catholic school for eight years. My graduating class (8th grade) had a total of 12 students -- 9 girls and 3 boys. I then went to the local public high school, and graduated with a class of 350. They hype private schools because they are so small: a better teacher-student interaction, more closeness in the environment, yada yada yada. The fact is, if you are different in a large school, at least you can still find friends. If I had not gone to the large high school, I too would have probably snapped. The entire education system in the US needs to be changed, including private education. Maybe if high school wasn't four years of bureaucracy-induced boredom then violence in schools would be less common.
Well IA m 24 now but since the shooting Ive thought long and hard about why?
I do blam ethe shooters but I know where they MIGHT have been coming from. When I went to school I tried really hard to conform to make the crap stop. THe beatings, harassment and watching the teachers ignore it. I am a transsexual as well as a geek. I mean ignore what I went through and that was with me trying to keep that faact hidden. I once did the mistake of telling someone who immediately told the principal who called me in his office and told me that he didnt need people like me causing problems in his school.
Of course now I Am working in the IT industry, very self confident and successful. Wonder what happened to those khaki pants wearing , Polo shirt clones are up to these days. Id like think in jail cos that's where they belong but chances are they are the ones signing my paycheck...*sigh*
well put, the best bit of flame I've read so far!
I missed out on a lot of the high school flak because my parents sent me to military school from 8th grade on (and I'm not now, thank god).. That system bred out popularity and geekiness in the name of Uncle Sam, of course rank was given to ass kissers and therefore they were allowed to haze. I never knew that in 'public' high schools, the situation was so much worse. It was ironic that I was listening to The Wall while I was reading this article. I hope all geeks still in middle and high school don't change their ways to conform at ALL. The ostricizing from class mates is idiotic and left to simple minds. Tear down the wall.
[snip]
> The gun is just an easier tool for venting rage. Ban guns, and these kids would still have killed. HOWEVER they would not have killed more than a person or two each before "mob justice" stamped them into a grease spot.
--
For the banning guns thing, that would be quite impratical, anyone who really wants a gun can get one. Aren't the bombs they made also illeagal? If you really wanted a chance of getting rid of guns, you'd have to completly stop production throughout the world.
Then, there's the mob justice, it probably wouldn't have occured in this situation, as you state. Even if there were no guns and they were just using knives or swords or something to that effect they may have still run, especially since they'd still have the bombs.
Wait, there's more. If, as at my HS, there were several dozen people who bring guns regularly, the trenchcoat guys would eventually near one of them, and the new guy would return fire, surprising, or not, the trenchcoats, probably killing one or both.
Whose values were more warped? The jocks ridiculing
the outcasts or the outcasts who had little to no
regard for human life including their own lives.
Give me a break, Katz!
This page: http://flag.blackened.net/intanar k/faq/index.html has more about this.
I don't quite get it. I was a complete math geek in high school too,
but I hung out with the other geeks and was quite happy in our little
community (aka clique). We didn't much care what the jocks or cool
people thought about us. Maybe we were just lucky -- the school was big
enough that we could form our own little island, we had a math teacher
who let us hang out in his space.
This was quite a long time ago (mid-70). These days, I thought that
everyone aspired to geekhood -- they are the ones who get the
million-dollar stock options after all.
Everyone knows that adolescence is hell, and middle/high school can be
rough. That doesn't explain what would drive some individuals to
murder. Maybe I'm just out of touch with my adolescent rage, of which
I had plenty. These kids were going to blow up the school, hijack an
airliner and crash it into Manhattan... a cute fantasy, and maybe I'd
have thought about it myself. But where were the voices in their heads
that told them when NOT to turn fantasy into reality?
I'm beginning to think the whole connection to Trench Coat Brigades is
specious. There are millions of alienated, rage-filled, Doom-playing,
Marilyn Manson-listening youths who don't kill people. I suspect that
one of these two had some severe underlying psychological problem, and
that he dragged the other one into it.
i have found that by the continuous use of drugs during high school you can accomplish the following: (1) you will not have to be aware of your surroundings and (2) no one will dare fuck with you. i highly recommend it.
Newsweek says different ... First Americans were Caucasians?
Yup.
Failed out of my high school. Accused of being a "psuedo-intellectual" by the new psych teacher and awarded an F for my labors.
So, I am about 18 months shy of an engineering PhD from Berkeley.
What's even better is that I didn't hear a peep from those clowns for 20 years, until I got that fund-raising solicitation right after my MS degree.
Yes, yes, if everyone just read Ayn and unquestioningly followed her philosobabble, er, philosophy, the world would be better, cats would stop chasing mice, the mail would arrive three days before we sent it because it would be so efficient, and my sink would never clog again. I bow to The Goddess Ayn, who unfortunately isn't quite in the same league as The Prophet, L. Ron Hubbard. Yet.
What about the other side of the coin. Tell me you can't see how "normal" people are concerned about 'non-conformists' that sit in front of the computer all day/night playing quake/HL, have little to none social life, and feel more confortable meeting people online at 3am than meeting someone face to face. Compare that to kids that play sports, are in church groups, have afterschool activites and of course you are going to see people wonder how (and if) games and anti-social behavoir are affecting kids.
What seems more scary to people? a) a person that loves to use the chaingun to kill people in a video game. b) a person that loves to score soccer goals? I'm not saying that either one is better than the other, I'm just saying that people are scared of person A, more than person B and the media is looking for anything as a scapegoat for Littleton.
Haven't thought about high school in years. Then a couple of shooters take vengence on a high school in the state and it's like I graduated yesterday. One step from a world where the isolation was like a tomb.
I managed to finish a 4 year high school in three years and avoid going home like the plague even after 25 years. It's only a 2 hour drive but it feels suicidal to even consider going.
I actually like my life. College was fun, professional life is even better. I get the respect I never saw in high school, play with computers and networks and get paid, and enjoy a standard of living I never expected years ago.
Ultimately, the lack of conformity, the intellectual willingness to try different things and different ways of thinking are more valuable in adult life than as an adolescent. I wish Eric and Dylan hadn't felt that the only way out was the one they chose.
I hope the younger readers can come to forgive their parents and other adults. It is nearly impossible to remember how raw and difficult adolescence is when your nightmares involve mortgages and aged parents. It is a terrible thing to learn, as a parent, that you are essentially powerless to protect your children from every harm but you don't stop trying. It is that rage against that powerlessness that causes the clueless reaction against video games and styles of clothing and music. "Gee Mom, I listen to songs about heroin, I don't take heroin" and so on.
Anonymous, sure. Coward, on occasion.
Where I went to school, the sport was hockey. Combine this with children of alcoholic parents, and you can imagine the result.
I know of a town where they're building a hockey rink to keep kids away from gang violence. I wonder what their definiton of gang violence is.
Why is it that the idiots rule the world? Because they vastly outnumber us.
Now I understand it all much better, this all happend because school didn't prepare these youngsters properly for the information economy.
Gee thanks for clearing this up for me.
Highschool sucks, university sucks. The real world sucks, let's face it life sucks.
Miss. State is not THAT bad...
just avoid all the sororities...
:D
former MSU gradute...(CS major who changed form Physics)
Don't fret! I got away after grade school and college in that bastion of nerddom, South Carolina. Now I'm in DC--not a nerd paradise, but close enough for me...
And if the said geek happens to be from Yugoslavia, too, then you don't need any more proof that he's a crazy, genocidal rapist.
(dripping with sarcasm, as if you couldn't tell)
Posted elsewhere a few days ago @ strangebrew.org. Figure it might be of interest to you kidsies here, as many seem to be expressing similar sentiments.
--
This is coming a bit late, but..
Short version: Unfortunately, not everyone has 'the time of their life' in high school.
Long version:
Take a seventeen year old male boy. He's average; bit of acne, maybe a little scrawny or slightly overweight. He's shunned by his so-called 'peers'. He's not involved with sports, he's a bit shy and has only been out on a date once. He meets other people like himself. Maybe he finds that a certain subculture -- like gaming, or the gothic lifestyle -- appeals to him. There are alot of people like himself, here -- people who know what it's like to be rejected, to be hated, to be mocked and abused. If not physically, at least mentally.
This boy hooks up with the rest of this subculture. He finally has friends. But beneath this quick and easy fix, there's still the hate.Hate which festers, day after day. Hate that festers every time some meathead trips him in the halls. Hate that festers every time some girl giggles at his silly-looking black trenchcoat. Hate that doesn't just fester, but is nurtured in it's festering. This young man finds he likes to hate his tormentors. He finds that he doesn't want to be a victim. He embraces his hate.
Over time, the boy finds others who also foster the same hate. They're tired of being victimized.
Granted, there are other factors in the boy's life -- he may be somewhat chemically unstable to begin with. He may suffer from ADHD, or minor bipolar personality disorder. Maybe his father snuck into his room one night while drunk. Maybe he was beaten. Maybe alot of things.
The boy likes violent movies, but this is irrelevant. Most boys his age do.
One day, the boy snaps. The kindling fire of his rage finally erupts into a bonfire. He begins to plot. He writes down the names of every person who has abused him, and been hateful towards him because he was different. Because he actually had some modicum of intelligence. Because he wasn't interested in the things everyone else was interested in. Because he wouldn't fit in.
The boy purchases weapons. The boy builds explosives.
The boy finds a partner.
23 found dead.
He didn't do this because of a movie. He didn't do this because of music. He didn't do this because of society.It was a reaction. The hate and scorn of everyone in his school, focused and turned back in one all-encompassing blast.
I hope some of you begin to understand. Either of these two kids could have easily been me, or many other harmless 'youths' in America. The difference? Some of us only imagine doing it. Others, driven by some small instability, cross the line -- from thinking, to action.
(End of file)
I can empathize with the killers. Maybe a few others out there can, too. To the families of the dead: This may sound cold, but... if you play with fire, you will get burned. These young men were seriously misunderstood
Rathe@goplay.com
Increasing Labor (oh, excuse me, "LABOUR") supply decreases wages. If Canada's so great in computers, they why do they lag the US so much?
For the record, the point I was making is not anti-foreign. It's that American geeks get picked on though out their lives, not just school. The "Preps" and "Jocks" who run Business have created special laws for computer labor force WHICH DO NOT APPLY TO OTHER SEGMENTS OF THE ECONOMY. The only similar foreign guest worker laws are for menial agricultural work. Lawyers, reporters, doctors, policemen, educators don't face the same permissive laws; which are by the way sponsored and lobbied for by the wealthiest people in society.
I have to definitely agree here. It was so wonderful to see one of my middle-school tormenters bagging groceries for someone two isles over. This just happened to be the same store that I wored at 8 years ago and quit because the management was so incredibly bad.
Seems that Katz is the least nuts/wierdo guy here, and so that's why everyone came whining to him (of course, writing the #2 hof article for /. helped).
Also, he seems to be getting better. No more random ranting, he's now beggining to get in the issues.
That killings were the worst thing that happened here in 'geekland' (the 'net). I feel sorry for those who suffer in the Big Room and only get some confort while in the cyberspace (a consensual hallucination - which means we made it to our own image and not the mainstream people's one).
I believe this will get in the history of the net as one of the saddest moments of the history of the net. Postel may be dead, we may have suffered, but life does go on.
So let's make a minute of silence, turn our pages black, and pray that things get better in the future.
Most of the comments above cite how horrible high
school was. Personally, High school was terrible
for me too. Some of it anyway... The first 2
years were aweful, but then I realized it didn't
matter and spent a lot of time on the internet.
This improved my outlook a lot.
Of course, I went to a public high school. What
about people from private high schools? Are the
experiences at private schools better than public?
I do know that private high schools give you a
better _education_...
-Ted 'I thought I had an account' Vessenes
I'm a few years out of high school - well, more like 13 years out of high school - and I've got a success story for you.
It's really very simple: refuse to be pigeonholed, especially by yourself.
I was the Alpha Geek at my high school, the one who the teachers came to to solve computing problems they couldn't handle. Got massively good grades, advanced classes, D&D and computer games after school, president of the model rocketry club, the whole Geek Enchilada.
But yet, I also took Shop classes. I did sports (track, x-c skiing, and shooting) I helped people with their homework. I went to parties. I basically refused to let anyone hang a label on me that I didn't want hung on me.
If anyone tried to pick on me, I fought back. Not always successfully, but I let it be known that if you were up for a little physical abuse, you were going to get the best I could dish out in return.
But yet, I wasn't the Angry Young Ansgst-Ridden Young Man either. In the end, it's much easier to be friends with people than be enemies with them.
And you know what? Most of that abuse is the result of Geek intimidation and unfamilliarity. If you make an effort to get to know your tormentors (or their friends) and you can earn their respect somehow, then life gets much better.
I wound up being the Guy Who Could Hang With Anyone. I was friends with the Jocks, with the Geeks, with the Shop Boys - with pretty well anyone, because I didn't let anyone dictate to me who my friends could or could not be.
And while I never considered myself "popular", I found out, years later, that I had a tremendous amount of respect - and jelousy - from my peers that I had been blissfully unaware of the whole time.
I had a great time at High School, because I was my own person, and I wan't afraid to defend myself and my friends. I refused to be limited by other people's opinions.
It's important though NOT to be "different" just for the sake of being different. I've seen too many kids go to weird extremes in order to become the exact opposite of a group they feel they can't belong to, and to a certain extent, invite further misunderstanding and mistreatment. That's a dead end. GROUPS DON'T MATTER.
Be your own person. It takes work, it takes strength, it takes intestinal fortitude. But believe me, the effort pays big dividends in the end.
Go to your Prom, go to the parties, but stick with you Geek pals too (hell, _bring them along_!) Make the effort to get along, to get to know people, but yet refuse to compromise your principles. (Although a true sign of maturity is the ability to recognise that a certain principle you may hold is actually False or Wrong)
And above all, LAUGH. Life is fun, not serious. Time spent brooding is time wasted. Don't waste your youth!
The worst thing about teenage angst and suffering is that it's so unecessary. Be bold! Fortune favours the brave! Tojours l'audace!
I've been out of school for over a decade and I still have nightmares from time to time. The fact of the matter is that schools are a mediocrity machine, geared toward stampping out good little citizens in the same cookie cutter mold and God help you if you don't quite fit that mold. They don't want to encourage you to think for yourself, they don't want to help you with any of the issues you'll have growing up. They want to teach you to conform in all circumstances because of the bad things that will happen to you if you don't. They will punish you if you defy them, and the punishment -- potentially having to spend MORE time with them -- is horrid enough to make even the toughest among you wake up screaming in terror.
My vision of Hell is much like a southern high school that never gets out. Specifically, a southern English class. They were always the worst.
And now they're going after the resources you turn to in order to escape their shallow intellectual clutches for even the few hours a day you have outside their clutches, and your parents will buy into the hysteria because they don't understand you any more than the school does. It's much better if your parents will stand up for you but for a lot of you they won't.
Bear with me but a while longer.
You learn a few things about authority as you go along. As long as the nameless faceless "System" has authority over you, you haven't got a prayer. As long as your teachers are simply the embodiment of that system they will have no respect for you nor will you have any for them. What you must do, if you want your school years to be remotely tolerable, is to make human contact with them. Ask them what school was like for them growing up. Ask them who their best teacher was and ask them why. More dangerous, ask them what they think of you students when they stand up there every day. Tell them about your little projects outside school if they pertain to the subject. Tell your computer teacher you're trying to teach yourself C. Tell your history teacher you're doing research on costumery at the local library. Once the lines of communication are open, "The System" keeping you down starts to fall apart. You'll find you have more latitude when they realize you're a person and not a machine. You'll want to open the lines of communication up the chain of command, too. The higher up the chain of command people know you as a person, the freer you will be. Just don't abuse the trusts you build and you will find that have the respect of the people around you.
As for your peers, your reputation preceeds you. Do not malign them, do not mouth off to them, do not lie to them, do not fear them and do not hate them. They're in the same boat you are, after all. If one of them thinks they can intimidate you, gently let them know that you're not a victim and defend yourself if you have to. Don't ever let the fear of a beating intimidate you into being a victim. It's easy to start being a victim and it's hard to stop.
I hope this helps somewhat. I know it sucks and I feel for you. I find it odd that I remember when so many others have forgotten, and I hope that by reminding them, you can make it easier for yourselves.
to my recall, high school is more about conformity and "fitting in" than about education. for me it was books instead of computers. if it weren't for c.s. lewis, george macdonald, and aldous huxley, i don't know what i would have done. i did however make friends in the electronics class, and in general the school wasn't as stratified as some, because football and all that rot isn't celebrated as much as they do in the states. there were always friends to talk, and punk and alternative music were more popular because of toronto radio station CFNY 102.1 (now long gone commercial). also, i was fortunate to be born to mennonite parents (strict, but also kind and understanding). except when they forbade me from playing D&D, or from seeing any of my friends who did...they were having prayer meetings to "cast the demons out". talk about freaky for a 14 year old... :-(
:-P
i am a pacifist - i don't believe hate is useful in any way. but it is sometimes difficult to accept when people will not accept you the way you are, and would rather have you put on a false person just in order to "fit in".
These people who write of their "poor awful high school years" ARE social pariahs! What people define as the mentally disturbed adolescents also define the Goth culture obsessed with rammerstien (that weird German group), nazi propaganda, and other crap. I knew many people from my high school that wore the trench coats and were geek _POSERS_. They were the local trailer trash. I feel there are two levels of geeks, those that swing toward the nerd end and those that are into the freak culture of drugs and violence (notice I left sex). I have never seen any geek swayed towards the nerd side abused in any way. In fact, they are more respected. The freaks on the other hand, the ones who are into that Vampire and Goth crap, are always ridiculed. With good cause too. By engaging in these freakish habits they take a stand and reject all forms of current society. They truly alienate themselves. Because of this society actively rejects them. So when people start complaining about how they were abused in their high school and middle school because they were geeks, guess what... tough, they asked for it.
HV
HEY SAVED BY THE BELL ROCKED!. Dont make me come over there and regultae :).
In a suburb, not a canyon
.....
Contemplating crime
Lived two teens
They were mean
Dreadful sorry, Columbine
Oh my high school, oh my high school
Oh my high school Columbine
You are lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorry, Columbine
They told people they were killers
But no-one dropped a dime
They weren't fake-o
More like Waco
Dreadful sorry, Columbine
Oh my high school
They picked Adolph Hitler's birthday
As the perfect killing time
Nietzche's uber-
Schickelgruber
Dreadful sorry, Columbine
Oh my high school . . .
My time in the Army - 11 years - were some of the best times of my life. Yeah, somtimes things could get pretty bad, but I was _always_ able to overcome any obstacles that faced me by working harder and refusing to give up.
The Regiment was family, and my comrades my brothers, and my subordinates my children. Life and high school made me a Geek, the Army made me a man.
DG
"The greatest country in the world"
As a European I sometimes see the ironies of the
way the US has tried to mold the world to it's own shape only to find that they got it wrong again
and again.
The continued prolongment over an issue which is almost nonexistant would seem to indicate that the /.'ers seem to have some sort of sick and demented fetish over teh incident in Colorado. All the psychologists I've heard that have come on T.V. shows to talk reguarding the incident have clearly pointed out that violence in the media/music/video games doesn't cause violence. However, some suggested it might be harmful to vulnerable people . They all stated that a possible cause of the problem was the emotional trama suffered by teh children during school and perhpas in early childhood.
As for the fascist actions by some school administrators, this seems to be more of the exception than the rule. My school, along with schools in my sorrounding area, really haven't pulled anything drastic. Although my school did have police come in to give advice on how to deal possible situations (I don't consider this out of line). In a discussion in class, only 1 student brought up that a friend was forced to take his trench coat off at another school. So this obviously is more of an exception than a rule. And it really isnt any more different than those kids who call in to school to palce a bomb threat. Extremes occur on both sides, that's life, deal with it.
nt...
Much of the problem here is that the events in Colorado haven't really taken place in the real world.
The US is a sort of pretend country. No civilised nation would venerate access to deadly weapons the way the US does. And then Americans act surprised when people go out and kill.
The fact of the matter is that -- pretty much -- everyone is fucked up in one way or another. Either people are abnormal, or, even more deviant, they are normal. It is hardly surprising that the former class of people, confronted with the minority in the latter class, get upset, even go out and kill people. It is the American tragedy that such people are born into a nation where the means of doing so are readily available.
It could be only the US of A in which, after some people are killed in a school by people carrying guns and wearing trenchcoats, the school in question bans trenchcoats, but makes no comment about guns.
Those of us who live in the real world should, like me, persist in being terribly, terribly frightened by this nonsense. The largest nuclear arsenals, and the best-armed (I won't say "best", since it is rarely indeed that it is tactically appropriate to accidentally attack one's allies) military, are in the hands of a country in which it is considered reasonable to own and carry a gun, even in the total absence of reason or justification for doing so. The whole idea beggars belief, yet it appears to be universal in "the land of the free".
Good luck in the next Millenium. I think we have little hope of outlasting the next century.
You didn't do anything wrong. In fact, based on your reaction, you did everything right. You stood up for yourself, but without resorting to a fight.
The truth is there will probably be a day when he recall doing these kinds of things. I'm reminded of the correspondent's thoughts while facing death in Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat":
"It is, perhaps, plausible that a man in this situation, impressed with the unconcern of the universe, should see the innumerable flaws of his life, and have them taste wickedly in his mind, and wish for another chance. A distinction between right and wrong seems absurdly clear to him, then, in this new ignorance of the grave-edge, and he understands that if he were given another opportunity he would mend his conduct and his words..."
Let's hope we all have a chance to realize and mend our ways before it's too late.
Btw, I like the tie =)
I'm tired of this "not in my country" argument. The occurence of events in Kosovo are definitely wrong and must stop. Or are you going to argue that those people being opressed and killed do not deserve to live. At least, in Americas turn to 'bully the world', they are using some moral judgement. In 1700+ it was the British who left something to be desired.
My Dad and I were driving around on Saturday, discusssing the Littleton tragedy.
I personally blamed an over-emphasis and over-glorification of sports on why a lot
of kids in High School don't fit in. I moved to the US from Canada in 1984 for Grade 8.
I had been in 3 different schools before, and never had trouble making friends, or joining
in during Gym or other sports. I used to love playing Soccer (outside of school)
where my Dad was the coach. All we cared about was having a good time playing, win or lose.
Moving to MA, I was immediately ostracized for being the new guy, picked on mercilessly
in Gym, and at one point, the Gym teacher threw a soccer ball at my head, missing it only
by about 6 to 12 inches, because I had kicked it away from the bench during the game.
As if I wasn't feeling bad enough for moving across the continent to a new country and new school,
I had this bullshit to deal with.
I would go home and complain to my Mom how much I hated school, but I never got into details;
If I had, maybe something would have changed.
I used to fantasize all the time about killing all those who picked on me, but never had the
idea of actually doing it.
The rest of school was slightly better as I found some people to hang around with who were
also non-conformists. We ran the video station, did a weekly news show, and generally tried
to ignore the rest of the morons at school.
I told my Dad about some of the things that happend at school, specifically the soccer ball incident.
He asked me why I hadn't ever told them.
I think I was just too afraid to.
So, learn from my example: if you are having trouble, tell somebody!
Popey (lost my cookie file, doh!)
Try not to allow bitterness or self-hatred consume you
This is the most important one IMHO. If they get to you, they've won.
Seek out your peers; they are out there, in the same schools
Not in mine, there weren't. It was out in the woods, though. YMMV and I hope you all have better luck.
educate *yourself*
Good advice for anybody, any time. 80% of what they make you read is to teach you what to avoid, and the rest just gives you an idea of where to start really reading. This is true of any subject in high school.
do what you have to to survive
I'm not sure about that. Sometimes it's better to break than to bend. Use your own judgement. I certainly don't mean that you should lash out or anything, but just that "fitting in" is a popular survival mechanism which you should avoid like the plague. Of course, if you mean survival in the sense of maintaining one's self-respect, then "fitting in" is the opposite of survival and we're in complete agreement.
HIGH SCHOOL IS NOT THE REAL WORLD !!
THERE ARE NO "PUBLIC" SCHOOLS, THEY ARE GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS !! THE PUBLIC HAS NO SAY IN HOW THEY ARE RUN! THINK ABOUT IT!
Home schoolers now get to see a different side of the school scolaization thier kids are missing!
FREEDOM IS MESSY! WE ARE NOT PERFECT BEINGS!
START WITH GOLDEN RULE IF YOU NEED A BASELINE!
My sympathy to ALL the students and parents.
I had the fortune (or the misfortune) of being on both sides of the social
fence at different times in my schooling. I remember very clearly back in
6th grade when we had a new student come to our school. She happened to be
very fat, and most of the kids (including myself) teased her incessantly.
Well, after about half a year, she changed school districts; and I remember
distinctly the gym teacher asking her if she's going to miss my elementary
school, and she got up and looked at all of us, and said she's happy she's
leaving because everyone had made her miserable at our school. The thing
was, until that moment, I had never realized that she even had feelings or
could be hurt. I was so wrapped up in doing what all the other kids were
doing that I never realized exactly what I was doing.
In high school, it was a somewhat opposite situation. Although I was never
taunted or overtly ostracized, I was never part of the ``in'' crowd and,
needless to say, never got invited to many parties. I was lucky enough
though because I was in a large high school and I was able to find some
close friends that I could identify with, and fortunately I never really
gave a damn what other people thought of me, so I never really felt left
out. But I can certainly understand how one could easily feel that way.
My point is that many kids in high school probably do the things they do
because they don't realize what they're doing, or who they're hurting.
It's only after they've been forced into seeing things from a different
perspective that they understand what they've done. Some people never
learn, but I think most people eventually learn and become decent people.
Unfortunately I think the social situation in schools is largely ignored,
probably mostly because it's a difficult problem and one that is not easily
addressed (and we're a society that likes easy answers, not right ones).
Whatever the cause of the massacres turns out to be, I'm sure we'll never
know, because it won't be something the media can package in a nice ten
minute time slot and add a cute teaser too.
I think the best things we can do as adults is to make kids aware of each
other, as people, regardless of which side of the fence they're on.
After all these years, I still feel guilty about the girl in 6th grade that
we taunted. I wish her well, and hope that she was able to get past the
taunting without becoming too embittered (she was already fairly bitter
at 12).
Doug
of four now grown children, the comments from students around the country struck a reponsive cord. My four just barely managed to survive high school, mostly I think because they had each other. Their father and I did try to support them but ultimately I think they survived because they were there for each other. If I had children of school age today, I think I would home school. the public schools are so terrible and deadening, especially for bright young men. Thank go for the Internet - it may be the only thing that allows them to survive. And I agree with the comment of one of your repliers asking where the so-called professionals as well as parents were that the two kinds in Littleton could have planned this attack for months and months with no one noticing. It was horrible and tragic but the cause is not the media, the Internet, or anything like that. "We have met the enemy and he is us."
I'm not claiming to offer any new insights in what happened over there, but what I can do, trying to help, is list what immediately strikes us as being the largest differences between the US style of HS (as displayed in TV series, movies etc) and the way it's done over here in Belgium..
The most striking difference seems to be the incredible emphasis the US system makes on, I dunno, pure competition. Granted, we too have a much too strong emphasis on the raw numbers (you still pass by scoring at least 6 on a 10 point test, not by being the ultimate Nice Person). The key difference however is that in the US it only seems possible to be succesful at the expense of the others. Only the "n" best people can be in the football team. Only the "n" best looking chicks join the cheerleader club. Only the "n" highest scoring students go to college (be it measured locally or nationwide). Over here though, the state pays everything, from the subscription fee you pay when you enter as a 12 year old all the way to the substantial bill that's adding up when you follow 4 years of college education. I did 4 years of computer science majoring and that cost my parents 4 times 400$. In the US, I see 5 or even 6 figure numbers for comparable studies. Either your parents much be rich, or you need a "sponsorship" from the governement. The net result of the latter would be a situation comparable to the Belgian one I just described, except that in the US you need to earn it by proving your "worthiness" -- usually at the expense of others. This, I guess, is probably why the highschools are turning into a huge battleground where students are pitted against each other for raw, social survival; this despite the fact that it should actually be a place of exchanging ideas, swapping methodologies, rehearsing, etc. Or to put it differently : contrary to the socially oriented European nations, the US society is sending out a message of fierce competition, won at the expense of fellow humans, to even the youngest kids. You need materialistic wealth, so they say, for which you need a big job, for which you need college education, for which you need to be the last man standing when highschool is finished. There simply is no money (and if there was, it would be considered a waste, probably) to send everybody who's got the brains for it to college. If too much people have the brains, other criteria kick in, leading to the mess Katz describes...
Add into this mix a few more gradients that are more (or even completely) absent over here and you have an incredibly dangerous coctail. They are :
1) Weapons. Even smart people like Eric-what's-his-name from OSS promote the free availability of guns. Since you can't eat soup with them and killing or even shooting someone is illegal, what the heck were you gonna do with them ? The end result : my jaw hitting the ground when I see the metal detectors in the "187" movie. I mean, metal detectors ? In highschool ? That's unthinkable over here. For now.
2) Drugs. A huge problem on their own, but since (at least according to the media) their problems (notably, socially wasted individuals, and/or higher crime rates) seem to be highest in the black ghettos, they help the spreading of :
3) Racism. 150000 members of the White Power / Christian Identity groups, with thousands of jews in the Jewish Defence League plus thousands of black people in the Black Panthers movement, at the other side of the line. Not a typically US problem, but stronger, maybe because a) Europe still has the memories of where it leads to clearly visible for everyone to see (I drive past thousands of WW2 graves everyday going to work), b) black people are present in larger counts, c) nobody seems to care that the media are sending out mixed signals, care about the fact that police still sends out strong racial signals, care about
KKK members, neo-nazi's etc holding marches through cities making gestures, yelling slogans etc that are extremely right-winged, etc, etc, etc... The control all these groups are gaining over the younger kids minds isn't helping either to promote the idea of "we'll get there as a nation, not as a member of a superior group" ("superior" being Aryan, rich, or fitting the HS shallow prototype, you choose).
Confused by all this mumble jumble ?... Well, the bottom line would be : take a society that is extremely focused on material well-being; allow the acquisition of this high materialistic standard only at the expense of others (rather than working together to achieve it collectively), hammering this idea into peoples minds starting at the youngest ages; suggest that anything that goes away from the "standard American prototype" (blacks, jews, homos, nerds, Mexicans, Chinese, whatever) can be a threat to "your way of living"; then give every individual the right to "defend" (ie, shoot at everything that seems to be a threat to) his "property"; and you get a really big timebomb... called the USA.
I hope that in the end I'm not sounding like the next Hate-USA-Club member. On the contrary, I hope I'm presenting a reasonably objective overview of what seems to be painfully obvious to the outsider, yet is missing to be perceived by anybody in the US with the power to fix it, or at least voice the problems.
Also note that I'm using the "how it's done over here" approach not because my country is perfect; we've got our own set of big problems too. But they seem to be of a much less aggressive nature; more precisely, we're running the risk of collectively going bankrupt by virtue of spending way too much on social welfare. I think that says a lot about the contrast I'm trying to sketch...
2 cents...
Bert Peers
-=(Short Controlled Bursts)=-
No. From my own personal experience (being the ostracised geek in middle and high school), taking away the computer is very often the absolute worst route to take. For me, at least, my computer was my only escape from the horrors of school. The only real solution in this case is to *gasp* teach the fucking kid some responsibility. No, this does not require the parent to be looking over their shoulder, no, this does not require making them pay for their own food. But, perish the thought, it does require trusting the child to make their own decisions, and giving them the ethical upbringing to make the right one. If the parent cannot do this, then I say that they are unfit to be parents, and deeply so.
Looking for any place to lay the blame rather than taking responsibility is so deeply engrained in American society, it makes me sick.
Holocaust Remembrance Day was just last week.
I recently heard a funny line that a Pope said during the Crusades: "Kill them all, the Lord knows his own".
Americans didn't burn the Library of Alexandria, nor Pythagoras' school.
As with anything, Americans approach intolerance with immense mindless energy and vast natural resources, but we didn't invent evil.
Start with your friends. Engage them in an intellectual/philosophical discourse
No comment.
For heaven's sake you guys are nerds! You deserve to be harrasses and picked upon. Not only are you strange and weird, you're probably fat and ugly as well. How on earth are we supposed to put up with your turds suchs as youself. Sure you might go bonkers every now and then and waste a few of us in the beautiful crowd - so what! There are a million more of us! And we'll always be there to boss you around. Just wait 'til you go out in the real world and get a job. Guess what?!?! Your boss will be a jock and his the one that makes all the big money out of you. While you live a pitiful little life he's living it up with money you've made for him. And you know what - he'll still think you are a dorkwad and he'll probably tell it to you each and every chance he gets.
To sum up: You guys suck, you are worthless, get used to it or kill yourself. No one cares! So there...
William S B
Nothing has depressed me more than reading about this selective persecution. It took me way back to the bad old days of High School and remebering that I have to say that I am completely unsurprised by this recation by the control freaks.
I'm beginning to wonder if the reason why some of the people at work aren't in today is that they are dealing with school administrations about their National Merit Scholar nocomformist kids.
You are not alone at all. What we are seeing is that this pattern appears frighteningly often enough to be a common trait. The outpouring of confessions of similar treatment by fellow geeks today is truly what is frightening.
We all knew growing up that we couldn't be the only ones, that we couldn't be alone, but that cold dark world was so isolatingly lonely and unbearably cruel.
I fear the most after reading the excesive pressures that kids even in my town are now enduring. High School sucked, but we didn't have a massive media backlash telling us that not only were we too smart for our own good, now we are so smart that we are a threat to others safety and our own. We must find more ways to reach out to these kids and show them the rewards for the price they are currently paying in hell.
Maybe it is time for the geeks to pack up and claim a state or area as our own. Silicon Valley is too damn expensive, but I keep hearing more and more about Houston, with cheap living and a massive geek culture. Collect enough of us in one area and we will become a political force through shear numbers. Hmm That's the heart of majority rule. If we are the majority we can make the rules and change the school board.
Not such a bad thought. So who else has ideas about how we can save our peers so they survive high school?
chris
chris@pugrud.net
-- passwd? I don't need no stinking passwd!
i make straight a's and nobody gives a fuck.
:-)
all the classes are too easy... in computer science i refuse to write comments on my programs simply because they're so damn short and pointless and anybody with more than a dozen brain cells knows exactly what it will do... i guess that's why she rounded my 93.5 in there down to a B+.
jocks in my classes are given automatic a's and usually allowed to come in late and even skip class.
i always thought it'd be really great to hack my school's intercom with a few friends and just have a geekfest for a day. every day during the 20-minute announcements geeks are inundated with bullshit about sports and all these activities you need to get into a "respectable" college. then they play whatever kind of music is popular that week; and it's always changing. after the shooting in colorado i contemplated playing tool's "intolerance" at lunch which i know a lot of us would appreciate, followed immediately by replacing the school's webpage with an informative essay about how we're mistreated and everything. that'd be pretty easy, considering that i'm in charge of the school's webpage. what's even more disgusting is that i'm never given any thanks for it. it's just expected of me. when i miss a program in CS to update the page, i'm not allowed to make it up. oh well. that's the way high school has worked and always will work.
the only way to fight back is by little bits of imperceptible resistance. there are a lot more geeks than you think, and some of them you may make fun of yourself. i personally don't like DnD and make fun of my friends who play it, but i would never reject someone because they play it. sometimes you have to take a stand. one of the essentials is to get one of copyleft's "geek" shirts which generally gets you a lot of attention. it also helped make me more proud of my geekdom. i'm pretty much accepted by all this year at school, even by the people i hate. what's great about a position like that is that you get to spread the word. i made friends with one jock and this year hes quit the lacrosse team and plays team fortress and quake instead. he's also getting proficient with perl, so i guess that's my first geek evangelization. anyways, i'm ranting and this is becoming kinda like my life story.
bottom line: there's more geeks than you may think... keep in touch with them and whenever you're down just remember that in a few years you'll be a network engineer or whatever and all your enemies from high school are gonna be down in the mail room or in prison
What is so wrong about taking a stand and rejecting all forms of current society? Is it so awful to live life the way you see fit, and not as everyone else believes you should? I've rarely, if ever, seen social outcasts purposely bother anyone without being pushed and prodded by others beforehand.
The only people who deserve social hazing are social hazers.
take some form of martial arts
If he'd kicked that guy's ass, he might have had a mob on his own ass. When you're outnumbered that badly, you can't win. Of course, in situations where they're going to kill you anyway, fight like hell and take as many with you as you can (e.g. the Warsaw Ghetto uprising) -- but this school incident wasn't life'n'death.
So, I respectfully disagree.
now I'm just a fuckin' mutant (I didn't so much grow as metastasize)..
That is a very, very cool sentence.
Hmm, I always thought that tv series are not reality, but if i read your stories about jocks & proms & partys... Come live in Europe! We don't have proms, we only have partys were everyone gets drunk and talks to each other (legally! no age restrictions on alcohol!), no matter if you're a geek or whatever. We don't have colleges that allow you if you're good at sports; hey, we had a 'sports day' last week (only day in the year you can do sports at our school!) and only 1 (one!) out of 35 students from my class went ...
So people who claim to have had a hard time in high school deserve what they got?
I find your statement that you've never seen 'nerd-type' geeks abused in any way interesting. You must not get out much. In my school people who made exceptional grades were avoided socially, and ridiculed in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
Then theres that part where you justify abuse because these geeks rejected social norms. The Jews have rejected social norms for centuries, and look at the abuse they've endured. I suppose you're going to say they got what they deserved too, huh? Bashed any queers lately? Thanks to arrogant pricks like you we have a narrower, stupider, less diverse, less open, and less interesting society.
I was forced to respond after readingthose messages, and the editors own comments...
:P
I understand loving computers, I love to program, play net games, and hack around, but it IS a problem if you "dislike team sports", are depressed, etc...
You arent being alienated, you are seperating yourself. If you dont feel comfortable talking with the "IN" crowd at highschool, because you dont think they will talk about anything interesting, you just dont know what your talking about. Jocks do not completely ignore computers, as many computer geeks seem to ignore sports. But a real geek would never be so closed minded.
If you are using the computer to such an extent that you are unhealthy, then you are being left out because you dont look a certian way. This is in a way good, because it is counterproductive to be unhealthy...
It seems many of you have alot to learn, and I am worried that many of you are more violent then you let on, or have other significant problems
: Anxiety Disorder
: Grandios Self Image
- leads to violence when others disagree with your vision...
: cynicism
Computers are a nw, and very powerful tool. I am afraid you are abusing(or being abused by) them, and no one is benefiting from this.
Yeah, the femme fatale that everyone used to drool over and who took particular delight at snubbing the less popular of us was about 50% heavier and working at the gas station last time I was home. Heh heh heh...
When I was in middle and high school, there were three cliques: "frats"
:-), the captain of the high school football team and
(they wore a lot of paisley, most all the jocks came from their ranks, as did
home-coming queens and the like), "greasers" (wore pointy shoes, had greasy
hair, they had seriously out-of-control parties, and people avoided messing
with them), and "other."
I was in the class "other." I don't recall what, if any, generic name was
given our "group." (We weren't really a group, per se, just people not in one
of the "main" groups.)
And as with modern geeks/nerds, we got it from all sides. I hated high
school, in particular. But somehow I got through it.
And today? I'm happily employed in a field that is in higher demand than any
other (Information Technology), married to a great woman, and have a very
nice home on a relatively large piece of property in the way-outer 'burbs.
I've lived and worked in a number of different parts of North America and
parts of Europe. Done anywhere from moderately-well to excellent in several
individual sports (incl. firearms sports). I even, for a brief period,
temporarily abandoned geekdom for the mainstream and did some "corporate
ladder-climbing" just to see what that was like. (It's really ludicrously
easy.)
And the other groups?
Last report I received about the last class reunion (somehow I seem to miss
every one--bummer
all-around jock was holding down some completely boring, cog-in-a-machine
job counting numbers and the home-coming queen from my graduating class
looked like a two-bit whore. (My knees used to get weak whenever she so much
as looked in my general direction!)
God only knows what ever happened to the "greasers."
The point is, geek-kids: it don't matter. Brush it off. Those conformists,
years down the road, will still be conformists. They will remain as easily
amused as they are today (who do you think television was invented for,
anyway?), and as easily replaceable as they are today.
You don't have to hate them. You don't have to fear them. You don't have to
de-humanize them (that's *dangerous!!!). Just brush them off.
In closing: I've noted several comments in reply to this most recent article
by Jon, and the previous one, where the authors stated that they could
empathize, or even sympathize, with the "kids" who instigated that horrific
slaughter in Littleton. You guys (generic) better check yourselves. For
while I can identify with out-casted-ness, I could never, *ever* identify
with a mind-set that allowed me to so-dehumanize others that I could even
*remotely* conceive of a state-of-mind that would even *imagine* perpetrating
that kind of slaughter. Self-defense in protection of oneself, loved ones,
community and ones property is certainly justifiable. Murder-for-revenge, no
matter what the trespasses one has suffered, real or imagined, is completely
and utterly unconscionable. If there is a Hell, the souls of those
"children" will surely burn there for all eternity. And rightly so.
Hey, someone else who went to Hunter! I wasn't going to say anything about it, but since it's been brought up...
Hunter is probably one of the best places for geeky kids. It's in a huge and diverse city, and it's admission by test only, so it draws a lot of very bright and sometimes nonconformist kids. But it was _still_ rough. Certain kids just seem to draw negative attention, and I was one of them. I got pushed around a fair deal for a few years by what vaguely passed for jock/popular types at Hunter.
Two things helped: 1. hitting puberty a bit earlier than most - nothing cuts a bully down to size like being the smaller guy for a while - and 2. being quite willing to fight back. People laugh at you? Hurt them. They won't like you, but then they obviously didn't like you before anyway, and when you hurt them, they'll start taking you seriously. In that sense, I understand where the TCM kids were coming from.
Things were not half as hellish for me as they are for some - by senior year I was more comfortable with myself, and I had a fair circle of friends and a wonderful girlfriend - but high school still sucked. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I always laugh darkly when I hear people talk about high school as the best years of their lives. Seems to me you must lead a pretty fscking sad life for that to be the case. Then again, most people _do_, don't they?
Same here. Hated Pre/Junior/Mid/High School. I hate College now. Only thing keeping me happy would be my part time job. I guess that is strange, you know, hating School (20% of my life) and liking work (80% of my life to come, I figure). Hmmm.... Who's going to be more happy? ;-)
on the contrary, this accomplishes a great deal.
I've found it VERY therapeutic to have read all these postings - what other people have gone through.
I hope that the kids going through this now will have an easier time dealing with things as well, after reading the postings of the survivors.
I have just one thing to say. No matter how hard it seems, It will ALWAYS get better!
My high school was similar. The sports team were
:-), and got a real
more just like clubs, especially since my high
school wasn't a sports powerhouse. In fact,
there were pretty much groups of ordinary kids.
This was the LA Unified School District.
I graduated, went to a little tech school just
down the street from Harvard
eye-opener as I saw what the larger world was
like. I can only repeat what others here have
already said.
THERE IS MORE TO LIFE THAN HIGH SCHOOL!
One final thing: There is more to life than
also relishing that one day you'll have your
'revenge'. Life is too short. Learn to love
others. Learn to give. Learn to be compassionate.
Learn to think critically. Learn to be a better
human being not only by being good at your chosen
profession but also by learning to paint, sing,
play an instrument, or through some other humanities. Have faith.
Americans everywhere are searching for something to blame. If the gunmen were still alive, they would be blamed fully. Guns would be blamed to a lesser extend. Video games and music would be blamed very little--if not completely out of the picture. We need something to blame because it gives us someone/something to punish. A way to "make better". It's not as simple as finding the kid who drew a picture on the wall with crayons (where there is next to no reason). You have to actually look at the _reason_. The reason plain and simple was because the gunmen were hurt inside. Them planning this out for a complete year and not having second thoughts then, and not having second thoughts now only strengthens the proof that they were hurt deeply. People do not want to look at this reason because it hurts too much. Because people do not know what they can do. Because no solution will provide immediate results (as putting someone in jail, or banning guns). We need to look past the fact that what they did was not _right_ and focus on the _reason_ that these events took place.
It's much easier to assume that these kids were psychopaths and this was a random incident than to look at the facts and consider that there was a valid motive.
The gunmen gave us reason--it is our choice to acknowledge it. Sure, we can ban guns. We can change the video game rating system. But, none of these cut into the heart of the problem. School is only getting worse. I can tell a huge difference in behavior and violence between my generation/year and a younger one. The school system needs to be completely redone. I believe it would help American society greatly in the end. I suggest modelling a school after Japan's (I've heard they have a good school system, students actually learn, and there is almost no violence despite having violence everywhere on TV, video games, etc.) or other country's. Just because we are the US of A does not make us perfect in every way.
let's face it: the "REAL WORLD" (TM) is whatever universe you're living in NOW !
Not what the world will be in X years.
Not what the world is for someone else.
Not what the world is elsewhere.
Not even a combination of the above.
And for some people, that REAL WORLD is hell, for whatever reasons.
That's why I think computers/games/Internet are great for those people : for a moment, you can evade hell and live in another universe far more interesting and pleasing, even if it's just for a moment, even if it's just a virtual world.
At least, with a little imagination, it FEELS real for a moment. Helps alot when you go back to Hell after a lengthy game of Quake/AD&D/whatever...
At least you had fun for awhile.
Just a few notes (no particular order here, lower your flame-guns flamers) :
- I feel sorry for these 2 kids. What they did was BAD, I agree. But they were kinda pushed to it.
Imagine how hard it must have been for them to think that the only way out is to kill others and die. yeak.
- I feel sorry for their victims, too. Whatever they did, they surely didn't deserved to die that way.
- I hope (I know, it's utopic) some kids in school will think about how the way they treat other kids can make those suffer.
- knowing what pushed the killers that far is interesting, but let's not think it applies the same to everyone. Even if you could identify exactly what externals conditions led them to those insane acts, you could not predict that the same external conditions applied to someone else will lead to the same results.
(hope you get what I mean, I know my english is poor)
- it's kinda ironic that school admins. are worsening the pressure on kids by trying to adress the problem (cf. stories of kids asked to not wear this or that, etc..). What they are actually telling kids is "I think you're a potential killer" - I hope some kids won't think "I'll prove them right"...
just my 0.2 $...
Nicson
nicson@unforgettable.com
[too lazy to create an account and log in]
I had a very enlightened boss at a summer job, and he pointed out that, for many people, high school WAS the best years of their life. Like many people have said, how can a dead-end job, or getting fat and having twelve kids with a moron, compare with being the Homecoming King/Queen? That was the peak of their lives. Many of them date/marry because society says they're perfect for each other. Guess who's responsible for the high divorce rate?
Don't be angry with, pity them. They haven't got the character or convictions to be different. They try so hard to fit in, they never learn anything useful. Almost all will have horrid, meaningless lives after graduation.
For geeks, it's the opposite. Graduation is the beginning of the fun!
Well, the European community is nearly 300 million people... more than the US... so your argument about comparing population size is working against you ! Even with a larger population our crime rate is lower. Why is it so hard for Americans to admit that others can be better than them on some things ?
If you had been to school (well, European school since US school are so lame ;-), you would know that the US did some nuclear test on the nice Bikinis islands in the Pacific... so you are in a difficult position to make comments about our own nuclear test.
You would think Valentino's was some sort of whorehouse instead of the corner pinball joint.
I note with some interest the convergence of two seperate realms: Slashdot and the TAG mailing list
i subscribe to. The shooters in Colo. , while
not condoned , have a lot of sympathy. Many People
in both areas "know where they were comming from".
" I am mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore ", keeps running thru my head. Side Note:
Slashdot seems much less prone to blame jocks than
the TAG list.
The last time my wife did such a thing (before graduating college mind you) she was pretty much thwarted in her efforts by the teachers and adminstrators themselves. This was an inner city school and the kid's teacher and principle were pretty much willing to write off this kid @ ~ 12 and rather indignant at the notion that their beloved beaurocracy might need some adjustment.
Starting a one room school house on some street corner would be a better idea.
I am not an american but i have an admiration for the consitution . Do you think that it will get to the stage where games will be banned or trenchcoats banned , anybody who looks diferent will be punished by dullwitted politicians who are looking for quick and easy votes
I hear you. While much of the evidence regarding the TCM's parents, there are still so many other examples of bad parenting. For those of us who endured high school to peak later in life, there's so much in upbringing that will both keep us in line, as well as support us - and it starts at the beginning, as young children and their parents.
(Of course, regulating 'breeding' is too big brother-ish. There needs to be some kind of happy medium. I think.)
>Those people who made life difficult for you when you were younger now have dull, 9-5 lives, wishing always for the weekend. They are living in purgatory.
Wait a second, thats me. I live a dull 9-5 life (actually 11-5, but I digress) and I'm wishing
always for the weekend.
>And you? You're pulling in 4x + more money than the oldest of them, doing a job you love, looking forward to monday mornings.
Well this part is true, mostly, although as time
goes by I start to hate computers. If work was
fun it would be spelt f u n not w o r k.
Now where did I leave my gun? Must've been by the
high explosives.
What some people fail to see is who committed this crime. It was not done by the typical bookish, introspective individual. It was done by two (I'd bet on a lot more then two, actually, but local law and the FBI is gonna screw this up) very disturbed individuals who had a year-long grudge with other people at their school. With the kind of planning that went into this act, this is not something that happened overnight. There _must_ have been warning signs, and I would say that the guidance councilors, school administrators, teachers, and others who are professionally trained to recognize these signs should be fired and possibly brought up on charges.
I've had a little training and study in terrorist tactics. What the Colorado massacre shows was a very driven, calculated, and hate-filled attack that was less then surgical only because of the weapons used in the environment and the emotional instability of the pair.
They hit the library because they wanted to get as many people as possible. Yes it's sick, but it makes sense with what they were doing and the message they wanted to send. Libraries commonly have more then just one class full of students in them, generally at least two, and possibly hundreds at a big school during cafeteria time. As for being indiscriminate, they were nothing of the sort. They -announced- who they were looking for. But when you have an automatic weapon or a sawed-off or pipebombs in an enclosed space, it's pretty easy to appear and be indiscriminate completely by accident. That's why law enforcement and counter-terrorist forces perfect the 'double tap' and 'controlled pair' shooting techniques that just aren't possible with a shotgun or explosives.
They planned this for a year. They picked the birthday of an admired figure. They moved together at a time when most of the school was together and there was very little supervision by school administrators. They knew precisely what they were doing, and that should scare the hell out of their classmates, that someone hated them enough to be so clinically sociopathic.
The ultimate example of what the pair intended to accomplish was the bombs. They were going to kill as many people in the school as possible. The average school that supports 1500 students has approximately 40 classrooms, 2 gymnasiums, a cafeteria, administrative offices, six bathrooms and several utility closets. Pipebombs are relatively small fragmentation explosives, and most schools are brick/concrete structures. The two couldn't blow that up without a van full of explosives, but they could hope to kill everyone inside that they felt offended by, in a personal manner. They were going to use the bombs to keep law enforcement out of the school while they finished up.
The hysteria this catastrophe has brought to light, however, is more dangerous then the actual shooters. The social environment of education creates this kind of person: an emotionally-disturbed, young individual who not only has an immortality complex, but also has nothing to lose to death. Only religious fanaticism and military fascism comes close to creating such a cookie-cutter terrorist.
But instead of looking at the source, the media focuses on the symptoms. We blame Quake and Doom. We blame gun laws. We quietly ignore the fact that although media glorifies all violence, its not the quiet bookish sort that causes crime, that drives drunk, that deals drugs, that steals, berates, ridicules, and hates. We just blame them because it's easy. It takes a good deal of social pressure to create these two, and people took their time in applying it.
I would point out to those feeling fallout to the hysteria of the ignorant, that High School is not life. Look at those who taunt you, and remember that you will see them asking 'May I take your order?' fifteen years down the line. Life has a funny way of working out that way.
These shooters, they are not You. The fact that others see you as possible criminals just means that they're afraid. It shows that these people are concerned, and they are too stupid to know any better. To those who feel panic, you need to reaffirm to them that you are not like this. Give them proof: your friends, your family, your interests. If these cannot be accepted, then all these people can be given is pity for submitting to their fear. It may not be fair, but stupidity has yet beaten by apathy.
Man, I haven't thought about it in this way, but Katz is so dead-on on this one. This should be printed off and mailed to every school. BRAVO!
Given the kinds of rumours that can fly around school regarding pariahs I'm very skeptical of just about anything that could be said about these two beyond that they were pariahs that rather spectacularly commited suicide.
They just took a diary entry and blew it out of proportion -- it is so obvious when you see the press questioning them about it. It was a fantasy of theirs and nothing more. But the law-enforcement would like to offer it as 'proof' that they really did something excellent that day.
Nice try.
The diference is that in Canada, guns are a real pain-in-the-ass to get a hold of so
I'm not currently doing a whole bunch of consecutive life terms.
There are plenty of ways to kill people without using a gun. A machete is an effective killing weapon, and it is often used for massacres in Africa.
One can get to a point where one is so wierd that the normals are just plain afraid of you. They have a rather low tolerance for diversity to begin with. So, once you reach a certain 'wierdness coefficient' they just plain leave you alone. Perhaps this was the case.
> You're right, European food is generally much
;-)
> better than American food. We did have corn
> first, though. Mmmmm corn on the cob dripping
> with butter and lightly salted/peppered. But I
> digress.
Well, if you like genetically engineered corn, then yes. Over here we have banned most of it and wait to see if you'll get a third arm or not
> I still have yet to see the volume of terror
> bombings and sheer atrocious massacres in
> America that happen in Europe.
Well, Americans did a big genocide against the natives (and believe me, some of the attacks against natives were as bloody as the worst parts of WWI). Then there was the war against the English, the Mexicans. The civil war. The Corean war. The Vietnam (nice mass killings too there...). I don't think Americans can make any lesson to us about pacifism. Of course eradicating the natives from the start was a good insurance that you wouldn't have to fight them later...
> With the American population being almost as
> big as the entire European one, I still think
> we're doing rather well
Well, you export your problems. You export your pollution (which is the highest in the world per-capita or in absolute numbers), you export your wars, etc... of course it makes things easier for you but at the expense of the others.
Parents who home-school DO need to work on social training. Unconventional thinking? Fine. Unable to interact with society? Good luck!
Friday, an Honors student at the local high school was sent home because of a long black trenchcoat. An HONORS student for the love of Pete! Um, has it gone to far? Horse-gone-lock-the-door attitude?
Words of encouragement, to all outcasts and geeks out there. I was one of the most important people in my high school. I was hated. I was an outcast. I was a geek. With out me and two others, there would have been no year book for the 3 years we were there. There would have been no music for dances or sporting events. When I graduated, I was still hated. But guess what. After high school, geeks rule! Free thinkers rule! I am in my 5th yaer of a mechanical engineering degree. Not only am I now accepted, I am looked up to and respected. I am well on my way to a rewarding career and life. I have a wonderful girlfriend who loves me for who I am, not what I am. My "well adjusted" younger sister, the social butterfly, the popular girl in school, the "why can't you be more like your sister" girl is 23, has a 2 year old child, does drugs, and is living with her supplier. Who is more well adjusted?
So, geeks, nerds and outcasts of the world take heart! Public school is "trial by fire" for us. We emerge better suited to enter the real world when everything is said and done.
"I firmly believe it is the parents' right and obligation to raise their children as they see fit"
the problem is that "as they see fit" ranges from nothing to too much care. Telling kids whose parents have unplugged their computer that "you symphatize with them, but support their parents" will be perceived by those kids as "your parents are right to do it". Perhaps that's not what you mean in this particular case.
I think it's stupid. I agree it's their right, but it's the easy way. Just unplug the damn thing and the (potential) problem will go away.
Nope. As I heard in "Jurassic Park", Life will find a way. Well, kids will find a way and you won't know, and it'll probably be worse because they'll have to hide from you. And since they already do something you don't want them to, perhaps they'll also try OTHER things you don't want them to, like smoking and drugs and whatever.
There's no easy solution. I would advice these kids to try to talk with theirs parents, to explain what they like and wanna do, so that their parents will understand them better and trust them. Problem is, a lot of parents won't listen, it can be hard to explain, it takes some time (in my case, a LOT of time) but it's the right way.
And if it doesn't work, DO NOT QUIT TRYING !
Find the most reasonable way around, but keep trying talking your parents! it's worth it...
Nicson
nicson@unforgettable.com
[too lazy to create account, too lazy to log in]
Our college newspaper was threatened by our state Attorney General because we refused to run an ad by an anti-homosexuality organization. This was a public University and we relented to their demands.
"I firmly believe it is the parents' right and obligation to raise their children as they see fit"
the problem is that "as they see fit" ranges from nothing to too much care. Telling kids whose parents have unplugged their computer that "you symphatize with them, but support their parents" will be perceived by those kids as "your parents are right to do it". Perhaps that's not what you mean in this particular case.
I think it's stupid. I agree it's their right, but it's the easy way. Just unplug the damn thing and the (potential) problem will go away.
Nope. As I heard in "Jurassic Park", Life will find a way. Well, kids will find a way and you won't know, and it'll probably be worse because they'll have to hide from you. And since they already do something you don't want them to, perhaps they'll also try OTHER things you don't want them to, like smoking and drugs and whatever.
There's no easy solution. I would advice these kids to try to talk with theirs parents, to explain what they like and wanna do, so that their parents will understand them better and trust them. Problem is, a lot of parents won't listen, it can be hard to explain, it takes some time (in my case, a LOT of time) but it's the right way.
And if it doesn't work, DO NOT QUIT TRYING !
Find the most reasonable way around, but keep trying talking your parents! it's worth it...
Nicson
nicson@unforgettable.com
[too lazy to create account, too lazy to log in]
Amazingly true. I started working out and when I started to show some good bulk and definition, people started treating me much differently. The regular insults came to a grinding halt -- most likely because they thought they would get their ass kicked if they took a jab at me.
I still remember college... it was hilarious. Actually, the geeks would see me sit down at a public computer terminal and give a knowing/mocking look to each other. Jock-boy over there know how to work that X-station? Then they would look a little stunned when I started cranking out some heavy words-per-minute editing some code.
Treated enough like a jock, and actually, you take on some of the characteristics. Class reunion's going to be a hoot. Who's that cute guy? Anyone know his name?
Sure, being a nerd in jr high -> high school is tough. But damn, it was a good path to take. Work on my mind when I'm young, then work on the body when I'm older.
And a guy who's smart and reads up on bodybuilding can put on a great deal of muscle mass quick. You won't regret it.
The top 10 causes of teen mortality
http://www.cdc.gov/nchswww/data/47_4t17.pdf
Yep, car accidents are #1.
Not to nitpick, but there's only 270 million people in the US.
People, if you are going to have/have kids... remanber the lesson.
And raise them open-minded.
So it won't go into another cycle again... Lets hope.
Well, my parents took me *out* of school in sixth grade. I live in a big city with lots of home schoolers, but almost all of them are 1) religious fanatics and 2) younger students. Thus we never had much use for the home schooling organizations.
You do have reduced social interaction as a home schooler. So? You can still meet people and have friends.
As for instruction, I mostly taught myself. I did calculus, biology, and physics. I selected my own literature and non-fiction to read. Is any of this harder than learning a programming language on your own? More advanced stuff I've done using correspondence and internet courses and at a local college. And as for college admissions, I'm headed for Stanford, no less.
Forget high school--you can get a far better education yourself if you want to.
Ross
jrosshens@yahoo.com
Jeez, kids, grow up. We all went through high school. I've got a solution: quit being such damn geeks!
Here in the UK it is usually taken to mean a person of Scottish descent. However I doubt that is the context in which it is used in this article .. the meaning seems more akin to "school bully" -- is that correct?
This is an excellent article btw Jon. I don't see how anyone can slate you on this. Some of the things you mention, while not being as relavant in the UK thanks to the lack of a witch hunt over here, still draw some interesting and disturbing parallels with mine and my friends' experiences.
I have been in both sides of the game before. I have been popular, atheletic, and alienated. I have been a bully, and i have been bullied. I know the pain. My IQ was 136, which means at the age of 14, i have a mind of a 19 year old, it was simply impossible to act my age. And i refuse to act dumb to fit in. I know the alienation, I know the whole game. Somehow, within one semester, i turned it around - from public enemy to a leader.
One key thing that will turn things around is quite simple: the realization that you don't NEED many friends. especially the Darwin-challanged ones. You don't Need thier approval. You have to believe this from the deepest place in your heart. A brilliant person will probably not get much approval from clueless people.
Now, you can tell this to yourself a thousand times and not believing it. Then that's useless. You gotta BELIEVE, with absolutely no doubt. (That's hard for a teen, but no one said it's easy.)
Amazingly enough, the answer lies within. I cannot tell you the answer, but i can tell you to Look into yourself. See what you like in yourself. The most charismatic thing in you is your confidence. The fact that you know exactly what you are doing, where you are heading, who you are, and why you are the coolest person, and why you cannot care less about those who hate you.
You hold the key to your freedom. If you don't accept the insult, you can never be insulted. Don't be a whinning dumb ass like the two dead bodies in Colorado. They are losers. you are not.
Observe. Observe the best of the best leaders you know of. They lead, they don't follow. They don't fit in, for they set the standards. Observe, and find the key.
if you are smart enough, you will figure out what is the ultimate secret to turn "he's a freak" to "there's something charismetic about him, let's find out." If you are not bright enough, keep suffering til the day you get your scholarships and choose your over-paying job.
Hi there
I find your comments to be very insightful. I rather thought the same thing then....and now.
When the preppies tried their lame persecutions, I outshined them in about every regard---inventive outfits, poetry and writing, artwork ahoy, learning various instruments, and "headtalks" with other intelligentsia.
I think that these big-ass schools that we have these days act like a pressure-cooker,and some kids can't (& shouldn't HAVE TO) cope with it.
Personally, I kinda got off on knowing I was way smarter, and way more compassionate than they could ever be.
I didn't "hate" school, but looking back--it was a tremendous waste of time. I'm thinking of home-schooling my 10 year old daughter to avoid some of that waste.
Kind Regards,
Sheila Capistran---by the way I was a HS Senior 1/2 my life ago!
private school is just as bad, and in some cases worse. the school system is more segregated than 20 yrs ago. all the rich folks move to the suburbs and send their kids to private school. you do learn something in public school; you learn how to deal with different kinds of people. keeping the kids in the greenhouse doesnt solve the problem. we are all responsible for what happened.
The only worse caretaker than an alcoholic set of parents is the public school system.
So what's this childhood thing I keep hearing about? I never got one.
While it may sound insensitive, this is a crucial time to speak out for free expression, because tragedies make people try to stifle dissent. "We have to show unity in the face of this tragedy! We have to show sensitivity to the victims and their families!"
"Unity" and "sensitivity" can easily become codewords for "conformity" and "not doing or saying anything that could upset anyone else". There have been few such serious threats to children's rights in years.
Even under the US legal system, which affords children very few free speech protections, it's clear that kids across the country are now being disciplined for things which are obviously protected. See Tinker v. Des Moines; public schools cannot punish expression because it is merely unpopular or upsetting. They have to prove that it's genuinely disruptive.
I have no intention to be insensitive to other's pain; I cried when I heard the news, and again when I read many of the stories. But tragedy must not be used as an excuse to deny people their rights. We need to let people know that free speech can be painful and upsetting -- and it's still a right.
Genetically engeneered product is not purely American. I myself am against it and only buy organically grown produce.
:-)
But can you tell when you buy a finished produce (say, chocolate bar) what kind of cereals it contains ?
Ever heard of Mad Cow Disease?
Interesting point. The English are fond of imitating the US. When the conservatist were in control here, they unregulated a lots of thing in a very Reagan style, creating gaps where health is at risk. In the US you still feed beef with hormones (they are banned in Europe). When the US governement has to choose between consumer health or industry interest, the industry always comes first...
Look at the timeframe, you Europeans were up to much worse stuff, may I remind you of Africa and India? how about Stalin and Hitler?
As for Africa the latest events in Congo where pushed by the US (which is trying to get a foot on the continent). As for Hitler you are right, but he would have been there if the Americans hadn't started a major economic crisis with their wild capitalism in 1929. German stamps used to cost billions of marks in the early 30s because of the crisis that threw the country on its knees (along with WWI damages, I concede).
You exported and caused both WWI and WWII, the bloodiest conflicts that humankind has ever known.
Japan was part of WWII as far as I know. WWI was indeed the bloodiest conflict in history. But we never used the atomic bomb also...
Korea was lengthened by American administrative stupidity.
Thanks
Vietnam was originally caused by the French.
Certainly not ! It was caused by a bunch of stupid rightish US politicians who helped a corrupt Vietnamese governement to resist a local revolution. No one will ever be able to justify the US actions in Vietnam. You really were on the bad side on this one.
You guys ARE arrogant
I've talked with Indians, Chineses, Europeans and all of them seems to believe Americans are the most arrogant people on earth. I'll always remember this quote from an American on TV when the wall in Berlin felt : "People must come here and see how they should live". If this is not arrogance...
But when you don't make sense, don't be surprised when you're ignored.
In case you haven't been following the story closely, "easy access"
to weapons was not an issue. Or did you completely miss the
parts about *bombs*? And the parts about shotguns?
Furthermore, the NRA most certainly *does* *not* advocate "easy access
to "weapons of mass destruction."
Your flame bait would've been a lot more effective had it contained just
a *smidgen* of truth or reality. You might want to keep that in mind
for your next attempt at initiating a flame-fest thread having nothing
to do whatsoever with the subject-at-hand.
That is SO true. but i guess it's never a problem since i don't particularly hate being a misfit. i actually like it. it gives me the freedom to do what i want, because i'm a freak after all.
Sure i'm laughed at all the time, so whut?
So I'm just going to be direct. Kids: if your parents are censoring your Internet access, go to http://www.peacefire.org/. Go there, or have a friend with uncensored access go there, and you can learn how to get around censorware. Most important, learn everything you can about computers, and then you can figure out how to do this for yourself. Then, use the information you get this way to think for yourself and learn everything you can about the world.
A jock is one of those atheletes. they wear that...
Different culture, for starters. Not as "U.S. influenced" as some would
believe.
I'm rather impressed. Your comment was only the second one so far that
proposed "banning the guns" as the solution.
There's hope for us yet.
In case you're wondering what I mean by this, consider: you got shotguns
in Canada? Yup. You got long guns in Canada? Yup. You got propane in
Canada? Yup. You got availability of hundreds of other common chemicals
that, alone or in combination with other commonly-available
chemicals, can be used to fabricate bombs? Yup.
Think about it. If you still come to the same misguided conclusion you
came to before: think about it some more.
It's really not all that hard to grasp. Really.
Strange that
I played sports for a specific reason, and not necissarily because I loved the game like so many
other idiots.
Not trying to bag on anybody in particular, but this statement sums up a lot of the problems I have with this particular thread.
Everybody is complaining about the "cool" people making them feel bad, but they seem especially ready to turn around and heap scorn and ridicule on anybody different from them. Does anybody see something wrong here?
Defining an "Us" and a "Them" -- regardless of the context and particulars -- is the essence of hatred and violence. I hope people keep this thread in mind the next time they're about to flame some hapless newbie.
I don't mean to frighten anyone still in high school, but the sad truth is that those pointy-headed jocks, preppies, phonies, bullies, etc., grow up and get jobs too.
I recently fled a financial corporation which had a lot of the same characteristics as high school -- group think, enforced optimism (can't go around pointing out loop holes or inefficiencies in procedure -- that's being *negative*), promotions going to the most sociable rather than the most knowledgeable...
Congratulations to all those who've managed to leverage their geek-ability into high paying jobs -- it took me a little longer to figure out that I was in the wrong industry. Technology ahoy!!
are you people stupid or crazy? i did an internship at the morgue here in St. Louis, working on the computers, and the most horrifying thing i ever saw there pales in comparison to what these two isolated maniacs did. have you ever seen an actual dead person? how about a person who's been shot in the face and bled to death from their eye.. well, this is what went on in Colorado and there should be absolutely NO sympathy for these kids past 11:30 last Tuesday. sympathy is for the innocent, not for mass murders.
it's not like they targeted their oppressors; they shot indiscriminately. friends of Dylan's were shot. they tortured people as they were dying. they mocked them as they bled. they laughed when people begged for their lives, then they shot them at point-blank range with a sawed-off shotgun. they asked a young lady if she believed in God (she was reading a Bible at the time). she said yes and they shot her in the face with a semi-automatic handgun. the family is holding a closed-casket funeral because her face is gone. NEVER FORGET THIS!
i'm torn between being glad that they're dead and wishing they were alive so they could spend the rest of their life in solitary confinement and feel what it's really like to be alone.
i think you all are underscoring the horrific events that occured by saying "Oh, they were picked on." lots of people have been picked on, but instead of killing their schoolmates, they start a band, write a poem or just express themselves without killing people. i'm a nerd and i was picked on in high school, but the thought of killing these people never crossed my mind for a second. i think that if you are having these thoughts, that you're in need of psychological help.
anyway, my basic point is that most of you seem to have forgotten that these two kids actually KILLED 13 people. 13 people will never live again, and these two children are to blame. don't sympathize with these maniacs, sympathize with their innocent victims.
First, society is a statistical system, so if all geeks were to
segregate into one place, they'd eventually develop their own
jock caste all over again.
Oh, and what rewards are you speaking of. Is it not true that
brainless meanest motherf_ckers are the most successful no
matter where you look, regardless of age group. The same jock
that used to torment you in school will wind up your manager
(Dilbert didn't become popular for no reason), or will suck the
blood out of you as your legal counsel. If you want to be humane
then suggest mass suicide to these kids. The only way the world
will pay attention is if there are no more geeks around.
Hrmph, figures that there'd be a few TAMS Slashdot readers. Hello everybody!
That blacks were one of the target groups of the shooters was an early
report that was later retracted. It seems that jocks (athletic types)
were the primary targets.
Don't ever give much credence to early news reports. Hell, they
hardly ever get it right in the long-run, much-less in initial
reports.
Canada's lone incident in my memory was when a fuckup went into the 'Ecole Polytechnique' (loosely 'Technical School')in Montreal, Quebec, selected a bunch of women from a crowd and shot them with a semi-automatic assualt rifle. I am a bit embarassed by this, but I cannot remember the number of women killed - I am sure it was more than 10.
This fuckup actually let men go before shooting the women..
A horrible, reprehenisble act that is well remembered even 10 years later....
IMHO that school, parents and kids got what they deserved.
Those 2 had to be complete outcasts and left that way intentionally by all involved. They supposedly planned this for over a year and no one noticed..
For 12 months they amasses bombs and weapons and no one noticed.. I can't imagine how they could have done that.
I do understand how they got to that point.. I was a complete outcast in HS. My entire HS was 120 kids.. There were people in my senior class that thought I had moved into the area that year.. (I was there from 2nd grade til graduation) Fortunately I had Computers, Dungeons and Dragons, a few friends and teachers to help smooth things out.
Actions have consequences.. Inaction also has consequences. Unfortunately 15 people had to die to drive that point home.
Look... just because they called the kid a 'nigger' before they killed him, does not mean the attack was racist in nature.
The black athlete caught their attention because he stood out (being short and black) - they knew right off he was one of the hated 'jocks'. Calling him 'nigger' was like rubbing salt in his wounds.
Racism didn't kill those students; a couple of punks with guns did. Do not mix the abstract and the concrete.
I think the only lanes we have to start correcting this problem is to run for political office, run for school board, run for city counsel, run for state representative....
But none of us do, we are at heart anti-social leaning, and to most of us the idea of running for a political office seems incredibly unappealing..
So, eventually when this geekguy or geekgirl is put infront of the school board on some insane charge, is there one of us looking down on him/her. Hell no, the board is full of the last generation of jocks and preppy girls that hated us in the first place...
There are enough of us out there, just not enough of us in the system supporting the kids....
of course I myself would much preffer working as a server admin, rather than any sort of politician... but therein lies the problem...
just my thought.
kyle.
I have read a lot of peoples comments here. I myself went to school in Australia but I can relate to many of the descriptions of ostrisization presented here. Most of what I remember of my high early schooing is a nightmare of abuse from other kids both mental and physical (I came home more than once brused after a beating.) I am quite frankly surprised that this sort of thing does not happen more often. I am aware that the problem is also more pronpounced in American schools since the teachers seem to side with the prom queens and jocks (I am aware this perception may be wrong but many descriptions here seem to back me up.) At least the teachers in school were supportive and encouraging but they were wholey unable to stop the abuse. I have also read comments blaming the availability of firearms in America while this is certainly a contributing factor to the scale of the massacre. It does not mean that were they not available there would have been no problems. There are many ways to kill people and as "nerds" tend to be fairly respouseful they probalbly could have found a way. The truth of the matter is that in Autralia we have one of the highest teenage suicide rates in the world when you push someone till they crack inevitably there are only two things that can happen.
:)
1: They decide life isn't worth living
2: They decide to fight back with impunity.
I am not condoning either action I made it through high school and am now in a high paying job in computing. I made it because as it happens I am a tough nut to crack one of my friends from high school wasnt not so lucky and commited suicide. I wish I could say that after you get out of high school the pain would all be gone just like the rest of the world seems to think. It isn't the case though sure the fact that I have a high paying job and a masters degree, while most of the people doing the abuse are currently in collecting garbage or other sucky jobs helps but it doesn't make the pain go away. I must also stress though that there is a light at the end of the tunnel my life now is great I have a great girl friend great job and great life. I am still in touch with all my surviving friends and they are all doing well also. I think they key to survival is not to let the abuse become a restrictive influence use it as a driving force to get you through school show them the best way you can by being hugley successful. In short don't get mad, don't get upset, get even by getting through school with great grades and ending up in a great job. One more thing to remeber as this thread shows no matter how bad things get you are not alone there are many people out there experiencing the same probems you are and that eventually things do get better if you don't let them get to you. As for the media blaming everything but the system thats nothing new they were doing that when I went to school and I imagine they will continue to do it until some of us stand up and yell loud enough to be heard. If any one has any brigh Ideas about how we can do that (without becoming violent) I like to hear about it who knows mabe together we can do something to change the system.
P.S.
Sorry bout the annonymous coward part but I'm not yet ready to deal with my issues in front of the entire world
HAHAHAHA! No doubt.. I was a pot smoking, acid eating, extc gobbling Punk rocker, I' mstraight now and make oodles of cash playing with machines that I like and all the "good kids" I knew are broke and alcholic... go figure!
Fuck you dick! I guess you can't accept the fact that some of us have a different take on this whole situation. Some of us might like to blow away some bastard that is fucking with us or our friends. Does that scare you? Too bad. Lesson for you... Don't mess with anyone and they won't mess with you. If they do? Then do what you will.
Sorry, I'm too lazy to create an account. I just wanted to say that this post should be published somewhere, newspapers, magazines, etc.
Mark
Alternately, in smaller schools a misfit child is more easily singled out and ridiculed, and more often recognized as someone who is there to pick on. There isn't really a lesser evil.
Insult that poor person above?!?
Oh the hypocrisy of it...
all this violence is not a product of some video game, or the way a school heirarchy treats people - it is simply the lack of faith in God. Thats the true solution.
geeks for jesus.
all this violence is not a product of some video game, or the way a school heirarchy treats people - it is simply the lack of faith in God. The true solution is to give your life to Jesus and live your life to him and live for the glory of God.
geeks for jesus.
I hate seeing Vampire and RPGs in general lumped in the category of freakish activity.
Roleplaying is about creativity at its heart. Done halfway decently, it is about a story unfolding. Done well, it is a tale in the work.
I've been a gamer for years. D&D. AD&D. Shadowrun. Vampire. Werewolf. Changeling. Wraith. GURPS. Vampire LARP. Deadlands.
It's about fun, creativity, and a strong dividing line between reality and the game at all times.
The two students involved in the shooting were not, you may note, involved in RPGs at all. Speak of what you know.
--
MacDuff
No, allegory is the correct word. Look it up.
I have to say you are obviously ignorant of the problem if you weren't you wouldn't have mad such a post. I am aware that high school isn't rosey for any body but for an outsider it is more like hell. Sure as part of the popular group your friends give you a bit of a hard time. that happens in many circles even in and between the outider groups. This isn't what the problem is the problem is the ostrisization and systematic abuse of these people not just once off as a joke and then everythings O.K. again. Try to imagine being treated with disgust every day, being not just verbally but physically assalted on numerous ocasions think of what it like when everyone round thinks that you getting upset at the misstreatment is the funniest thing they have seen all day. Try and imagine everyone in a school of say 1500 students continually doing an concerted and systematic assualt on you self esttem then you will have some Idea of what these people went through. You don't want to see this side of the argument because it make you uncofrtable to believe you may be the cause of some of these problems after all you were responsible for some of that abuse right!!! You want to believe that the things you did wern't all that bad and that after high school all is forgotten and everything is all better. While I am sorry to shatter your illusion but it jsut doesn't work that way the feelings of anger and bitterness stay with you a long time mabe even the rest of your life. I am qualified to say this since in has been well over ten years since I left high school and I ma still angry hurt and dealing with the scars. I may be in a good job and have a good life now but that does't get rid of the pain. I am also aware that several of my friends who did't quite do as well as I did have contemplated suicide one of them was successful. So stick that in you pipe and choke on it!!!.
It's shocking and really harrowing to realize how bad some folks had (have) it in High School. For me, it was really different -- the only thing that comes close was grades 6-8 which were a hell for me. Those were the years that I fantasized about killing the people who would make fun of me, or bringing a taser to school. Things actually got a LOT better in high school though.
e at type guy. After throwing him into a couple bushes after he said something, we actually got along rather well.)
I went to a small (270 graduating class), private catholic, all-guys school. Immediately this starts ringing warning bells about "jock" culture, and to a certain extent this is very true. But at the same time, the atmosphere there was truly more supportive and friendly. I don't think during my four years there that I made a single real enemy (The only one that gave me trouble was your stereotypical bitter-and-makes-fun-of-people-he-thinks-he-can-b
The jocks at my school were not nearly as bad as alot of you guys describe it at yours. Several of them were genuinely cool people that were friendly to everyone, even the self-described nerds and losers. I'm grateful that there were people like that around, because they were the ones who smoothed over the cracks between social groups and made it so folks get along. I remember playing intramural basketball and soccer in PE and being picked not because I was good at it (because I absolutely sucked at athletics) but because I had made friendships with those guys. I never did go to a jock party, but to be quite honest that's hardly a regret.
One person here described how the PE class controlled the school, and was discriminated against by the teacher; my experience was different. I thought my gym teacher was a cool guy (even if I hated those god-damn pushups and lines we had to run all the time).
It wasn't a paradise, however; sometimes those at the bottom of the pecking order still got harassed by those at the top. I guess I was in the middle, lucky enough to be able to hang out with the guys at the bottom (which I usually did) and even stick up for them, but still have a sense of camraderie with the rest.
I think it really was better because it was a private school. I know many of my friends that went to the nearest public school quickly became the targets of what ya'll here have described. Is the solution that everyone should go to a single-sex private school? Not hardly. (The single-sex part was my biggest regret from high school. I never did get a chance to meet many girls, and those I did were mainly the brainless sort that I have no real interest in.)
So I guess my advice would be.. well... nothing, really. If there was some easy way to stop this, it surely woulda been stopped by now. All you can do is remember that not all jocks are bad; there are some genuinely cool people that aren't automatically assholes because they're on the baseball team or whatever.
If this whole thing has a smug sound to it, its just because I'm thankful that I was able to avoid the hell that everyone else suffered. I guess I didn't realize until now how good I had it.
we eradicated the indian nations. we are now as close as it gets to natives.
like it or not, we gave it a good try but we still missed quite a few. AFAIK it was never an organized, conscious attempt at genocide across the board, anyway. it was more of a decentralized "move them along" from here to there, to there, etc. there were U.S. army officers here and there who thought explicitly in terms of extermination, but while what those guys did is seriously evil, their methods were applied locally.
or maybe it was worse than i think it was, and we really did embark on a premeditated, nationally co-ordinated extermination campaign. if so, i'm glad to say we failed.
I won't consider myself a second class citizen if my great granparents lived in europe.
i've got two answers for that, the first being "reasonable" and the second being a bit obnoxious (i'm an irish-american here and my sympathies are not always with the conquerors):
1. how about not considering others to be second-class citizens because their great-great...-grandparents lived right here?
2. well then, i won't consider myself a second-class occupant of your home when i break in and announce that i own the place -- because, after all, it's not occupied by anybody who counts. ha ha.
no, i'm not advocating giving the whole continent back. that cure would be worse than the disease at this point, what with all of the people who'd be displaced. nor am i suggesting that you should lie awake for an hour every night feeling guilty. but as long as we are discussing the issue, do let's bear in mind that we've inherited stolen property. it's impossible at this point to return it, but that doesn't make it "right", it just makes it something we're all going to have to live with. we still get to keep it, right? so what are you complaining about, exactly? let's not be ungracious here. sore losers are annoying, but don't sore winners annoy you even more?
I am a college student whose girlfriend has a niece who was in Columbine high school at the time and saw the teacher die. Although I know I will never know the horror she felt when she first found out about the shootings until she found out her niece was okay (she was one of the last ones out of the building). The thing that has left me to wonder is all the lives touched by this. The fact that I had to deal with the emotional baggage involved with this situation and I never even knew that Columbine High School existed before this happened.
Now to the meat of my post, I dabble in writing fiction when I have free time. For the last four years I've been taking notes and going through a couple of scenarios of a story about a group that bombs a high school to get revenge on a student that got them arrested. Yesterday I was walking past one of the buildings that gets "blown up" in the story. I stood in front of it and kind of pictured the "scene" in my mind, which I do when I'm trying to figure out what to write. I got sick to my stomach and almost threw up. Right then and there i made up my mind that I couldnt even think about writing this story. Sometimes life imititates art just too much.
I recently fled a financial corporation which had a lot of the same characteristics as high school -- groupthink, enforced optimism (can't go around pointing out loop holes or inefficiencies in procedure -- that's being *negative*), promotions going to the most sociable rather than the most knowledgeable...
I fled a software company last year that was a lot like that. It was run by marketing people. I still have a couple of friends there (both of whom went there right out of college and don't seem to realize how much better it is elsewhere), but all of the smart experienced people left. This company is about 20 people, six years old, still losing a million bucks a year. They promote the ass-kissers, who turn around and revenge themselves on the smart people, and the smart people leave. They're fucked. That company will die. Good riddance. These morons often seal their own fates, you know?
I now work for a smaller software company, also run by a marketing guy, but he's not anything like a normal marketing guy. He thinks geeks are really cool, he isn't at all threatened by us, and he says stuff like, "I'm just here to help you guys make us all rich! Don't let me get in the way!", which is goofy, but it's not a bad thing to hear after being treated like a fourth class citizen at another job.
So, anyhow: Bail outta that fucking hellhole, you don't have to take that shit. Don't get too hung up waiting for "the right offer", because any new job is a nice change and if you leave after nine months nobody will care.
Look, from the beginning of time kids in high school have been ostracized, harrassed, etc. But millions have gone through that and turned out fine! There is no possible way you can justify what those two kids did... Jon Katz misses the point. The most horrific thing about the whole deal was that they were able to carry it out...
Yeah I was not exactly cool in high school. I made a few friends, but I wasnt anything to be remembered.
Then comes college when things get both better and worse. Sure there are more people like you, lots of other CS majors you can relate to. But guess where the jock/cheerleader crowd goes. Yes, the ultimate in conformists cliques....
Can you say fraternity? Sorority?
Now, instead of school spirit (which bears no relavance except in a meaningless mini-society) people have an extreme, literally sickening "pride" in their letters. Why? I can't explain it. Hmmm, why don't you beat my ass with paddles, force-feed me alcohol, and make me a subordinate so in a few weeks we can be friends and do it to other people? And believe me, if you aren't in one of these, you really aren't "cool".
Preach on!
I wasn't a computer geek (I was 18 when I first used one), but I was a high school outcast. Even though I went to a very small, Catholic school, being Black (there were only three of us), poor, not interested in sports, and prefering the library to the mall were more than enough to become an outcast.Between that and my home situation (my parents' violent breakup and ugly divorce), I wonder how I survived it.
Now (four years later), most of the "cool crowd" is either at the local state college (widely known as a joke), or working for minimum wage.
Meanwhile, one of my fellow outcasts (the school's only Hispanic, oppressed by students and teachers) is now a senior CS major at Boston University. His chief persecutor is now a cashier at K-Mart.
BTW, "The Chocolate War" was not fiction. It actually happened to Robert Cormier's son at my high school (Notre Dame High School, Fitchburg MA, went co-ed in 1978).
I'm not a coward, just anonymous.
I would just to paraphrase,
from the immortal RAH,
"You can't truly hate someone until you
fully grok them."
Its a shame so few people live by this,
on both sides.
-Jac (Just Another Anonymous Coward)
I don't know about Ed Gein, but Ted Bundy was addicted to pornography, not playboy and penthouse, violent, sick hardcore stuff, but he got there via softcore. It's a slippery slope and it's all downhill. He came from a good home, he was cleancut, wellspoken and intelligent, but the images he craved failed to satisfy after a while and so he chose to create his own. He was responsible for that choice, but the society we live in was responsible for putting him in the position where he had to make that choice, by not caring enough about the stuff that was available for him to look at to feed his sickness. Violent games, movies, music etc. aren't responsible for the deaths in Littleton, anymore than pornography was responsible for Bundy's actions, or any less. Yes the system has failed those who don't fit in at High School and something needs to change. I was one of those too, because of my faith rather than computers/music.games/dress style etc. and thankfully that same faith got me through relatively unscathed. But the system also fails them when it allows, without question, access to images and ideas which might feed a struggling mind with hate and foster the choice attitudes and actions which are ultimately harmful to both the choosers and those they interact with. We need to create a school environment where people are encouraged to express and foster their interests without ridicule and debasement, regardless of those interests. And where difference and diversity is celebrated. but we also need to be aware of the potential for harm that comes from what we allow people to watch, read, listen to, play with such indiscretion.
charley
guns don't kill ppl, bullets do. surely it is the bullet manufacturers that must pay! those evil bastards. i'm assuming you're joking with the "Weapons without concience" bit.
After reading all 700 or so posts here, I'm almost afraid to say this, but here goes..
:)
I'm a student in high school, and I like it. I don't fit into any typical categories; I like computers and sports, I get very good grades, I'm in several clubs, and I am well-liked by many of my teachers. I do admit that I haven't experienced as much harrassment as many of the people who've written, but I have had my share. I think that the reason why I'm able to stand high school is that I try to make the best of my time there. If they want to waste four years of my life, then I'm going to damn well make sure I get the most out of it I possibly can.
Now don't get me wrong, there are many times when I think school is pointless and boring, too. But if I'm going to conform slightly in order to tolerate my stay in school, then I might as well have fun and laugh quietly at all the pitiful people trying so hard to act just like everybody else wants them to.
For anybody else who is still in high school, remember this: your teachers are jealous of you because they know that you get to leave high school in only four years, while they have to stay for the next 30
I went to school in California. On the advice of a (decent) guidance couselor I dropped out in the middle of my 10th year and took the California High School Proficiency Exam (CHSPE). It was a cake walk for me. So, at 16 I skipped 2 and half years of hell and had a High School diploma in my hand. After about a year of "recovering" from trauma induced by HS, I went to a local community college, where I took up my education pretty much where I had left off.
Only this was college, a community college! Where the professors cared about you and would actually talk to you like an adult!! Where, being intelligent was an asset, and having ideas and expressing them got you better grades rather than being sent to "124"!!
It's been 15 years since then. I don't know if California still has the CHSPE but, if they do, I'd strongly suggest anyone with decent reasoning ability to take it and "test out" of high school!!
Yep, you messed up the formatting badly...
Well, as far as arrogance is concerned, English people have quite a worlwide reputation too. It seems they never accepted the fact that they no longer have an empire and are a small nation.
Sometimes when there's fog over the channel, the English meteo man on TV says "and this week-end the continent will be isolated".
It is a pity that us geeks, being introverts, are the least likely to ever speak.
what the hell is wrong with alll you god damned pussy... you are all just sitting complaining and bitching on how much everyone picks on your... stop acting like slack jawed faggots and do something about it, i don't mean shoot everyone up, just fucking stand up for yourself instead of being a pussy and letting everyone walk on you... christ!
what the hell is wrong with all you god damned pussies... you are all just sitting there complaining and bitching on how much everyone picks on you... stop acting like slack jawed faggots and do something about it, i don't mean shoot everyone up, just fucking stand up for yourself instead of being a pussy and letting everyone walk on you... christ!
Oh, its blame-the-guns time again.
Yep, guns make it easier to kill people.
But just banning them is the weak way out. You remove the tools from the killers so you don't have to worry about those people any more. You DON"T HAVE TO CARE.
This is a bad solution. The right thing to do is to make contact with the people you think might have problems, and talk them out. Try and deal with them. Don't be intimidated because the psycho in your trailer park has a safe full of guns. It is your responsibility to help this guy if you can. (Its also a mutual responsibility of the community, and the guys own responsiblity).
In a society in which there are no legal guns, law-abiding people become victims and targets of criminals. And the problems of potential killers are swept under the mat. Where they fester to the detriment of those people.
Taking guns away is treating people like children. You give everyone permission to abrogate their responsibility for others and themselves. Fer Chrissake, treat people like adults. That way they might behave like adults, not childish automatons.
Societies have two alternatives, a difficult but genuine response to the problem at grassroots, or the esay cop-out of regulatory fiat. The first approach encourages mutual responsibility and care for problem individuals. The second destroys this.
Do you support blocking software? Strong Crypto?
-MolochHorridus, who has given up on the user preferences rigmarole for now.
I agree with much of what you say.
High School is a time for extreme self-doubt. People are concerned about the size of their breasts, how good looking they are, why their parents bug them, how to get into college, how come they can't get laid, etc. In order to inflate their feelings of self-worth, students often resort to attacking, and being demeaning to, others.
In order for someone to make himself feel better, they attack the things that they themselves do not possess. A group of "jocks" might make fun of the one "nerd" in their midst, but if a "jock" was taking an electronics class, he would be the one catching the abuse. Kids can be very cruel to others different from them, and high school can be a very harsh place, but every group is to blame.
In high school, and most everywhere else in the world, people conform so that they can have certain social activities. You might not like baseball, but you'll go catch a game with the guys from work, or you dislike eating out but you pretend you do so because you girlfriend does. In HS this behavior is more extreme than in most other places, but it is still exists elsewhere.
Being an "outcast", listening to whatever music, dressing a certain way, is the exact same as choosing to be a prep. MManson and Alanis have sold millions of records - you still feel that original?
Some students choose to play football, others magik. Everyone should be allowed to like what they do, and live in peace. But don't complain when the footballers don't invite you to their party if you have never spoken a word to them in your life.
Take a chance and be friendly with someone. You will see that most people, regardless of what they look like, are very similar inside. Some people will always be assholes, but the majority, once they know you, will treat you differently.
Tell me about it. I just have to tell the nerds and geeks that feel sorry for themselves something: Fucking bring it! bring your gun to my school. You won't be able to fight, skinny ass fucked up nerds don't know how to use a firearms.
High school was more of a pain in the ass than it was worth! Yeah, you had your usual cast of idiots (read: "beautiful people" :-[) that infest every high school, etc. etc. etc... I was definitely considered a geek and constantly picked on right through to the 10th grade (when I started working out and lifting weights, but was far from being a jock)...The harassment subsided, but I was still considered a geek...
College was definitely "the bomb" (I was a CS major at Rutgers). I was able to find more geeks
(especially geek girls) to hang out with, and made a lot of good friends which I still keep in touch with (the most memorable one was a gorgeous math major whom I dated during my junior and senior years - I had to have the smile surgically removed from my face!!!)...not bad for a 6'2" 230lb proud to be a geek!!!
What I'm trying to say is...FUCK HIGH SCHOOL!!!...
Do your own thing, keep up your grades, and ride this sorry-assed poor excuse for an adolescent period until you get to college!!! I guarantee things will pick up, because those anal-retentive, sorry-assed bastards (preppies, jocks, cheerleaders, so-called beautiful people, etc.) have their heads so far up their asses in their own little worlds, that they don't have the time to harass us "normal" people (geeks, nerds, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN, VERN!!!:-))...
I actually WENT to Bill Gates' High School, Lakeside in Seattle. It's a small private High school, just over 400 students. We even have the "Allen Gates" Math and Sciences building. It was an all boys school back when he went there, but I assume that it hasn't changed that much. Basically, it's hard to be a "nerd" there given that the average SAT is 1300. A good quarter of my class were National Merit Finalists.
Just some facts that you rabid anti-microsofties might like: up until 2 years ago we had basically all macs (now all pc's) and the mail server uses linux.
I'm logging in as Anonymous Coward because I don't really have any interest in being a regular subscriber. I've read many of the comments and I am really stunned. High school only lasts a few years. Yes, they're four unbelievably miserable years but if your reasonably intelligent you graduate, leave and get on with your life. I was a black student at an all-white high school in small-town Canada and I defy anyone to come up with a more lonely or miserable existence. None of the students spoke to me; I think the teachers avoided it as much as possible. I hated every minute. As I walked on my last day, I felt so strong. My back was to the school and I never had to face it again. I had won; I went to college, graduated and got a life. Geeks and nerds can change their clothes, get contacts and take up sports. I was never going to fit in and thank God for it. I don't feel bitter; instead of parties I read some great books. I'm grown up now. The time I spent in high school was such a small portion of the time I've spent on earth. I rarely think about high school anymore. My advice to all those geeks and nerds out there is suck it up. It could be worse. You could be black. Ask Isaiah.
Having lived/survived this exact same type of physical and emotional ridicule, I would like to offer words of support to those of you still in high school. I was also beat up and daily had the "in crowd" shoot pretend rifles at me! I know the feeling of differentness. I found that in college the majority of the cliques go away and all of a sudden you are considered an equal and valuable individual. If I can survive it (though I had to get some counseling, because I was screwed up) you can. If you must confront people try to document the abuses and go to several higher-ups (yes, that includes the vice-principal, principal, and even the superintendent) with your evidence. The "in crowders" must also learn about the consequences of their miss behavior. I had to set a basketball coach straight, because of his continued harassment. You can and must survive high school! There's a worthwhile world out there that applauds the high school misfits with higher pay, job security and RESPECT. :-)
Some, if not most, high-schools are different from yours. You seem to have lucked out. A lot of us didn't.
Some people just don't "fit in" with that jock/preppie/whatever crowd -- any more than those people "fit in" with our crowd. Mangling one's personality just to "fit in" is pointless and self-destructive. Why bother? What would be gained, anyway? What the hell would I have talked to those kids about, or they to me? You can't sit in classes with people for four years without knowing what they're talking about, and believe me, the "popular" kids were talking about nothing that interested me at all, any more than my interests (guitars, "weird" records, books, computers) were of interest to them. You'd be equally justified getting on their case for not trying to hang out with me, but the fact is we were totally goddamn indifferent to one another.
The teachers openly preferred one group to the other, but you can't blame the kids for that so it's beside the point.
Are you suggesting that "outcasts" bring abuse on themselves, or merely that they bring "outcastness" on themselves? I mean, fine, I didn't try to hang out with the popular kids, so of course I wasn't part of that group. No biggie. But when some jackass tripped me in the hall, I did not bring that on myself. That kid was just a malignant knucklehead, nothing to do with me.
Anybody out there think that the Trench Coat Mafia or your average Goth type or your average nerd, isn't just as much a sheep as your average prep or jock.
Look, I'm thirty years old, I'm not as young as I used to be, and I have no goddamn use for Marilyn Manson or this Goth silliness. Both of those look to me an awful lot like what was considered "hip" and "edgy" among the more fashionable types back around 1986 when I was in college. It seemed silly to me then, too. Those kids all listened to the same Cure records, and they all "discovered" R.E.M. the same week, etc. It was pretty much a facile consumerist thing. They listened to some of the same records that I did, but I listened to a hell of a lot of others, too, and I played a few instruments. Also I didn't give a fuck about the clothes. Come to think of it, there are probably a few kids like that listening to Marilyn Manson now: Kids who have Joy Division records, too, at the very least.
. . . go to the next Marilyn Manson concert or Linux InstallFest and please come explain the difference to me
We're almost there. You see, Linux can actually be a facile consumerist thing (I've heard of a few "Goths" who have "gotten into Linux" in just that way, and I hope they have fun with it), but there are an awful lot of linux nerds who are well beyond that level of involvement. It's the difference between buying records and starting a band. There are sheep at that level too, but it takes a hell of a lot more thought and intellectual engagement to write a song than it does to listen to one. Rehearsing a band (an inexperienced one, anyway) with original songs is weirder than you probably think, because nobody has heard the record (because there isn't one), so they don't know what the song is supposed to sound like. A lot of amateur musicians just can't cope with that at all. It completely blows their minds. That's one of the reasons why cover bands don't count.
Finally: People aren't as alike as you think. They may all want food, sex, and warmth and a few other things, but they may see the world in profoundly different ways. If you stick with looking at sufficiently broad outlines, you may get the idea that lions have a lot in common with elephants (four legs, mammals, etc.) -- but if you narrow the focus the variety is endless.
Now I'm really glad I'm homeschooled,
My parents know the reason those kids
went nuts as well as I do.
THE PARENTS
My parents care enough about me and my brother
to take the time to teach us.
Ever heard of a homeshcooler going ape-shit?
Nobody is searching me, limiting my time on-line
(currently 2:00 hours), telling me not to play Quake or threatening to expel me from school.
I really hope all those sheep turn off the automatic-brain-washer and use their brains for once. But for all I care they can all burn in hell.
If anyone of you have kids you should really think about homeschooling you kids or be _really_ involved in their lives.
Windows bred, Linux fed.
He was just teaching the feminazis a lesson. He had no choice. They want men to be second-class citizens, and they get what they deserve.
I don't have a problem with people defending themselves like that guy did. Learn some biology. Women are DIFFERENT. This is an absolute, no multicultural moral relativism allowed. They have their place and we have ours. If you violate the laws of nature, sure, something bad will happen. This is news? But they try to deny that they're responsible for it -- that's like kicking a dog for ten years, and then complaining when it bites you. If you kick nature, you'll get bitten, too, and it's your own fault.
The liberals created that massacre, the blood is on their heads, and they don't even have the decency to admit it. Well, I guess that's what happens when the men aren't even men anymore.
Parochial schools have NOTHING to do with the "underprivileged". I went to a Catholic high school after leaving a joke of a high school in the public school system. While the school's foundation is definitely Catholic, it made allowances for students of other faiths as well. Most important, though, is that it was a very disciplined and fairly demanding environment. And get this...I actually LEARNED something! Maybe *some* Catholic schools are screwed up, but I haven't regretted my decision for a SECOND.
is mightier than the sword. (That's how the whole quote goes.) And that is the problem. "Just" doesn't describe high school. There are some words on this board, and thank God they've been written, about facing the administration. They are jackals for the greater part, therefore with a really determined and mature offense they can be brought to heel.
Rejoice in these facts: the Big Jock will end up playing drop-the-soap in Soledad with guys he can't push around, the class president will still be organizing pathetic little parties twenty-five years down the road, from a horrid little office where he sells life insurance, the "Princess of the Pep Squad" will get fat and marry some guy from Duluth. Your high school "record" will become 2001's toilet paper. I know, I graduated in 1975, and what I'm saying here is exactly what happened to three of my classmates. They got exactly what they deserved, which seems to happen when you average over a few years.
I'm 41 years old. Way over the hill for a lot of you. I'm having the best time I ever did, and have been doing that since I got out of high school.
Those attributes you are getting persecuted for right now will turn out to be tremendous advantages not even three years from now. Believe it.
Of course they should have no sympathy, but that's not it. The point being made is WHY they did it - the social environment in high school that fosters the anger & hate as well as the cluelessness that administrators are demonstrating by alienating the different even further.
The only positive benefits we can gain are by learning from this tragedy to prevent it in the future. Given the responses from the "geeks" above, we're not learning our lessons very well.
i use it every day at work. the interface is bland and deadly boring but not so bad. it's not very stable, though. i have to reboot a couple of times a week. i do development, so it gets hammered on worse than most computers, but our unix guy smashes the stack as often as I do and he hasn't rebooted his sparc since july. a real hassle w/ developing on NT is the fact that it has a hard time killing processes. in linux/unix/BeOS, if you do "kill -9" it's dead, no ifs ands or buts. the kernel is in charge and it brooks no backtalk. w/ NT on the other hand you try to kill a process and well, usually it does kill the process, or at least wound it. eventually. it can take a minute or two of trying and retrying in some cases, and once in a great while it'll crash the OS. windows 95 is infinitely worse, though, for development -- it will crash at least once a day. if your program crashes in the debugger, you're hosed. reboot. memory leaks are permanent until you reboot. forget killing processes when there's a debugger running. as often as not you just have to power cycle the poor thing. yadda yadda yadda. NT is heaven compared to that, sluggish though it may be.
on the whole, i prefer linux. deal.
While I'm the first to admit that I probably didn't get picked on as much as some other students, there's one thing that I found quite effective - something that the perpetrators could never quite understand. When anyone said something to me that was supposed to be "hurtful", but amusing to them, chances are I'd be laughing right along with them. Most of the time they had such a hard time figuring this out, that it was more work than it was worth - they'd stop in short order.
There's a lot of talk about "sheep" in this thread. While I don't condone blind conformity, when you react to something like you're *expected* to react, it's very much the same thing. Even if you're not a conformist, ALLOWING people to pull your chain is just as bad.
I'm American. I've also lived in Europe for a total of two years, most of the time in Bologna (Italy) and about six months in London.
I was constantly amazed at the huge amount of whining I heard about the US/Americans. The cause varied, but the message was the same. I have a lot of amusing anecdotes from that time.
And, to keep this somewhat on topic, I was living in London when somebody walked into a Scottish school and blew away all sorts of kids until he killed himself. Inasmuch as people are now blaming video games, the European press blamed Americans. The reactions were remarkably similar in their myopia.
I studied a martial art for several years, and I see no difference between a punch to the throat and pulling a gun on someone. Even if the puncher doesn't intend to kill the other person, there is an unacceptable risk that any error will result in a death. This is so dangerous that I don't recall ever punching to the throat in Tae Kwon Do... not even by black belts who can control their punches with 1/8" accuracy.
Do you have a bruise on your throat? If so, tell your parents and demand to go down to the police station to file a criminal complaint. I'm sure the police and DA would be more than willing to discuss the consequences of "witness tampering" with both you and your assailant and his friends. Ditto the fact that minors can be tried as adults in serious cases.
A GED by itself may be questioned. But how may geeks stop their formal education at high school?
Would you care that a potential employee with a BS/BA is technically a high school dropout? Would you care if the potential employee has a AS/AA and a GED?
That said, if you drop out of HS early you do need to complete at least a AS/AA, to avoid concerns that you can't see things through to completion.
Ya know what bothers me about Littleton? That the little fuckers actually killed themselves. If your going to go through all the trouble to kill your classmates, at least enjoy their death.
If your going ot kill them, find a really elaborate method. Blow the school up, use chlorine gas, turn the school into a firebomb. Appreciate the fact that they are dead, and your are not. And don't get caught. I mean that whole Quake thing in the hallways was cool. And I'm sure would have loved to see pictures or video tape. I mean, darn, you didn't even tape the shit so the rest of us could appreciate the jocks dying in their own shit, or the beautiful-buxom-bitches of high-school dying on their own blood. Honestly? I'm ashamed. You gave us sickos a bad rap.
Ah well. My only regret? That they didn't kill more adults, and that they didn't hold out longer. That was a pussy-ass way to go.
Hm. Should I mention I'm a government employee because I'm so fucked in the head?
I don't really know why I take the time to replay to this meaningless posting, but I must say that you are one of the most closed-minded (as opposite to open-minded) persones I've ever heard. I don't know wheather to cry or to laugh. All I can say is that you have _absolutley_ no idea of what you're talking about.
hunting
target shooting
some sports (e.g., biathalon) (let's see you cross-country ski yet retain enough control to hit a small target!)
self-defense
Before you casually dismiss the self-defense point, remember that I (a 6'2" male with some martial arts training) have little to fear if all guns are removed from the face of the earth. If anything, I'll be safer.
But what about a short woman, or an older person, or anyone else who can't fight large males? With a handgun, they have a chance to scare off attackers before anyone is harmed. (And these events are rarely reported to the police, unfortunately, so the official statistics are skewed.) Without a gun, they're either helpless or forced to use advanced martial arts techniques, harming everyone involved.
Green sun, Purple sky
Green sun,
purple sky
is this the way
a body feels to die?
My heart is dark
lurking in the park
looking for a victim
like a wounded shark.
The stars are crazy
the moon's insane
do you know how to stop
silent pain?
I was sad,
I was mad,
I don't remember
how it feels to be glad.
Red snow,
cold fire,
is this the way a body feels
when you're called a liar?
Green sun,
purple sky,
this is how we feel
and we don't care why.
i like to be smart, and i like for people to know it! in hs i think i was never picked on b/c i made the stupid people feel inferior...really! the best defense is "what did you make? oh...(bad face here) i got a 100...sorry"
hey it worked for me
and on top of that, i got me a geek guy too! he's the best thing that has ever come my way! i can't wait to return to our hs reunions and point to all the people that i write paychecks for!
for those of you who think there is no hope...just wait till college
first of all the morons don't get in b/c of their grades, and if they do they can't afford it! (no scholarships)
i would also suggest being part of an honors college. i am and i have met so many great ppl who love to be smart too!
Please note that Ohio has a special program (Post-Secondary Enrollment Option) for 11th and 12th-graders such that:
IF you can get yourself accepted to a college or university (many c/u have special programs for PSEO students, look also at community colleges, because they ARE better than high school)
... then you get to attend said college or university, full or part time, and there's not a damn thing your high school can do about it. WHAT IS MORE: your local school board has to pay your tuition, and even pay for your supplies!
Please note: for obvious reasons, school guidance counselors are reluctant to mention that you are allowed to do this, although I think they are required by law to give you information about it. You also still have to fulfill your high school graduation requirements (X many years of math, X years of social studies, etc.) but those aren't very tough to do taking college courses.
I went to Columbus State Community College for my junior and senior years of high school, and thanks to steady course-taking and good credit conversion, I managed to skip 2.5 YEARS of college when I eventually went to the real thing. Think about that for a moment. I never had to sit in a single required course in college. With that much of a head start, imagine what advanced courses you can take by your later years in college...
If you are a high school student in Ohio, PLEASE consider this alternative. You have no idea how much better it will make your life. As I said, I took this option for two full years, then went off to college... I was out in three years, and at the age of 20 got a great computer consulting job. All the people I went to high school with are AT THIS MOMENT still sitting in "core curriculum" required courses at college.
Remember: they HAVE to let you go, and they HAVE to pay your tuition. If your family is concerned about money, think about two free years of college...
AC
>Homeschooling generally misses one thing that you learn in high school, because it is not taught in class.
>(and it is taught poorly) How to deal with people! You need to learn to deal with people, and you
How could homeschooling possibly be any worse than high school for teaching how to deal properly with people? Do you seriously think that the killers in Littleton had learned "how to deal with people"? THEY went to high school!
Seriously... if you're a parent: brief quiz.
Do you want to teach your children to act like:
A) children [keep recent events in mind, as well as all those ill-behaved brats you see in McDonald's]
B) adults [mature, well-adjusted, respectful]
Think about it. Which one will serve them better in life? Then consider homeschooling.
AC
Wow lots of Replies to this story.
You know High school sucked for me too. What's even worse there was no internet!
What always seems to fuck up every thing is NO Tolerance and NO Communication. I mean high school sucks for most people in it.. even the jocks and the goddesses. We have shit now to open up Communication and to learn tolerance.. I mean if the fucked up kids in colorado could have had a place like a bbs or something to talk and discuss there thoughts and ideas anonymously with other classmates we might not even be sitting here talking about this. No computers wont save the world, communication will.
We have to talk, we cant be mutes, give us some place to talk!!!!!!!!!!
(anonymously of course, who's gonna talk to a nerd if you know they are a nerd?)
It is true. I go to Meridian Community College
in mississippi. The girls here are just as shallow as They were in HS and this is the most backword state!
I am finishing my last year of homeschool next month (graduation finally!) and have been doing it since the very start.
.02 =P
"What about socialization" just isn't a big question anymore now that homeschoolers are actually in some cases being sought after instead of excluded (homeschooler used to == geek, freak, etc). The truth of the matter is that you usually have *more* time for socialization being homeschooled than you do in public/private school.
Yes of course, it is easy to be passive and just not encourage your kid do anything and let him
learn no social skills, but what kid is going to just sit at home all day and do nothing?
If you want more info on homeschooling, please see http://www.elijahco.com/contact.htm. We
have two people that do phone counseling and are sure to be able to help you with any questions
you have.
Thanks for accepting my
SethD
sethd@sethd.com
http://www.sethd.com/
Dont go to high school at all. GED, community college.
All very well.
Many people do not realise what a saviour the IT industry has been for the community. Many have found THIS voice. Back in the '70's (apologies to Skyhooks) there was no IT at school. May I recommend British Public school for truly inapproppriate education.
How many people are now able to feel better because this debate is even possible !
Things are improving....You just have to get out of school to see it.
If you only make three times what they do, that's pathetic on your part, or your old classmates aren't nearly as pathetic as mine. Most are making minimum wage. So I make over 10 times what they do. And I should hope that I make less than some corporate executive.
general equivalency diplomas are worth the same as the real thing if you score high enough. so if you're a geek and think you have what it takes go for it. I skipped ALL of highschool ;)
hope you guys enjoy that cafeteria food
Your luck is similar to my own. People were terrified of me. Someone started a rumor that people who screwed with me ended up injured in some way, later on. Fires, explosions, etc.
Saved my life.
Listen, you present logical arguments, but let me make a few points...
Guns, as with any other technology, are not neutral in any sense and therefore cannot be used "responsibly". Quite simply, they are designed to kill people and because of this they are ultimately used for this purpose.
It's one thing to talk about banning crypto (which I am firmly against) but it's quite another to ban guns. And I feel it's quite silly to think that you can reason and engage with a person who owns an entire arsenal.
As Canadians, we don't believe in the right to bear arms and that belief has provided us with a far safer society. We are not victimized, and it's fairly safe to walk in downtown Toronto or Montreal at night. You see, while all the blame obviously can't be placed on guns, the easy-access to them facilitates events like these to take place.
Canadians aren't interested in looking down on our American friends... we want you people to be safe as well and all of you have to realize that freedom does not lie in weapon ownership. Come up and visit sometime and you'll see for yourself...
I will make this short and sweet. These two homos tortured and then killed a bunch of innocent people. They walked up to people they didn't even know and indiscriminently shot them, sometimes after making them beg for their lives.
/understand/ you or your sister/brother becoming collateral damage in someone elses murderous rage. Is that really the world that you see around you, with a bunch of angry people ready and willing to kill.
Don't associate these selfish turds with us geeks. I had just as much humiliation and anger as the next guy/gal in high school, and I'll bet quite a bit more.. even to the point of having plastic surgery to avoid being ridiculed on a daily basis. And you never get used to that, especially when it comes from arbitrary people in many different situations.
So somehow a bunch of you have sympathy for the two and selfishly turn this into an opportunity to bitch about being bullied. Why don't you just try and imagine hiding under a table while one by one your friends are murdered and bleeding to death. Quit being so damn arrogant and thinking your problems of being picked on are the spotlight.
You claim that this is only the result of the two being pushed over the edge.. and act like you would expect a retalliation like this. You are liars! Do you find it likely to be calculatingly shot at point blank range by a complete stranger.. or do you
Why are you so quick to accept that this is a simple case of cause/effect. Some of you act as though this was a wake up call to treat people with more respect.. or else. These people are missing chromosomes. Just shut the hell up and respect the dead you selfish bastards!
Jon's current article is NOT about Eric Harris himself. It's not about the suffering of the victoms.
Jon's piece IS about denial - the state of denial being created in reponce to this tragic event. The zelous lashing out at whatever is odd - whether by teenage pecking orders or school officials in a panic to prove such a thing won't happen under their watch.
This discussion has also delved deeply into what the mainstream can not, or will not, understand. The cause of these ultra-violent explosions are not simply knee-jerk responses to aspects of digital culture and the media. The evidence shown by testimony of many slashdot posters demonstrates an environment of suffering and hate in our schools. Amoung all the articles about bomb making web sites and Doom... where are the articles wondering if this environment is also endagering our kids?
THAT, sir, is the true geography of this denial. Take a good look at your bluff overlooking Columbine High. Take a good breath of that sorry-full air. You're in the middle of "De Nial's" most scenic spot.
I'm another NZer who saw the same atmosphere. It's worse the more traditional the school you go to. Private schools are particularly bad, as they try to imitate the English public school model, with the same results, although oldline single sex state schools can suffer too.
To NZers wondering where to send their children - please pick a recently founded school. They seem to have much more relaxed attitudes about conformity and authority.
...any more than the TV is. I would argue that good parenting involves communication with your children to discover the problems they may be having. Certainly parents cannot know the intracacies of their childrens' social lives, but complaints of 'No one at school likes me because I'm different' should prompt more substantial parental involvement than installing Net Nanny.
Many have put forth variations on the "Deal with it" argument. Sure, that's well and good for the people blessed with the mental fortitude and self confidence to disregard personal attacks by peers. But relize that many do not, and school is not a situation kids can just leave. Laws and industry ensure that people have to finish high school to succeed, by and large.
There are logical reasons to search out causes for this sort of violence in addition to the perpetrators. Yes, high schoolers should know better, but do keep in mind the definition of minor. Those under 18 are termed so because people who lack experience will therefore not have the wisdom to make responsible choices. Murder of course is a clear cut issue, but what about channeling frustration and overcoming ostracism? Can you really just say "Deal with it?"
Before downplaying the difficult time many young people are having in high school, we should recall some of the letters that started this discussion. Honestly stating your opinion when asked cannot be termed 'asking for attention' and no concern for the welfare of students can justify the ignorant responses from administration that these students have described.
On a final note, to those who would belittle the 2nd Amendment - How in the world can you claim that a person's access to a firearm will instill within them a desire to kill another? Do any other hunks of metal hold similar sway over your emotions? Can you honestly say that you have ever been willing and ready to _murder_ someone, and the only thing that stopped you was a lack of handguns? Would you label us a healthy society if people still actively wanted to kill others, restrained not by a respect for life but merely by a lack of weaponry?
My 2 cents.
Bill
tjswrd(at)earthlink.net
Replies welcome
I hated High School. The only good thing that happened in High School is that I met my husband there. In fact, I hated grade school and middle school too. It all sucked. I was contantly teased and ridiculed and picked on and left out. I have never wished to kill though. I wished they would die in a freak accident. I wished I could come back at the 10 year reunion and show them all. It looks like I will be able to do that. My husband is a wonderful man (he hated HS too for all of the same reasons) who has a great job despite dropping out of college (he taught himself everything he knows about computers). We are getting ready to buy our first house, as a matter of fact. I am still in good physical shape (2 of the people that were SO popular and I disliked SO much are both horribly FAT now) (graduation was only 2 years ago). I am on my way to a nursing degree (I dropped out of college too). Life after HS is WONDERFUL!! You don't have to put up with that male bovinian feces anymore. People in HS thought I was strange and immature because I find pleasure in the simple things in life and because I am hyper, loud, brutally honest, outgoing, friendly, and high-on-life! If they disliked me for any other reasons, I am unaware of what they could be. I am a smart, pretty, healthy, friendly young woman, and only a few people were smart enough to see my worth and enrich their lives by becoming my friends. I guess that's just too bad for everyone else. :)
Lynna Lu, whose heros are little children because they love unconditionally.
"Think, think, think!" ~Winnie-the-Pooh
Food For Thought: The Bartlesville OK High School looks VERY much like a State Prison.
P.S. On a side note, my favorite video game is Mortal Combat II, because I LOVE the Fatalities. And "againt all odds", I can't even bring my self to hit an animal, or a person, much less begin to picture myself killing someone. Video games = violence? a lot of MBF.
One more point:
Last year in Toronto (a city of about 3 million people.. one of the largest on the continent) there were roughly 50 murders. 50 out of 3 million.
How many tens of thousands of people were murdered in New York or Los Angeles last year alone?
Its amazing,
Its amazing that there are so many people who feel the same sentiment that I do. Its amazing that so many people have undergone the same events that I have.
I like many of you here didn't like high school. I dropped out. I think most should. We are all smart enough that we didn't or don't even need to be there.
I also had no idea that given the chance ANYONE with the slightest bit of power can become a good little nazi at the drop of a hat. Given any reason under any circumstance. The Berkley experiements prove this, and the public response to this incident only reinforces it.
If your in highschool, college or life stand up for yourself and your peers. You need to learn the tools of freewill and inteligent thought. A strong backbone and an un waivering will to prevail.
girl here. computer engineer @ umd. Went to a high school full of geeks. They had a program there. Wanted to attract geeks, and that they did.
Interesting thing is, when you're around a ton of geeks, you realize they come in all shapes n sizes. Sure, we had the people who "looked" like geeks. We also had our share of 'different' looking people. There were also popular geek-chix and jocks, and then ur regular run of the mill, not too stand-out-ish geeks. But geeks we were, every last one of us.
I think think the thing to realize though, is that -everyone- deals with these same issues. Maybe not in the exact same ways. It may seem ludicrous to think of the popular, straight-A kids having problems too, but there it is.
To risk sounding utterly cliche, the hippies had it right: all you need is love. Or at least a healthy dose of open-mindedness and acceptance.
There is something that runs deeper than any social fabrication. It is what makes us human. We all experience pain. We know what it's like. Because of this, we each have the power to change other people's lives, simply by treating each other as fellow -human beings- and not seeing a label or an enemy everywhere we look. The litte things really do matter. A friendly look or smile when you least expect it, and bam... there goes the day, from bad to better.
If only people would stop. and think. just a bit. The blatant violations of kids' basic rights which are described in the article leave me with that same smoldering, helpless anger and frustration as having to witness countries at war: Hate at its height, blundering politicians playing at G-d, dropping bombs at other countries, killing even -more- in their attempts to end a fight. Two wrongs don't make a right.
The media ought to be destroyed. I think we all agree on that point. Or maybe it would make no difference. Society persists in exhibiting symptoms of mass hysteria no matter what the method of spreading news. (witch hunts?)
The stark pain and hurt presented on these pages speak more volumes than any well prepared speech ever could.
...Please....
Isn't there some way we can spread the news to the rest of the blind and bigoted world out there? Or will they simply refuse to listen... Ancient cultures had a way of killing prophets and other good things that came their way. We are no different it seems.
We're set to self destruct, at the rate we're going... there -must- be something we can do...
-Kitten
kitten@msec.net
All I can say is that the words "McCarthy Era" and "House Committee for Unamerican Activities" come to mind.
We have a lot of these people at my school. Someone is gonna get shot. It's time to get rid of these people. It's time for a NERD HUNT AT MIT!
What about this thing involving hitlers birthday?
Another option is to drop out. School officials don't talk about this because it totally breaks the mold, but quite a few universities will take you anyways as a probationary student if you can show them you know your stuff. If you're good you should be able to move to regular student status in a single term (I did, after dropping out following Grade 10).
Then maybe it's time for all Geeks to unite ! Let start the world first Geek strike ! All those that thought the Y2K bug was nasty will get their worst nightmare come true !
:-).
Hey, Geeks hold the world nervous systems in their hands... if we were united we could control the world, throw those politicians and lawyers away and rule the planet ! We are an oppressed social group but we control everything the jocks enjoy, from their bank accounts to their phone lines... Computer scientist are the most powerfull profession and yet don't even know it. Even the army is nothing without their computers.
Seriously speaking, in France the people of Elf (big petroleum company) are on strike... the sysadmins stopped the servers... the whole company is stopped
I go to a school where alot of the jocks think (and play violent video games).
I like being a nerd.
me too.
I with there were more geek girls.
Yes, freaks (geeks, nerds, misfists) of the world unite.
Technology, gives power to the smart and the weak.
The strong FEAR us.
Oh sure. A year of planning went into this, but if we could have denied them guns a bit longer maybe they would've gotten help. And maybe monkeys will fly out of my ass.
You will never be able to stop a person determined to kill others by weapons restrictions. Maybe one of the kids did have an SMG (the news isn't too clear on this) but all it takes is a couple hunting rifles and you can efficiently kill anyone within 100 yards. Are you going to ban fertilizer too? Cars? Matches and gasoline? My point is, there are countless mechanisms by which people can kill other people, and to ban all of them is simply impossible. The only thing you might accomplish is to make the killers less efficient. The corresponding loss in the population's freedom (oh, yeah, that Constitution thing) is unthinkable when we have as of yet failed to try to curb the _desire_ to kill. Banning guns should only be discussed as a last resort when the situation is appropriately desperate, not as a knee-jerk response.
MHO
Replies welcome,
Bill
tjswrd(at)earthlink.net
They (un-geeks) fear us.
They realize we have the power.
Before we were disunited, in our own schools, with our own problems.
Now is the time.
Geeks of the world unite.
Now in knowledge there is power.
Unless we unite using the internet as our means of comunication.
We have power. We can make things better.
------
Geeks of the world unite
No, I think you've it all wrong! Casual conversation is completely demeaning!!! If you want to get to know someone you have to start by taking about your deepest secrets, right?
at least that's what they told me on Degrassi High
Once the biggest kid at my school took my lunch.
I quickly applied pressure to a pressure point in his neck.
After that everyone left me alone.
----------
geeks of the world unite.
Just because you get to college doesn't
mean the horror stories go away.
I was committed to McLean Mental Hospital
by MIT after the shootings last year because
I flamed my hall mailing list (there was feces
smeared all over a wall and other stuff.)
As the one year anniversary of that approaches,
and the events in Littleton unfold, I am now
terrified that MIT will repeat what it did last
year to me or to people I know.
Dennis Evangelista
MIT LEES
dept of mech E and EE
Yeah, I was rather outcast in school as well, and while I don't condone the actio BZZT. Screw that. Society says THEY aren't to blame. It's "something else." Fine, then Society says what they did was RIGHT. People don't have to obsessively dance around the issue here. They were pushed. They broke. No one cared. People died. Oops, go back a step--too late. I think almost everything useful has been said about this that can be, but out there in Real Life no one who matters is going to listen to (or even notice) anyone who understands or even might understand.
Fact is, the backlash from this is going to get worse, and the currect state of our society is so deeply lacking that everything will be done wrong, again. The next time, the damage will probably be worse, as will the backlash, again.
So, before you break, kids, remember one thing: don't leave any evidence of your hobbies! Quit playing role playing games for a while. Throw out the books and video games. Take up a nice hobby, like knitting. Then when you do crack at least the rest of the people like you can be spared having to pay for what you did. Let them hunt down grandma and her knitting basket of evil, if they dare to cross the Grey Panthers.
Oh, but keep the Nazi stuff. Everyone loves to hate them, after all. Too bad they forever destroyed the credibility of eugenics. Our last hope for a future.
I hear people blaim everything from school, to teachers, to other students, and yet everyone seems to forget the one thing that causes depression in most people, the biological changes in people when they reach a certain age...
Yeah I was depressed in High School, I was ranting that I hated it or that I disliked some teachers and students, but I can clearly say that I didn't really care about those things, I could deal with those things, and those things were not my cause of depression, my cause of depression was deeper then even I thought, for a long time I thought I was in love with a girl and that I wanted to be with her, but I knew she was pretty much a hoe since she already had a boy friend and was flirting with me and wanted to know if I would "mack" her. After that it was not her that made me depressed it was myself, it was my own dwelling of the whole situation, it was me who would not get over it, I was even getting manic depressed because I kept thinking about the same crap over and over and over and over again, and it kept those feelings alive, burning me up, I kept feeling like I had to do something, I had a ton of energy and adrenaline pumping through me making me feel hyper and depressed, manic depressed, when I should have just let myself naturally forget it and stop thinking about it, instead I turned to mary jane because it helped me not care any more about those stupid feelings that kept reaccuring and in most cases made me just depressed instead of manic depressed, after a while it just went away.
Again when trying to find a scape goat chances are its none of the above, they had a choice to forget their problems and deal with their problems, but chose to do so in the worst possible way, more then likely due to manic depression from reaccuring thoughts, they should not have had access to any guns, the answer to these kinds of problems is not easy and not obvious, but don't forget its something that we all experience at some point in our lives, where we stress out of something that would normally be thought of as trivial.
I agree entirely. However, I believe we should instead focus on improving the conditions in the reservations. Have any of you even heard of how miserable they are? Sure, they have their casinos but that's only some tribes, while the less-fortunate ones life in poverty.
um, sorry to break this to some of you, but Asian groups such as the Ainu of Northern Japan are placed in the category of "Caucasians." Why? I heard it is because they can grow beards and stuff like that.
Most of the weapons the kids used were illegal.
Perhaps. The case could also have just been like my school, which is pretty diverse, and where geeks are not tormented, laughed at, or even touched. Actually the worst things that jock/cheerleader-types would do to a geek is ignore them since they had better things to do with their friends. But, they would make fun of some people, mainly the ones trying to be like them and hanging around them unwantedly all the time.
And all god's people said Amen.
a short response - eventually those who endure will be redeemed - unfortunately justice isn't fair to the individual as the whole, but eventually the shallow people have to face up to the fact they lead shallow lives. The stupid idiots who make fun of you to make themselves feel better eventually realize that they are below low, when they get fired from their assistant managerial job at Burger King. And people who know there is more important than if you are smart, if you are overweight, if you have a lisp, if you have strange hair or dress strange or just dont fit in - go on to lead the real lives. So stay yourself, stay real.
Conformity is an invention by people who can't understand diversity. And eventually the people who love diversity will be there for you.
S'all I can say =)
-Dave
I disagree. The reason why we nerds, geeks, etc. are being persecuted is because the Y2K bug sent us back about 2000 years and we're being thrown to the lions, just like the early Christians for being non-conformists:(
Well, high school wasn't a cake walk for me, but it wasn't terrible either. I went to a private school. It was a pretty small high school - only 220 people from grades 9-12. Yeah I was one of the outcasts, but there were always people willing to defend me.
Everyone knew everyone else. The kind of harassment that is taken for granted in large high schools simply would not have been tolerated in my HS. We also had a very good teacher:student ratio. I'd bet you were in the same boat.
The typical public HS has an adult to student ratio of about 25. There are simply not enough eyeballs to go around. The harassment is tolerated by default, and let's face it, the typical public HS teacher is a dim bulb. They probably don't think much about the high school hierarchy, just accepting it as natural. Maybe even enforcing it.
Basically I don't think anyone who hasn't been through k-12 hell is really qualified to comment on it.
Yes I would have to say that my high school was rather rough, but I had classes with many bright 'normaller' people - and they understood that a person's value is more than skin deep.
And it was this, not judging a person by their looks or their althletics but their personality and their soul that made me many true friends. When I look back, that is probably all I learned in High School, but oh what a thing to learn =)
-Dave
We should all start weraing black trench-coats.
-----------------------
Geeks of the world unite.
Yeah...
I wish I could add something useful to this to make it more than a me too post, but I don't know what to say. Playing Doom or Quake or Mortal Kombat or whatever doesn't give anyone a gun, they have to do the physical part of obtaining it themselves. A computer game, played with the keyboard/mouse/joystick, prompts someone to go to their room, load a gun, walk to school and start shooting roomfulls of people? They obviously had some other mental problems, which were probably caused by the popular explanation that they were tormented by the more in-crowd.
Any adult-sheep who was one of these in-crowd people are now the ones telling our country on the news that school uniforms would have prevented this, and violent games on the internet are evil. The same ones who work at schools and make students go home or take off their trench coats, or even worse the parents of the kid who had his computer taken away by his parents in Jon Katz's story. Next time he's around slashdot, I wouldn't mind hearing from him to see how things are going.
You know something? I really don't give a shit about the kids who were killed. In fact, I would have already killed lots of people myself by now if I wasn't such a chickenshit and was man enough to face up to the consequences of my actions AND had easy access to guns - not the easiest thing to do living in a fascist state such as mine.
I wonder how many people feel the way I do. Drones, that's all we are supposed to be. Productivity. Obedience. Loyalty. What for? So we can take home a pay-check to feed the next generation of drones? I am doing the right thing by deciding not to procreate and I urge you to do the same. It's not worth the pain to be alive.
I don't think I've ever been truly happy. Maybe for a little while, then the euphoria wears off and I realise that I mean shit in the grander scheme of things, that I will never save the world, make it better and nobody else cares anyway. Even the ones closest to me don't "get it". So I wallow in computers and music. So what?
At least I like doing what I'm doing. It makes things a little better. Sorry if this seems like a bunch of mindless drivel. I'm just a sad lonely loser mad at the world. An emotional leech, that's all. They say the best revenge is to live well; I'll see what happens with that...
No civilised nation would venerate access to deadly weapons the way the US does.
israel does.
So I have to join in this stereotypical whining with the hundreds of others. Isn't it ironic that you guys are acting intolerant to anyone with a different viewpoint. Hey I don't know anything about this jocks/nerds/geeks crapola because I only had problems with people that went out of their way to make me feel like shit.
But that's because they were self-centered goobers that didn't think things through and saw no problem in embarassing me. Then to make themselves feel better they would apologize after all the name-calling and gesturing. Well I didn't hang around for much of that shit but people couldn't help themselves I guess and so I became very gunshy around people that are immature.
Not to be joking, but the world is made up of all kinds and to be truly tolerant you'd have to tolerate losers, racists and bigots too. Or do you plan on rewiring all of our minds. Really.. just make us all into people that can't deviate from your perfect society.
So I called the two of them homos. Yeah I meant it as a derogatory remark, but it was a compromise because I was mad. Have I offended the word-nazis now. Geez. Live and let live regardless of people's hangups.
You must learn that, if you move in the right way, at the right time, you can go where you want to through the system. Attaining a harmony with the system, but not letting it control you, is the path to success.
Do you have any examples? I see what you're saying as a good idea, and it makes me feel like doing something scheming yet useful while still legal, but I don't know how to apply those ideas to real life.
lets all strike for one week and prove this looser wrong
---------
Geeks of the world unite.
>As someone else mentioned above, HIGH SCHOOL IS NOT THE REAL WORLD, DON'T TAKE IT TOO SERIOUSLY. And it's only temporary. After that, the geeks who were outcast by the average majority in high school will go on to thrive in college and beyond.
cant some of you realize how hard that is for
a depressed child to understand? i managed to
"escape" to a gifted school when i was fifteen,
(I am now in college) but my prior experiences
were so hellish that even things of that nature
would not hav made a difference in my mindset at
then. I ffel sorry for a younger sibling who is a
freshman in high school now.
When things like that get you down, the four
years it takes to get through seem like a
millennia, that has caused several i know to kill
themselves, sadly enough.
people cannot brush this off as not being serious.
I did that, too. Graduated HS at 16, and am now in a good 4-year university. Anybody who's in HS right now, go for it. High school isn't worth the trouble.
Oh, anybody recall the Hacker's Manifesto, written by The Mentor, some while back? We're all alike, neh?
Ww must unite and stop this before it goes to far.
A jock is someone in sports.
Fuck the system?
Nah you might catch something.
i was ruthlessly tormented in junior high and the first part of high school. i was sort of a geek among geeks. i hung out with the nerds but was really only tolerated by because i was poor.
by some miracle i managed to score a tandy coco in grade 7 that made my largely unoccupied after-school hours zoom by but my main passion was home made fireworks and explosives. i never hurt myself or anyone else with them although i suppose i could have pretty easily being pretty much a trial and error type learner.
once i had the taste for self education i could not bring myself to think seriously about school anymore and as soon as i could get away with it i began skipping classes, often in the library (where no one ever caught me, wonder of wonders).
when i hit 17 i was asked politely to leave, which i did gladly and took up learning full time (at last!).
here i am 12 years later self employed in the microsoft operating system reinstallation business and loving it. i even get payed to play with linux now and again.
i'm not sure that telling kids to drop out of school is good advice, but it sure helped me. the reason the football players hate you is because they aren't like you. their education is complete already. different == bad is what they teach in school.
Of course it is. And our tormentors had/have long since earned that. I'm not convinced "turning the other cheek" is a viable strategy for anyone who doesn't want to be martyr.
It is indeed a strange phenomenon that those people, for whom it is a daily routine to harrass other people day in day out, do not seem to notice what they are doing, nor do they seem to carry with them any memory of it. I'm trying to crawl into their heads now, for I'm pretty much on the side of all the geeks here although it is some time past me now, but it seems to me that the routine of it, combined with a certain black-out during the harrassment on the side of the offender makes 'em just *forget* it. It is just a daily routine. It is just a daily workout. Just hang in there; it'll be over in a second. Even I -the victim- have been found trying to forget or forgive or futilify what has happened, after some years. But I also found that I simply have to; not that I'll ever end up liking those people in the little towns of my childhood and teens, and luckily, when I was a student I never met any of them anymore, but everybody's got to move on. These boys must have been only a tiptoe away from being a college student, when, in my experience, it is all over and done with; geeks meet geeks at college and everyone is away from their mama so everyone sorta has a little respect for one another. It is a shame they didn't last (for everybody they shot would have lasted as well)
It's really sad that people will think I'm crazy if told them that I can understand why kids kill. :)
I had pretty low self-worth and I didnt get over it till recently. A lot of it was actually caused by family stuff. I didnt have much trouble in school, but I have been picked on just because I wasn't macho-aggressive or athletic. I can understand how you can go over the edge. (I was always more suicidal than homicidal
It took me a year or two working in the real world to realize how much I can do better than most people. I dont have identity crises anymore.
Now, no one is going to make me feel bad for not behaving as he expects me to / just like everyone else.
It's always seemed that Step One of army training is to destroy the individual soul. How many others like you get through it still being real people?
I feel it's kind of a duty to throw some facts the way of anyone who has been fed the Ed Meese garbage on Ted Bundy. "Porn made me do it!" See also "God made me do it" See also "A big boy did it and ran away!"
FACT: Bundy's confession to being a porn addict only emerged AFTER representatives of the Meese commission intimated that "cooperating" (ie saying exactly what their agenda demanded) could result in the death sentence being commuted.
FACT: Police failed to find any pornographic materials at Bundy's house, in his car, or at the scene of his arrest.
FACT: They did find copies of a certain well-known religious publication, five letters, starts with a B (Please bear this in mind when you talk about a system which fails kids "when it allows, without question, access to images and ideas which might feed a struggling mind with hate". Nobody ever knows which images or ideas will resonate within a damaged mind. Dahmer's favourite viewing was The Wizard of Oz and Return of the Jedi, because they contained images of effortless power over others.
FACT: From the age of three, Bundy was raised by his grandfather, an exceptionally cruel and violent man who regularly beat up his own family and was known to torture animals.
FACT: Bundy's mother was occasionally rather concerned to find her young son stabbing his own bed with butcher knives. Doesn't really square with the "normal kid corrupted by pornography" theory, does it?
I'm left wondering: what did we blame atrocities on before we had movies, skinflicks and video games?
Maybe they thought he was in a Vega-driving gang, like a Harley gang. Or else from the planet Vega. :-)
The reasons are: We (allegedly) do not live in a police state - we defend ourselves because there is no one at hand to do it for us. We retain a last-resort veto over a government spinning out of control, which was originally *created* because some unusually wise people no longer wanted to put up with the sort of serfdom preferred in Europe. They are a symbol of our once-proud heritage, and epitomize the rise of brain over brawn.
As for the email sent in about the girl who showed up at school in a trenchcoat and whined over her rights being violated because they told her she couldn't wear it.... ARE YOU STUPID OR SOMETHING? HELLO PEOPLE.... 13 STUDENTS WERE KILLED LAST WEEK while they were in the "safest" place possible. Don't be stupid and wear your trenchcoat to school the next day just to be dramatic and prove some kind of point... have some %$#^ing respect.
And, if the killers had been wearing a Wrangler jacket you would have burnt your favorite Wrangler jacket that you wear everyday...
deal with it. Use some communication skills and simply tell them that you understand their concern but that you are not a threat and you want to make that clear.
Right, and they're going to listen to a teenager say she's harmless, rather than all those 'expert' comments in the media which tells them to take away your quake & internet connection & D&D & trench coat because that stuff is going to brainwash you into a warped killer.
The Killers in fact were left-wing anarchists who hated whites and Christians. Almost all the victims were white and Christian. In fact eye-witness accounts tell us that Klebold singled out Christians for slaughter.
So we have in Ohio a Jewish-led massacre of White Christians. But can you imagine if some White Christians singled out Jews for slaughter? Oh my, the media would be all over the story with reports of "rascist hate crimes". But racists hate crimes directed against Whites receive no such sympathy by the media. In the Kentucky shootings, the killers also singled out Christians for murder. And in the Arkansas shooting it was also a Jew who was the triggerman. But again, silence from the media when hate crimes are directed against whites and Christians.
This, of course, is the voice of the enemy. Conformity.
Stand up for your rights whenever they're threatened, just as you should always fight a bully. To fail to do this marks you a victim, and you will never have peace until you escape. Just because some small fraction of an airline crash happened (I suspect more than thirteen people died on highways that day, and we don't see the DMV out interrogating drivers) is no reason to bend over and accept Orwellian tactics. If you don't go to that school, you deserve just as much respect as your peers and the administrators.
If you were welcome at those parties, you simply weren't being treated anything like we were. I didn't even get laid until 19, at college in a different city.
Don't think too hard about "best years" - it sounds like you're had your fling and are awaiting death. I'm 28 and it's been improving pretty steadily, and high school was the worst (hopefully things'll stay that way).
I'm the original AC poster.
I don't disagree that people put the blame on everything, including "the system." But you are forgetting the most horrifying realization that you will make in your life. That there is no system, there is no one in charge, and that we are all just living our lives on a faint sliver of habit that goes from generation to generation.
The point is that we all get screwed over in everything because people are wired differently. A lot of people on this topic have so much baggage and they want to force it on everyone else. If it bothers them then they should change their own lives. But if a meathead wants to be a meathead, well I've stopped worrying about those people a long time ago.
Another thing that I realized as I grew up was that people change a whole lot, and they do stuff out of impulse without thinking it through. I even remember being a meathead to another classmate! I almost couldn't believe my eyes when I realized that I was punching him in the arm every day just like others had done to me. It was when he got fed up and we actually got into a fist fight that I even recognized I was being a dick. That freaked me out because to me I was just playing around with him, but to him I was his tormentor. I wish he had said something before we started socking each other, because I felt like a real wimp for stopping the fight in front of the whole damn class.
It wasn't any system making me do that, it was just me being a dumbass. Another dumbass move of mine was "accidentally" burning a little piece of a girls hair when I was playing around with some flash paper. I had like this whole cliche of people that came up to me telling me that such-n-such was gonna kick my ass. At least I didn't have to dodge bullets.
So like 10 years later I met the girl again because she was my sisters friend, and she wasn't mad or anything. And all this time I've been looking over my shoulder. So the least I can do is forgive all of the turds that screwed with me before. I would say that people should consider picking their battles more constructively, rather than whining about the teenage years in school.
The whole thing that got my blood boiling is that if you step back and look at these 900+ postings, they all look like a bunch of posturing opportunists that are spinning this as some great awakening of the god of nerdly vengeance. Yeah right. It's just a bunch of stuff that happened. No different than the Serbians with their killings.
Reading the article by 'Mr. Gatto' worries me somewhat that people actually still believe things like this in what I consider to be an enlightened age. His first point, I cannot really say much about, having never been a school teacher it is not my position to judge it. The rest, however, I feel I should comment on.
... unless a guaranteed supply of helpless people poured out of our schools each year
/. it seems that it was the same for a lot of people.
Lesson two - what is this all about? No work is worth finishing? Mr. Gatto desires a society to be based on this? Why care to deeply about anything? I'd like to postulate this is the reason for many of todays societal ills.
Lesson three just about makes me sick. I'm not an American citizen, and I don't live in the United States, so I can't say whether or not an American citizen would agree with me, but isn't the Constitution a statement against the authority of the British empire? George Washington is viewed in history as a great man for standing up to authority and not bowing down to the crown.
The next lesson Mr Gatto teaches is that of dependancy.
Much of modern law, medicine, and engineering would go too
What we need to consider is that we also need to guarantee a supply of people who can think for themselves and are able to perform all these functions. I simply do not agree with Mr. Gatto in this, and I don't think many would.
Lesson five is that self-worth, self-esteem and self-respect are based on an observers opinion of what the levels of these should be. The purpose of suffixing a word with 'self' surely, is to stress the importance of the fact that it is your personal view of self. Again, Mr. Gatto is way off base with his evaluation of this.
Lesson six is about the encouragement of 'tattling'. This is something that breaks down in all societies and has never worked in any society. In the Soviet Union 'informing' was always encouraged, but those who did so were instantly made outsiders in their schools and communities. They were never trusted by the government who preached this lesson. Shouldn't this point out the weekness of any system that encourages this?
My high school experiences are nightmares. I was a member of a tightknit group of friends. My female friends were all seen as lesbians by the rest of the school, and the males were seen as gay. Despite the fact that we all dated the oposite sex within our group of friends. We played with Computer games, or we were musicians or writers or interested in mathematics and history. We played role playing games and read fantasy novels. Most of my high school experience was trying to experience something else, to reach out and grasp another world. And from reading many of the posts on
I won't recount stories of harassment - they happened. I won't recount stories of physical attacks - they happened.
What the Colorado massacre teaches us isn't that it is wrong to be different, it teaches us that it is right to be different. It teaches us to forget about what other people think and say and do, and to get on with our lives. It is not those of us that are different who are wrong, but those who are the same, because they are all the same.
The purpose of highschool in Canada is to teach you how to comform. Nothing more nothing less. What people need to realize is that the majority of the time this lesson pushes people further away.
-- james (jduncan@hawk.igs.net)
I could not bare to read but a few of these resposes or shall I say whinning. Grow up and stop acting like babies, high school is only a mere pin point as to what life will hold for you.
what the heck will you do when you get a job, and cant have your way there, think that it will be understandable to kill people who excel more than you? What happened out there at that school was no more than HATRED and anyone who thinks the suspects are victims of bad treatment should evaluate themselves as to if you were "popular" would you display the same type of attitudes? Probably so, and this, I might add is coming from someone who was not popular n school, or smart, or a teachers pet, my advice to you, give life a chance to grow, the same people who you think is "popular", will be the very ones after school to be failures. Those boys parents should be ashamed of themselves for having that much of a lack of communication to with their children, if they had maybe those people would be alive today.
Sucks to be them. But they were off in their little world, and I hardly ever saw any of them except in a few freshman classes (like Geology 110, "Rocks for Jocks").
If you never wanted to badly hurt any of them (I wasn't specifically considering death, but I certainly didn't think the world would be worse without them), I think somebody else had your share of harassment, maybe me.
Many of the outcast would probably behave as badly if they were jocks, but that doesnt make it right or easier to put up with when on the receiving end.
This might begin to resemble something actually credible if thirteen students picked totally at random wouldn't have been mostly white and Christian. And if the psychos hadn't also been white. (Somebody else claimed they were aiming for black students - go figure.)
"Jewish-led massacre" is a deliberately dishonest and calculated way to describe two kids who snapped.
For society it it good to try to destroy freaks. It's an old law of life: "If someone is different, destroy it!!" There are no human rights - people are just talking about them but in fact they are behaving like animals (because they have evoluted from animals). When someone is smart it doesn't directly mean that he is "good". Being smart is not important in life. Behaviour of smart people is unexpected - so they are threat for normal people.
No one cares about lives and feelings of few nerds and freaks. There are so many happy "jocks, blacks and hispans"! The world wouldn't crash if some freak commits suicide because he was prosecuted - one has no price in this system.
Society is like a large machine: when one small component breaks and stops doing what it should, it must be replaced. What would you do if your processor stops dumb interpreting machinecode and starts to think its own way? You would surely throw it away and buy another. For your work (and for reading this post) you need a "dumb machine" that does exactly what you want rather than artifical intelligence with unexpected behaviour. The same with people. Politicians and all people that are "up" need a dumb mass rather than intelligent individuals.
And when someone tries to change it and not work for politicans, they say to the mass: "These freaks are bad - wipe them out!!" And the mass goes like perfectly programmed machine.
We're on the other side. We are smart, but unwanted in the system. They say that being smart is important because they want us to work for them, but in fact intelligence means nothing in life. Dumb happy jocks are better than intelligent depressed freaks.
Note: This post tries to explain _how_it_is_. Not how it should be. You can do what you want, but you won't change nature laws. Dumb conform majority ruleZ.
>Didn't some psycho brit gun down a bunch of >children in a schoolyard a few years ago?
>Doesnt Britain have strict gun control laws?
At the time private hand guns where allowed. The public outcry over the killings resulted in a total ban on private ownership of hand guns.
The previous change to gun control laws came after another nut went out one day with some semi-auto rifles and started killing people at random. I seem to remember alienation being quoted as a factor then.
AS for being arrogant, well, isn't everyone?
I'm a 19 year old university student who had a rocky start in high school, but grew to like it at the end (it was as academic as it was sporting, and a single sex [public though] school ^_^. the school encouraged everyone to do the best at whatever talent they might have, whether it be computers or football)
I read my mother some of the emails sent in by readers and she was apalled, saying "what kind of schools are these?!" and "sounds like the teachers are the one that need the counselling groups"
I think that schools treating kids like this only alienates them further. Furthermore, where do schools get off restricting freedom of speech, and trying to cover up part of the cause of these problems!
If you're a parent reading this, and your child comes home saying the school treated them anything like this, go down there the next day and sort them out. If the school persecutes the children, it "justifies" their peers doing it too.
Ben
I highly recommend martial art training.
I first started training at age 15 after years of physical abuse at school. I did plan to take revenge with my new found skills, but after only a few months of training i gained a greater sense of self worth and found it un-necessary.
I moved schools soon after. I did need to establish fear amoungst the bullies of the school however. 1 fight, 1 punch - no more fights! , no more bullying and less bullying in the school in general as it soon got around that i would defend anyone who was picked on - a bit?/lot? self righteous. oh well
The only problem i have with my skills (12 yrs now) is when i hear of violent crimes against the defenseless. I just wish i was there to help.
stvd
What you say is very true. People seem to enjoy making a scapegoat out of things that seem to be recurring "influences" in these types of situations, e.g. Music. Why do you think kids turn to music such as Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, Pantera, etc? It's to deal with their hate. The hate they feel towards their oppressors (be it classmates, jocks, teachers, whatever). The animosity that is shown to them by their peers, who are under the impression that they are superior beings, just by being better looking, more popular etc.
By listening to music like this we try to internalise our hate and release it, without involving others. But sometimes it becomes to great a burdon to bear, hence the Columbine massacre.
I certainly do feel more for the kids that committed the crime, than those who were "innocent" parties in the massacre. They were backed into a corner, and when there seems no escape, the last resort is to lash out. It's a natural animal instinct.
So don't blame it on the guns. Don't blame it on the music. Blame it on the mentality of these media besotted drones, these children under the impression that because they see a pretty face on the television, they too must be pretty, and that anything else is just a "freak". Blame the kids who do not seek out their own opinions on life, but instead "gratefully" accept the opinions of their parents/family/teachers and peers.
Blame it on the lack of understanding of the education system and government. Blame it on the feeling of isolation, alienation and lonliness these kids feel from day to day because of the mentality of these so called "beautiful people".
As far as I am concerned people who have always strayed from the norm, dressed/acted/thought differently, ARE the best people. People who bring forward new inventions, new ideas, people who give you food for though, Nietzsche and the like, instead of just sitting back and consuming and never questioning "Why?".
People ask "Why did this massacre happen?".
If you don't know why then you are an imbicile who does not deserve to know why, and could never understand why.
Feedback on my comments are welcome at david@darkhorizon.com.au.
Cheers,
David Johnson.
I've been to private schools. They get their fair share of problem kids. believe me.
The private schools make a bit more effort to control the bastards, of course.
Well, europeans could say "Without europeans discovering and colonizing North-America your country wouldn't exist at all!"...
The door swings both ways...
And I've known my share of religious fanatics, so I do have a point of reference.
Nobody is more irrational or fanatical than the one who thinks he's above such errors.
When I grew up in the US, the legal drinking age was 18, and the actual drininkg age was about 9. If kids wanted a six paxk of Schlitz, they could get it, laws or no laws.
In some families, the father would give a three-year old some whiskey to help him "learn to handle it".
Laws don't mean squat if they're not effectively enforced. And they're not effectively enforced, because it can't be done.
The culture is the problem, not the laws.
(And this is why Prohibition didn't work.)
So much for the vaunted European education system.
(There! How does it feel to have a generalization applied to *your*
culture?)
On to my point...
> Here, only the neofascists advocate freeing gun owning.
Implying that the same must, by extension, apply here in the U.S.?
Look at your history. (Without anti-gun-bias blinders on.) The
first steps *any* dictatorship-style form of Government takes are
to suppress free press, right to association, and the right of the
people to defend themselves.
I might note in passing that the first gun control laws here in
the U.S. were designed to disarm the black population. (This was
the origin of the so-called "Saturday Night Special" laws.)
The Isreali constitution permits torture. That is not civilised.
I remember high school, although id rather not... I cant even imagine what they'd do to me if i was still there.. I was definately a geek, and an outcast, but I was also willing to kick some ass when someone pissed me off, my school record had its own file cabinet from what I hear, I can't even picture what they'd think of me now, after Columbine.
All I can say is there is hope, struggle through those 4 years (3 if u can swing it like i did), and get the hell out of there. Get in to college or out in the real world, I guarantee you, youll go from outcasts to being accepted and even admired for your knowledge. God knows I didnt have a single date till i was out of high school, nor did I have very many friends, but as soon as I left HS, go figure, i found a social life...
there IS hope, killing yourself is NOT the answer, and killing others is the sure way to kill that hope.
bucket of water?
someone found out my locker combination and left a bag of dog fecal matter in the bottom in a plastic bag in middle school.
of course, i have almost no sense of smell so i didn't notice untill we had to clean out our lockers.
i'm sure that did wonders for my popularity...
I perfectly agree with this, as so many people on this site. I would actually extend the point to universities and higher studies. Conformism is everywhere, even in art schools.
Indeed, very few institution do not produce their own attempt at normalising people that go through them.
The reality, however, is that 8 years old kids can be particularly crual and vicious. As you get into older ages, you can just tell what you think to more people. Anyway they get more busy with their own problems. Still, this reminds me that the Khmers Rouges used some 8 year olds kids to decide who to send to death, and they did the job very well. So schools can be very painful, especially if you have no idea that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
I can not fail to notice that all that mental counseling business that the US seems to ravel in is just another form of violence. Not the bullets and the blood, but the devious 1984's kind. Reading some of the mail above, the kids that are asked to go to counseling because they expressed a different opinion have much in common with the victims of Mao reeductation policy. Remember that controling the minds of people is the most extreme form of violence. It is the most satisfying one for any would-be dictator.
In a country of high violence like the States, I am not surprised that it is so common. However I am a European and I can tell you that I any of my professors had tried to send me to mental counseling he would have had to be the first one to go through it.
Anyway, if anybody ever get depressed going through these experiences I should recommend that they read the prose of some other great Outcasts. Read Kundera, Henry Miller for instance. Kundera particularly has got some very nice pages on the unbearable weigth on mediocrity, on the elaborate torture it can subject each of us to.
THERE ARE ALWAYS DOORS (CHOICES) IN LIFE.
High School or other events will not be able to box you in if this is remembered. This does
not guarantee that all choices are obvious or do not require work on the part of the
individual who wants to find other options.
As far as school options goes:
- home schooling
- work/study
- apprenticeship programs
These are available in many areas. If not, figure out what you like to do -- cars, horses,
airplanes, trains, boats, etc., find out about organizations locally that are involved
with them and join them. This will give you contact with people who have similar interests
and perhaps future job opportunities. WARNING: Most jobs require knowing someone to get
your foot in the door. If you are only comfortable on the WWW/Usenet/IRC study the way you
interact on-line and try to mimic it when you are face-to-face.
Finally, remember that nothing is permanent. All things change. Those jocks who dump on
you now will grow old, fat and crippled from chasing glory on the field. The Prom Queen
that the rest of the girls can't compete with and who would only date the Captain of the
Football team will end up grey with lots of wrinkles. Age will level the playing field
considerably.
German concentration camps (and our Japanese ones) weren't permanent, neither was the
Great Depression, neither was the Revolutionary War, and neither is high school and it's
social situations. If you can come out of this decidedly warped situation with a decent
sense of right and wrong, the correct way to treat others, and basic academic skills, the
rest will take care of itself. Although that may be a cold comfort now, five, ten and
even 25 years will come and go and how you set yourself up now can either help or hinder
you.
(I am not the author, though she is my lovely fiance, who survived what Virginia
laughingly calls the foster care system in the 1970's and is now a trainer of race horses.
You can contact her through me. Since slashdot is playing games with my account, my email address is croaker@barkingmad.org)
More importantly and to the point, the home educating parents made sacrifices by staying home and not working. They dared to decide that their children were more important than material possessions. When I read the letter here about the student who had their computer taken away because the parents said they did not have the time to ensure that the child was going only to proper places on the internet, I became inspired to post. That is precisely wherein lies one of the problems. I do sit with my children when they are on the internet. We have communicated what is proper, what is not, we have set parental controls, etc. and I now am able to worry less about them using the internet correctly. It does take parents being involved, loving their children enough to give them their time.
And it is time to wake up! Get your children out of the public schools, whatever it takes, before it is too late. Remember the slogan: Dare to keep kids off drugs? Well the slogan I leave with you is: Dare to Care.
I've read every article on this thread.
I stopped and took a breather, catch my breath and
calm down.
I'm 25. Dealt with all the same problems.
Thought I was okay with it all.
Then I called a friend of mine still in high school. Has the same problems. He was called down
to his principals office and 'checked-out'. Luckly his parents are stable folk.
This made me MAD BEYOND IMAGINATION!
Yes, those neoNAZI doorknobs who started this whole disaster were not one of us in the typical sense.
But with one act they are grouped with us like an albatross.
I'M NOT GOIN' DOWN BECAUSE OF THESE ANIMALS!!
Somebody asked what are we gonna do?
I SAY IF ITS WAR THEY WANT,
THEN THAT'S WHAT WILL GIVE THEM!!!
Anyone who's a geek in high school.
DON'T PUT UP WITH THE HARRASSEMENT!!
But make it a political revolution.
Separate the human from the primates.
You guys are SMARTER. You can make life
a LIVING HELL for THEM without killing them.
Anyone who's a geek out of high school
with a kick-ass job or not.
DON'T PUT UP WITH THE HARRASEMENT EITHER!!
Just because we left the hellhole doesn't mean
we can let the younger generation behind.
Be political.
WE ARE SOME OF THE PRIME VOTERS. RAM THIS DOWN THE POLITICAL WINDPIPE.
People are confused and looking for answers.
Let's give them some.
- banning things is a band aid.
- social change is the key. change the mind
and the hand will follow.
We (geeks) should rally as a community. Every person whose been persecuted, harrassed, tortured mercilessly for being different should UNITE. On this website and others we have. We need to in RL!!
We wanted respect (a shred of dignity at least). Littletown, Colorado should not be the flashpoint, but it is.
This seems like a politically charged venomous rant because IT IS!
I post as an Anonymous Coward because I speak for the collective voice!
Flame me if you wish, I encourage it. We need more free thinkers. (And answers)
My tenant has always been that to *learn* the system, you have to become a part of it. Once you become a part of the system, you start to lose that piece of you that makes you different. Yes, once you learn the system you can manipulate it to your own ends, and you will be placated. *But*, will you still be yourself?
I think if you examine it closely enough, you will find that while you are using the system, the system is using you. There is a Faustian choice to be made. Do you sell your soul and become part of the system, or do keep your integrity. You can't do both. It is impossible.
Integrity is paramount in my opinion. Take for example, Richard Stallman. He is fighting the system head on. Linus is using the current to fight the system. Both, I am sure, are very happy in their choices. However, my respect for RMS is far greater then my respect for Linus. Why? Because RMS has his ideals, and he zealously sticks to them, even if they are misplaced at times. If RMS had chosen to flow with the system, Linus would be nothing. There would be no Linux, because there would be no GPL, no GNU.
The system, as it stands now, is very short sighted. It rewards the short term intrests - If you don't believe me, look around you - fast food, fast cars, fast credit, fast fast fast. The people that stand and fight the system are looking beyond that and I would rather associate with those people.
-
hynotik / Matt Bardeen
http://home1.gte.net/mbardeen
I'm a moderator, but I felt it more important to comment in this forum rather than moderate. I wish I could really promote this one. Your comment is right on target, but the problem is that it doesn't promote wallowing in self-pity. If we can't blame "The Man" then who can we blame?
Poeple, I read all these comments and agree totally. but dont post thousand of messages here. DO something constructive. Email every single news agency that is doing the Me too reporting. I have been doing so since the first story aired and will continue to do so. Sure the autoreplys are anoying as hell, but if suddenly they have 5000 emails telling them how wrong they are, they HAVE to listen.
I am a 29 year old with an ostracized geek background like many of you have described. I felt your pain and I secretly felt some of the pain that drove those insane kids in Colorado to violence. There is almost no possible crime that is worse than what they did and there is no defense for what they did. They were crazy and they were assholes and the whole situation is sad.
I have two important things to pass along to my younger brothers and sisters here:
1. HIGH SCHOOL SUCKS FOR EVERYONE - and while I think that our ilk collectively takes the brunt of this kind of grief socially, we also enjoy a large degree of intellectual and social freedom that some of the others deny themselves. The jocks and the cheerleaders and the preppies and the bullies undergo tremendous social pressure to act the way that they do, and many of them are just as unhappy if not more so than yourself. It sucks being a teenager sometimes and it can suck being different. Thank your lucky stars that you are intelligent and that you are different and that you can see through the institutional facade. This will all pay off for you later - which brings me to the most important point...
2. IT ALL GOES AWAY WHEN HIGH SCHOOL IS OVER. Yes, its true. For most of us the social horror of high school starts to slip away a couple of weeks after graduation and it is completely gone three weeks into college. Once you get to college, people stop caring about how rich or poor your folks are or how you look or what clubs you are a member of or what you like to do in your spare time. College is a haven for people like us - you will have the time of your life and you will become more empowered than you ever imagined! There will always be a low-level of campus rivalry between the Frat set and the rest of us, but in college we start to pull ahead, and everyone knows it.
THE WORLD IS BEING RUN BY PEOPLE JUST LIKE US - I am successful and I look around me AND EVERYONE HERE IS A FORMER/PRESENT GEEK - except that now we are running the companies, we are driving technology, we control the money and we make the decisions.
YOU WILL BE THE FIRST FROM YOUR HIGH SCHOOL TO OWN A HOME. YOU WILL BE THE FIRST TO PULL IN A BIGGER SALARY THAN YOUR PARENTS. YOU WILL HAVE A BEAUTIFUL, LOVING SPOUSE AND YOU WILL BE THE ONE TAKING VACATIONS ALL AROUND THE WORLD.
And you will run into your tormenters at the mall, at the park, at the town meeting... And they will have forgotten about the pain that they caused you, BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, they will reveal that THEY ALWAYS ADMIRED YOU and THEY ALWAYS KNEW THAT YOU WOULD BE SUCCESSFUL and THEY WERE ALWAYS JEALOUS OF YOU ON SOME LEVEL. And they will look you in the eye, shake your hand and congratulate you on your success and say, "I really regret that I never learned how to use a computer" or "Yeah, my job as an insurance salesman really sucks - I always wished that I COULD HAVE BEEN LIKE YOU AND GOTTEN INTO BUSINESS OR TECHNOLOGY OR ART" or whatever it is that you want to do.
Hold tight, my young friends. The world will be yours in time. We all have to pay our dues in High School, but once we're out things start to fall into place. It is a wonderful world out there - all yours for the taking.
And if you don't believe me - take a look at some of the examples out there:
Linus Torvalds is a geek.
Bill Gates is a geek.
Steve Wozniak is a geek.
Jerry Yang is a geek.
David Spade is a geek.
Zack de la Rocha is a geek.
Al Gore is a geek...
...and every single one of them had their books knocked down in the hallway in high school and were given wedgies in the back of the school bus. Whether they remember it or not, they most certainly did.
And there are millions upon millions more of us, many anonymous, all around the world running the show, loving life and wearing a shit-eating grin during every minute of it.
I wrote this last night, because all the knee-jerk solutions will only make everything worse. Because nobody really cares about what makes this happen, they just want easy ways to stop it. They want to continue living and thinking the same way as always, and expect everyone ELSE to make things better. This world scares me.
I give complete permission to repost this, in unmodified form, wherever the heck you feel like it.
As I grew up, I was taught that it was wrong to make fun of others.
I was taught to be nice to everyone around me.
I was taught to always try to be friends.
I was taught right and wrong.
This Is My World Too
As I got older, people started to act differently.
They started to form groups, just to make fun of everyone else.
They became mean toward each other.
Instead of everyone getting along, it seemed like we were supposed to find people to not get along with.
What happened to being nice?
This Is My World Too
Now I long for the world of my childhood.
I fondly remember the days when it was right to be nice.
And I take a look at the world around me.
And I am sickened.
This Is My World Too
I'm told what to believe, what to think, how to act.
How to look, how to talk, how to dress.
I'm not allowed to be different, to be odd.
That's just not what we're supposed to be.
This Is My World Too
When I try to be different, I am treated like dirt.
They laugh at my hair, my clothes, my jewelry.
"You're not supposed to do that, that's not the way things are."
I rejoice in what's different between us.
Why can't you do that too?
This Is My World Too
If I don't follow the norms, people point and they stare.
They act like I have a chicken on my head.
I like the fact that you aren't like me.
Why can't you do that too?
This Is My World Too
I think the oddness is what makes the world great.
You yell and you scream, "God will send you to hell!"
I treat people with love, you treat them with hate.
And then you tell me that I'm the bad person?
This Is My World Too
I look at the news, and I mourn those who died.
Just because they dared not to be like everyone else.
Why does it have to happen, why must you do this?
You preach love and peace, but it's only for those who are the same.
This Is My World Too
It's time to take a stand, time to make a difference.
Stop staring, stop pointing, stop hating.
After all, I know you are different than me.
But I like that, you know why?
This Is Your World Too
Hey DL (and others out there too), if it will make you feel any better, most of the popular kids in high school make it on to lead really depressing, ordinary lives. I mean, there's only so long you can be a football star or the cheerleading captain, or whatever the hell these people did. Soon you graduate school and have to be a regular working stiff, just like the rest of the world. And a lot of people just can't cut it. I don't know, I really don't think people who peak early, in terms of physical attractiveness, social skills, etc really make it that well.
I too had it really bad--I didn't look like them (I was way too tall, for one), and my family didn't do the same things as their families did (we were one of those weird science-freak type families). I think I tried really hard to fit in up until about the 10th grade (tried to get my mom to buy me the fancy clothes and makeup, attempted to do the whole school spirit gamut, even tried out for the basketball team). then something inside me said, "Oh, screw all of them" and I did whatever I felt like. Figured since they weren't going to accept me anyway, it didn't matter what their opinion of me was.
Anyway I wrote an email to my 9th grade english teacher. She seemed fairly sane amongst my teachers, sort of saw my attitude towards the whole thing back then, I guess. I offered to do what I could for her current students, whether it was write up something for them, or come in and talk with them, anything. Because high school is such a petty part of life anyway, and kids who are going through this time just need encouragement that there is life out there that doesn't revolve around crappy, petty things.
funniest thing of all of this is that it's about ten years now, and I barely remember the names (let alone faces) of any of the people who made my life a living hell. I think after I graduated (thank god), I just said a collective "screw you" to them all, and left. and I've barely thought of it since. the shootings last week: well, like DL here, I find that they've brought back a lot of very painful memories that I've kept quiet, for years and years and years.
alissa
molbloo@interport.net
Hello all
I think dropping out of school can be a really bad move for some people, ie me. I was in a bording school in South Africa. None of us had ever seen a computer although we knew they existed. However, school in South Africa seems to be run on the same basis as the U.S., ie if you play rugby and other sports, you were the popular. I liked maths, science and that sort of stuff. Anyway, as a geek, was punched, kicked etc most of the time (actually in hospital twice, once because the rugby team kept hitting me until I passed out and the other time because they thought it was funny to find out what a breaking leg sounded like (they jumped on it)). Anyway I rebelled in a big way, eventually was asked to leave school which I did. It has now taken me an awful long time to get a degree and I have had to work through the entire lot. That may sound easy to you in the states but in England where I did it, work is hard to get and the fees are very high, ie there are no part time pay your fees as you go type jobs. If I had stuck with school I would have easily got a scholarship and not wasted the last 15 years of my life working my way through.
I am a 29 year old with an ostracized geek background like many of you have described. I felt your pain and I secretly felt some of the pain that drove those insane kids in Colorado to violence. There is almost no possible crime that is worse than what they did and there is no defense for what they did. They were crazy and they were assholes and the whole situation is sad.
I have two important things to pass along to my younger brothers and sisters here:
1. HIGH SCHOOL SUCKS FOR EVERYONE - and while I think that our ilk collectively takes the brunt of this kind of grief socially, we also enjoy a large degree of intellectual and social freedom that some of the others deny themselves. The jocks and the cheerleaders and the preppies and the bullies undergo tremendous social pressure to act the way that they do, and many of them are just as unhappy if not more so than yourself. It sucks being a teenager sometimes and it can suck being different. Thank your lucky stars that you are intelligent and that you are different and that you can see through the institutional facade. This will all pay off for you later - which brings me to the most important point...
2. IT ALL GOES AWAY WHEN HIGH SCHOOL IS OVER. Yes, its true. For most of us the social horror of high school starts to slip away a couple of weeks after graduation and it is completely gone three weeks into college. Once you get to college, people stop caring about how rich or poor your folks are or how you look or what clubs you are a member of or what you like to do in your spare time. College is a haven for people like us - you will have the time of your life and you will become more empowered than you ever imagined! There will always be a low-level of campus rivalry between the Frat set and the rest of us, but in college we start to pull ahead, and everyone knows it.
THE WORLD IS BEING RUN BY PEOPLE JUST LIKE US - I am successful and I look around me AND EVERYONE HERE IS A FORMER/PRESENT GEEK - except that now we are running the companies, we are driving technology, we control the money and we make the decisions.
YOU WILL BE THE FIRST FROM YOUR HIGH SCHOOL TO OWN A HOME. YOU WILL BE THE FIRST TO PULL IN A BIGGER SALARY THAN YOUR PARENTS. YOU WILL HAVE A BEAUTIFUL, LOVING SPOUSE AND YOU WILL BE THE ONE TAKING VACATIONS ALL AROUND THE WORLD.
And you will run into your tormenters at the mall, at the park, at the town meeting... And they will have forgotten about the pain that they caused you, BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, they will reveal that THEY ALWAYS ADMIRED YOU and THEY ALWAYS KNEW THAT YOU WOULD BE SUCCESSFUL and THEY WERE ALWAYS JEALOUS OF YOU ON SOME LEVEL. And they will look you in the eye, shake your hand and congratulate you on your success and say, "I really regret that I never learned how to use a computer" or "Yeah, my job as an insurance salesman really sucks - I always wished that I COULD HAVE BEEN LIKE YOU AND GOTTEN INTO BUSINESS OR TECHNOLOGY OR ART" or whatever it is that you want to do.
Hold tight, my young friends. The world will be yours in time. We all have to pay our dues in High School, but once we're out things start to fall into place. It is a wonderful world out there - all yours for the taking.
And if you don't believe me - take a look at some of the examples out there:
Linus Torvalds is a geek.
Bill Gates is a geek.
Steve Wozniak is a geek.
Jerry Yang is a geek.
David Spade is a geek.
Zack de la Rocha is a geek.
Al Gore is a geek...
...and every single one of them had their books knocked down in the hallway in high school and were given wedgies in the back of the school bus. Whether they remember it or not, they most certainly did.
And there are millions upon millions more of us, many anonymous, all around the world running the show, loving life and wearing a shit-eating grin during every minute of it.
Actually, the quote from the Crusades ("Kill
them all, God knows his own,") is pretty topical...
That particular one, unless I've completely
forgotten my college history classes, was from the
Albigensian Crusades in southern France against
'deviant' Christians. It quickly devolved from a
Crusade to the Same Old Political Stuff, with much
bloodshed all around. Those who forget history, yadda yadda, doomed to repeat it yadda.
Not to burst your bubble, but Einstain's quotes suggests otherwise.
Just search for his quotes on religion and you'll see.
98% of people are stupid, and because of that most of the gun carriers happen to be idiots. damned shame. i actually think those kids in littleton did the right thing, unfortunately they took their own lives. the ratio of intelligence to feeble mindedness is about the same in that school again. sidenote: and why the fuck are people trying to tear down their school and build a new one? in the projects schools get people shot in them all the time- and they are the ones that need BOOKS much less whole schools. and all this money people are sending to littleton, send it to people that need it. if anything the families in littleton have more money now since their child's college funds are free and they don't have to feed them. send those fammilys loving cards and support instead. godamn.
It's true -- the world after high school is a big, beautiful place. Of course, it is messed up in many ways, but I feel there is a tremendous amount of potential in it, especially if young people like yourselves -- people with courage, free minds and spirits, IMAGINATION! -- can find the places in the world that want and need change, vision, a kick in the butt. Please hang on, find solace in gaming or poetry or music or whatever trips your trigger, build your own safe havens and learn to build them for others. You are the ones who are going to make a difference, maybe even someday for kids exactly like yourselves. I know, believe me, I KNOW, high school is not an easy time, but whatever you do, be true to yourself. You won't regret it, and with age, your peers will start to look up to you, and wish they had the courage to be "different."
And as for now, DON'T let them censor you. Call the ACLU and ask what legal recourse you have, send the articles they won't publish to your local paper, ask your parents to listen with you to your music and then listen with them to some of theirs -- whatever you do, remember that (I am stealing this line from the poet Diane diPrima) the only war that matters is the war against the imagination.
--a high school teacher
Thank you for precisely missing the point. I expected no less. I had hoped that if someone responded, it would at least make for interesting reading. No such luck. Still, I feel like wasting another moment since you seem to want to reply to me personally. Of course, much like this thread, nothing said will matter. Not to me because I already know all the cute tactics people use to convince themselves eugenics is evil, and not to you, "webgrrl," because your eyes are closed.
How many times does it need to be said? Killing is NOT an appropriate response to being an outcast.
Try again, kiddo. They were broken. Being outcast is hard, sure, but they were much more than that. Should they have done what they did? Perhaps so. Should this have ever happened? No.
I was going to go on a long rant about eugenics but I decided not to.
Oh please, rant for us. We are all here awaiting the Truth you shall hand down. Or not.
Instead, I'll just point out that people who are in favor of eugenics always seem to think that it's those "OTHER" people who need to be sterilized, aborted, or killed.
Yes, it is a given that the vast majority or people simply suck, yet believe themselves supreme. Mostly men, at least, since women are taught that they are just wrong and should only do as everyone else does, but the arguments are normally among men because modern society (where women might theoretically contribute) keeps the concept of eugenics hush-hush. Actually, do you really have an example of anyone speaking in favor of eugenics, or are "people who are in favor of eugenics" just the Nazi types to you? Do you even know what eugenics is really for?
Who would you choose to eliminate, "Anonymous Coward"?
Ahh, ever the same reaction. Like I would suggest "eliminating" people. I certainly know that my wife and I shouldn't have children. We both suffer severe depression and anxiety, as well as have a history of unknown genetic disorders on her side. We know that having children is probably not a good idea. In fact most people of above average intelligence know that kaving children in our sad world is not really a good idea (or at least they know one/few is generally better than many). The below average people, however, will have more children. Add in that our society severely biases people to marry for looks and/or money, and what do you get?
Shallow/stupid people don't like smart people. Smart people have fewer children. Smart children are trained to be shallow/stupid. Face it, you can make all the pretty arguments you like, and some of them will even be rather valid. But eugenics is already real and fully implemented, just not in humanity's long term favor.
By the way, I know you want to draw attention to the "Anonymous Coward" to make yourself feel stronger, but it is just a matter of laziness, not cowardice. I read slashdot only occasionally, and come in late enough to just read through what people have to say and look for interesting tidbits--even if I felt like posting it's generally too late to be read. In this case, I was simply really tired of the "I don't condone" bit in every message and felt like throwing out something antagonistic in this thread no one will care about anyway. Maybe there'd be a response, maybe not. Either way, I feel a little less bothered by all this fear of being a "sympathizer," or not showing the correct amount of remorse.
Actually most of us already know that they are all full of hot air with an IQ of a really smart horse. Although that doesn't help the hurt of the taunts humiliation and such, it's nice to think of them working in a McDonalds when they are 42 years old.
:-) (for now)
I'm sorry, I can't agree with you on this one. What you say about communication is abosolutely true, but communication takes at least two parties. You can be as friendly as you want, and if the person you're talking to doesn't return the favor, there's still no communication.
I'm of the "been there, done that" crowd as far as suffering through school goes. I've tried the "be friendly" thing--I'm not arguing with you from any lack of information. And what I've found is that when people have decided you're outcast, they refuse to be friendly back.
Period. Now I don't know if that "outcast" has to do with intelligence, or popularity, or looks, or what. I wasn't real "fit-in" on any of them. And I don't know if the intense streak of individualism I, at least, got out of the situation was the cause or the effect of being outcast.
I do know is that there's a legitimate problem here. And no amount of "be friendly," "keep a stiff upper lip," "smile,"--or anything else it's real easy for someone to *tell* you to do--is going to fix it.
Well I suppose the most common question that administrators, reporters, and parents are asking, is why were they so angry? The thing is, they're asking the WRONG people. They're asking administrators bogged down in legal paperwork, counselors who spend more time with beaurocracy than with students, reporters who read whatever is put in front of them, or overeducated fools with impressive sounding degrees and statistics, but who havent actually asked the students any questions. The ones they should be asking are obviously, the students.
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But they don't. They look to self proclaimed experts or overworked underpaid understaffed police officers for answers.
Well to answer the question of why the two students were so angry (I hate to use the word angery as its such a cliche these days but oh well.) we'll have to ask what they were angry about. The constant teasing tormenting and perhaps the occassional fight that they may have lost. Or the taunts about their clothes perhaps? The name calling? The lack of concern or action by teachers, parents, or administrators? All of the above, probably. Anger at all that is understandable. Why were the local popular cliques so cruel? Well as one of my favorite fantasy author's, David Eddings, wrote, "We tend to hate those whom we haven't treated very well, and if we can somehow convince ourselves that they are less than human, then our guilt seems much blacker than we secretly know it is." -Domes of Fire, by David Eddings
Administrators and teachers tend to think of being teased as part of growing up, a basic part of teenage life that almost everyone goes through, that includes fights to some extent, and so such things are not taken very seriously.
I've been role playing since my middle school years, and it didn't make me popular, I didn't expect it to. I hosted and still do host, role playing games by e-mail and have made numerous lasting friendships through it. Many closer to me than the people I knew in school. Just as, judging by these posts, many of you have done. But lets face facts, there are a whole lot of people who can't tell the difference between reality and fantasy. They're vastly outnumbered, a tiny minority, but their misdeeds make everyone else look bad.
As we see from the results of the colorado incident. Horror is the first reason for this wide range of sweeping actions. Who wouldn't be horrified? People turn reactionary when such things happen and go to lengths that, a week prior, they would have found unacceptable. And will find unacceptable again as their ability to reason returns. Ignorance is the second cause, role players are not a commonly visible part of society, (except when there is a conscious effort to do so, in which it usually gives off a poor first impression to a conformist) and so it is very easy for misconceptions to become very widespread. I dealt with this same situation long before the colorado incident ever took place. Parents were worried that I was in a cult, or becoming a satanist, because I enjoyed role playing. They went so far as to pay me twice the ammount i paid for my gameing systems, only so they could throw it away. In time, after I made an effort to educate them on the matter, they came to be more accepting, they don't care for it, but they no longer condemn it blindly either. That can work for others as well, though not for all. There are many in this world, who see only what they want to see, and that is almost never the worst of themselves, or the best of others.
Pain, it was inflicted on the two shooters, and they gave it back a hundred fold. No doubt they felt very powerless, and were likely unstable to begin with. And that is a volatile combination when the natural human reaction is to lash out and take revenge.
The blame game, we've all played it, we're only human after all. However there are times when one has to see beyond the need to blame someone or a group of people, and try to find a way to prevent the next occurence. Thats the question I've heard to little, "How do we prevent this from happening again?" more often its, "Whose fault is this?". And so the blame game begins. Students blaming "the system" (I have to say, it would be no different if the situation were reversed, jocks being geeks and the intelligent were the top of the heap. The end result would be that there would still be outcasts.) The system won't change anytime soon, so its pointless to bother with it beyond seeing where security points can be put in to prevent such tragedies.
Parents blaming whatever the news happens to decide is a bad influence that week, and administrators blaming either the student body or the parents for lack of involvement, or their government for not giving them enough money to deal with such things.
Nobody asks how to fix the problem, everybody wants to know who caused it. There is our first mistake as a society, and unfortunately for those kids, it was the last one for them.
-Robert
e-mail:
kingarchos@goplay.com
website:
http://www.angelfire.com/ar/crystaldragon/choos
Well, by no means, is this news. Ask the media, and they'll tell you a different story. Since this shooting, there has not been a day where I haven't been able to think about those kids. I know I should feel mercy for the students that died, and the rampage ultimately sounds as unfocused and as inhuman a killing spree as anything that's been going on in Kosovo and Yugoslavia. Perhaps what angers the media most is that they didn't have the time to recruit Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold to kill their own targets. But the state doesn't deserve killers. The state deserves to be killed, and why not start with high school?
I read a comment that said for nerds just to hold on until they entered college and got a good job, that allowed them to gloat at their oppressors. God help you all if that's what you think is truly going to provide substance and meaning in your life. Those two kids were surrounded by privilege and prosperity, and those things could not stop them from lashing out in the way they did. In fact, the hollowness of modern society probably stared them in the face, and none of the super-involved toys in the world could given their lives any meaning. Nor at the end, does it bestow any meaning on ours.
I am 28 years old and I was more of a Goth than a geek in high school. Yet I am poor as all get-out, because I hate computers and the alienation that they wreak on people (my only contact is through the Internet, and I'm more miserable than I ever was in high school) and I feel the same oppression that those children did. My anger has only grown over the years when I find that society is still structured in the same way high school. I feel that in the next two or three years, the world will be set aflame in one big Littleton, and personally, I can't wait. My life is meaningless in a capitalist society where dollar signs represent your human worth like hit points, and when you feel your life has no meaning, then no one else does either. Just ask any gang member here in Los Angeles. No one cares about them and who they blow away, of course, because they and their victims are mostly black and Latino. But the virus is spreading to the rich white folks community, and because the parents don't know their children and refuse to respect their world - a world that shaped ME - they are sowing the seeds to the world's destruction. If it's a war they want, let's give it to them, kids. In fifty years time, the earth's environment will be poisoned beyond anyone's ability to amend it, so it's not like we have any real future to look forward to, anyway. And rest assured, I'll be right there with you, until my body's lying down on the street. I never wanted to grow old anyway.
After reading the article on /. about the students that are getting repressed for wearing trenchcoats and writing articles for the student paper, related to the Colorado incident, got me thinking about when I was in H.S. (Class of '97). If such behavior continues from school administration contact your parents or guardians and have them come to your school the moment things like this happen. So often as a student you'll be intimitated by people in a higher authority but with your parents present you can be on equal grounds. You're reserved the freedom of speech and no one can take that away from you. I wish I was one of your fathers so that I could give your principal a piece of mind. It is understandable how your school is paranoid. They are trying to do what's best for the school but in the rush of things they tend to lose focus of student's needs. I'd love to hear comments from people in this forum. Send me an email. nedflander@geocities.com
I've got a year to go in this hell, and I just can't take it any more. I stole a gun from my next door neighbor's house last week. I take it with me to school every day now. Next time one of our precious 'student athletes' tries to beat me up, I WILL FUCKING KILL HIM!!!!!!
I don't think I'm "cool." I just want students to realize there are more people like them then like the jerks. I don't understand how I am the problem! I'm nice to everyone. Just because I happen to be liked does not mean I have "sold out." You are the ones who assume to much. ..."THINGS CHANGE!"
We must live in two complete different worlds. NOT ALL JOCKS ARE MEAN. You can't just stereotype everyone else and not yourself.
Getting made fun of is life. Everyone is affected but some know how to deal with it and realize life goes on and things change.
Maybe if those boys hadn't done this they could have gone on to college and never had these problems again. My brother was dumped on for twelve years then he went to college and is just fine now. The students need to be told
If you give everyone the chance to blam the "popular people" then the problem only grows. Make people take responcibility for thier actions!!!
You are the one who has sold out to the system. YOU are the one who has determined who you are and what "group" you hang out with.
Bravo!
Another good letter, I am heartened to see other thinking people. Thanks for the tip on the books--I have read and will continue to read all I can get my hands on.
S C
People snap. It's sad, and it doesn't help anything, but it happens. The deal is to keep it from happening ever again.
You're right, you're lucky you didn't get raped. You're lucky you 'only' got beaten. I was even luckier: I only got shunned. But I still carry the emotional scars, as I'm sure you do and everyone who has written here does. There's no way not to be scarred by being made to feel Other.
Our only hope is not to wring our hands and tell one another how awful it is. Our only hope is to work together politically to change the system. We need to create one that's not fascist, that values kids who think and gives therapy to the ones who, feeling threatened, hurt others.
We need to work together. All of us. Nerds can be very persistent in working on a problem that interests us. So let's start now.
Margaret
to all you geeks, losers, goths, dorks, and generic outcasts out there: PERSERVERE.
it may not seem like it now, but life DOES get better. i'm not even 25 yet and i work for the #1 Router/Networking company in the world. i have a great (geek) job with lots of responsibility and my wonderful (geek) spouse and i make more money than my parents ever have..and more than probably 90% of all those popular assholes from high school are making nowadays. i have a beautiful home, drive a great car, and have a wonderful circle of (geek) friends who love each other.
we all know it's not the Net that's bad, or the music, the clothes, the games, the books, or even our geek friends. it's the fucked up things that are given high value in school: Homecoming Queen, Captain of the Football team, and all those useless, empty titles that mean nothing in the REAL WORLD. you outcasts out there that are Net experts, artists, writers, gamers - YOU have creativity, imagination, and brains, and THOSE are the important things that will serve you through life. do you think your boss at Burger King or Microsoft will give a flying fuck if you were Prom King? but the Engineers at Company X where the stock is worth $100+ want to pay you geeks and outcasts BOATLOADS of money to come and be smart and creative for them - and they will value you.
i've said it before, and i'll say it again:
i think it's a great shame that the atmosphere of most public schools make the people who would most enjoy such a learning-dedicated environment hate it more than any other place.
i was a high school outcast, too. i was a geekgrrl, no good at sports and too good at studying. the cheerleaders don't wear black and they don't listen to the Smiths. at the time (6 years ago), i hated high school more than anything on this planet. i wanted the trendies and jocks who made my life a miserable hell to choke and die. i won't deny that i secretly fantasized about killing them. of course, thoughts and actions are two very different things.. and none of those thoughts came to me because i listened to Ministry or played Wolfenstein/Doom/Quake or wore black or any of that bullshit.
anyway, it may not seem like it now, but there is a place for you, and you will come into your own. be yourself - no matter who you are. you'll thank yourself for it down the road (when you realize you didn't marry the Basketball team captain right out of high school and move into a trailer with your three kids).
love,
Eclipse
I've been reading a bunch of replies on this topic, trying to grasp both sides of this argument, and I've made up my own mind.
School is seriously screwed up. My own time through school has entered its final weeks, and I can finally see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Lame conclusion for 12 years of hell, where I have learned practically nothing I couldn't have learned on my own. Except one thing: hate.
People can flag me as a nerd, geek, whatever, I just don't care anymore. I tried to fit in, I really did. I tried to blend, lurk in the darkness, somehow, when it was time for "them" to choose a target, my name always came up. After 4 years at the same secondary school (Canada's system), I couldn't take it anymore. My own friends, which I had trusted and sustained, were now part of it, taking pleasure in destroying every bit of my life that was remaining. My first day of my last year of school, it all went to hell. I couldn't take it anymore, I switched school, where I knew other poeple, where I could just wait it out until the schoolyear was over. I didn't want to fit in anymore. The more people that liked me, the more enemies I had. I thought screw this. I isolated myself, couldn't take it anymore. I lived most of this year alone. Now it's ending, and I'm danm glad it is. It's announcing the end of my crap childhood (my parents also divorced when I was 6 years old).
The point I'm trying to make is that kids in situations like mine cannot be ignored anymore. We were taught, whenever we got picked on (or worse), to just ignore it. Well that just makes it worse! Eventually it adds up, and adds up until you can't take it no more. Then it eats you inside. Rage. Hate. This is what I felt through most of high school. This is what Harris and Klebold felt, and they didn't pick it up in Doom or on the internet. They were taught to hate in school, by the kids who despised and picked on them, and by the hordes of kids who followed those kids in despising them. Harris and Klebold were homicidal, because they popped. They were consumed by rage. Pain, it was inflicted on the two shooters, and they gave it back a hundred fold. - From earlier post. It'll happen again. It's already happened today in Alberta.
Who kowns how many kids are in this position, because they are different. And what about the kids who are different, but are afraid of assuming it, because they fear being the targets. The way education is handled has to be changed. Children need to learn how to live in a society in school, and that has to be taught.
I've suffered a lot. Probably more than one should suffer in a lifetime. And I'm not the only one. I've survived to date only through the strengh of my convictions, by cultivating my rage, and by knowing that in the end, I'm smarter than them, I will prevail. Just not in school.
The true problem is that us who are the targets have no possible solutions. There is nothing we can do about being despised and outcast. Talking to our assailants can only lead to an increase in tension, since these are usually immature (they are the teasers aren't they?). Adults can't understand, and even if they did, they couldn't bring any solution to it. They can talk to the bullies, but afterwards, they'll go back to being bullies, and it'll start over, worst than before. So we keep it inside. And it adds up. And eventually someone of us will find a solution: rampant violence. It's the only solution. Unfortunately, it doesn't solve anything. It's just outright revenge. That's why I did not, or will not, kill, or commit suicide.
"We want to be different" Harris said. I want to be different. And I want to be at least tolerated. And I don't want to have to isolate myself anymore.
Thankfully, there's only a few weeks left for me.
But there are millions of others following, entering the same meat grinder I'm coming out of. Those of you who've finished high school, and have gone to live a good life, don't pat yourself on the back and say "It all turned out fine". Hell doesn't seem as bad once you're out of it.
Some will say the cause is adolescence. Because of change and all that crap. Adolescence is only a part of the problem. These hormones and mood shifts, it just makes it even worse. The okay kids have trouble dealing with it, the troubled kids, how do you think it turns out for them?
This can't go out. More kids will go bonkers, and there will be more shootings. We can't let this happen. This article, it has to spread. Turn it into a petition. Write to your Metro newspaper about the situations in high school. There are hordes of kids who are living hell, and another horde who chooses to live something they are not to escape this hell.
It can't go on.
----
SaintMathew
http://www.strategyplanet.com
hehehe, its not anagram or allegory but analogy you're looking for here...
sorry couldn't help myself!
I'm 30, so you'd think it's all in the past for me now. It's not.
I know adults of above average intelligence who are still insecure. They mock the less intelligent. The ones with money have mean things to say about the poor. It's offensive. I'm offended that these people, even after so many years of adulthood, haven't attained a level of empathy and kindness I expect from a 20 year old. And some of these people were rejects in high school. (Why can't they learn!)
I can understand why the kids went crazy. I can understand when adults lose it. It's that feeling of rejection, of disconnection from real life. It can make you do crazy stuff.
This reminds me of that Door's song that goes: people are strange/ when you're a stranger/ people look ugly/ when you're alone// women seem wicked/ when you're unwanted/(forgot)/ when you're down.
I sometimes wonder about the local homeless. They're insane, and there's no way they're going to be housed before they die. They're doomed (but mainly because we won't pay for their housing). What I wonder is whether they went insane before becoming homeless, or after. Is our society is one of winners and losers. Some win, some lose, and to the victor go all the spoils? To the loser, all the pain, and a quick death?
I am a school secretary in a Kdgn. to gr. 8 school, I can attest to what the high school students are writing about school being a cruel place. But it doesn't start in high school. It starts in grade 3, 4 and 5! I have been asked advice by young people that don't fit in, and stumble over my words of advice to them! What am I to say?? You are special? I like you very much because you are a nice person?
How can I help???
It seems that one teen ager in Colorado has found the answer, or at least a good step toward it. She started a petition at her school for kids to sign pledging that they would treat each other with courtisy and not make fun of other students for any reason. I read about it on the AP wire. Lets hope that this solution spreads faster than the other knee-jerk "solutions" did.
By now, you've probably read the other posts exhorting you to PERSEVERE! Yes, persevere.
You've probably read the inspiring stories of people who are now rich, happy and loved. They are true and quite common.
BUT FOR NOW...
Search out positive people that accept you, even if they are not other geeks, even if they are of a different race/color/creed/ethnicity/etc. Work on your talents and treat your teachers as humans -- the good teachers are excellent to talk with and have seen everything. Take up one of the Oriental martial arts, but turn to another school if the sensei teaches bullying and violence. Get involved in academic extracurricular activities (Debate Team, Science Club, etc.). I found considerable consolation in my Catholic faith...consider joining a faith community based on love (even if the practice is not perfect).
I'm glad to hear that things have improved. I got out of High School 20 years ago, and college wasn't any better. And it's still not much better. Oh, I'm not harrassed any more, but I'm still not valued. Smart is still not cool. Girls still don't want smart guys. It must be a generational thing. Or a midwest thing. I'm very glad to hear that it's better for the younger people going through it now. Nobody should have to lead the life we led. So, things are getting better. Maybe by the time your kids are in school, it'll even be a tolerable place to be.
Frankly, if you manage to fire a round while you are cleaning your anti-tyranny weapon (gun, firearm, whatever you want to call it), the you are a FUCKING MORON!!! How can anyone be so stupid as to not check their action before tinkering with their gun? The first think you do when someone hands you a firearm or you pick one up is to check if it's loaded. I learned that when I was 8. (my dad never left me alone with guns. Common sense, people!) Why would anyone clean their gun when it's loaded? Actually, if you shoot yourself when you clean your gun, you deserve to be shot. It's as simple as evolution: Get the "stupid gene" out of the genepool.
steve
Yes, I enjoy bacon sandwiches.
this is hate
I heard some people saved copies of Eric Harris's web page before AOL took it down. Does anybody know where this page can be viewed?
--Rick
I spent 2 years in England @ university, & I think there really IS a kind of jock culture. Nowhere near as heavy as the US, but there were definitely lots of drunken footballers around... I'm not sure if that has now extended to high schools, & as far as I know they didn't really harass non-sporty people... but I did see a certain glorification of athleticism (c'mon, the World Cup???).
You are correct, and anyone who knows who Feynman is far cooler than Mr.Popularity. I did my "relate a person/book to you, touchy feely english project" on him. My classmates could not get past "physicist" to see a really great man, but it was the same way for him in school.
Geeks, Nerds and Computer freeks hang in there!!!!
All is not lost, I may live in Australia and I may be somewhat removed from what is going on.
But I am an 18 year old Uni student who had to fight tooth and nail through 12 years of HELL!!!!
Yes hell, you guys think you're alone and suffering - well you're not and please take some comfort in that thought.
All this media hype about gaming and the net well - according to them I'm a mass murderer. Why?
Because I play half-life, Quake, Quake2, Doom, Shadow Warrior, Rise of the Triad and more games of such!
Christ I even played and relished playing Carmageddon two. I have lan parties at my place with my mates and we have a few drinks a enjoy ourselves. OOoopps I missed out the go on mass killing sprees!!!!! BUT MAYBE BECUASE THEY DON'T HAPPEN!!!!!!!!
I am now at uni and I'd like to tell you school guys out there to keep going, fight for your right to be individuals (don't kill people). Be smart achieve, wear black clothes, CHRIST wear pink grean yellow rainbow clothes if you so desire!!!
Because when you get to uni, you're doing it for you, its your life. School to me was hell, I was isolated, humiliated publically tied up and beaten. And yes I though about killing them - I thought of making them suffer - but I did it in the best way possible - I got a great final mark and got into the Uni course of my dreams!
This is the best way to do it ppls. But don't worry you get to uni you can be yourself. Theres none of this totolatarian hitler style rule over you. And if there is in the states or whatever country. Come to Australia cause as long as I'm clothed they don't care. I'm not a murderer and nor are any of you.
None of us ever deserve the undue hurt. But we get it. It is society that creates the environment that we live in.
But ppls you're free as long as you are yourself - fight the bullshit of society be yourself and live as you believe. Don't be Christian, Muslim, Hindu unless you want to. Don't play football, cheerlead, be a lawyer Don't do anything unless you want to!
Its your life so live it - ignore these other petty insignificant bastards who suffer from small dick syndrom and other diseases of the like!
You are you and don't EVER let anyone change that.
My account wasn't set up properly.
But my online name is !xabbu.
If anyone needs to chat or anything just to reply, do it here or email me at s356495@student.uq.edu.au
Unto thyne self be true!
Geeks, Nerds and Computer freeks hang in there!!!!
All is not lost, I may live in Australia and I may be somewhat removed from what is going on.
But I am an 18 year old Uni student who had to fight tooth and nail through 12 years of HELL!!!!
Yes hell, you guys think you're alone and suffering - well you're not and please take some comfort in that thought.
All this media hype about gaming and the net well - according to them I'm a mass murderer. Why?
Because I play half-life, Quake, Quake2, Doom, Shadow Warrior, Rise of the Triad and more games of such!
Christ I even played and relished playing Carmageddon two. I have lan parties at my place with my mates and we have a few drinks a enjoy ourselves. OOoopps I missed out the go on mass killing sprees!!!!! BUT MAYBE BECUASE THEY DON'T HAPPEN!!!!!!!!
I am now at uni and I'd like to tell you school guys out there to keep going, fight for your right to be individuals (don't kill people). Be smart achieve, wear black clothes, CHRIST wear pink grean yellow rainbow clothes if you so desire!!!
Because when you get to uni, you're doing it for you, its your life. School to me was hell, I was isolated, humiliated publically tied up and beaten. And yes I though about killing them - I thought of making them suffer - but I did it in the best way possible - I got a great final mark and got into the Uni course of my dreams!
This is the best way to do it ppls. But don't worry you get to uni you can be yourself. Theres none of this totolatarian hitler style rule over you. And if there is in the states or whatever country. Come to Australia cause as long as I'm clothed they don't care. I'm not a murderer and nor are any of you.
None of us ever deserve the undue hurt. But we get it. It is society that creates the environment that we live in.
But ppls you're free as long as you are yourself - fight the bullshit of society be yourself and live as you believe. Don't be Christian, Muslim, Hindu unless you want to. Don't play football, cheerlead, be a lawyer Don't do anything unless you want to!
Its your life so live it - ignore these other petty insignificant bastards who suffer from small dick syndrom and other diseases of the like!
You are you and don't EVER let anyone change that.
My account wasn't set up properly.
But my online name is !xabbu.
If anyone needs to chat or anything just to reply, do it here or email me at s356495@student.uq.edu.au
Unto thyne self be true!
I have a black Australian duster
I have played Doom, Quake, etc.
I own guns.
I (gasp) like Marilyn Manson
My wife owns a Rammstein CD (does that count?)
Omigawd I fit the Profile!
Oops, uhh I'm 42. Guess I have to find a
different Profile. Is there anything else
available?
But seriously folks. I grew up overseas (Army brat) and missed all the middle/high school fun
and went straight to the REAL Hell. There I ran
into the same people that tormented you.
"Oh, you weren't born in America?" sniff "You
didnt go to X High School or Y College? sniff.
"You dont think like we do, act like we do, dress like we do" GO AWAY.
In the real world they cant resort to the every
day level of violence w/o going to jail, so they
have to resort to casting you out.
My only two regrets I have as an American is that
I didnt stay in Europe and become a full foreigner
and that I wasted 4 years of my life trying to
fit in.
If it's any consolation, I wasnt too popular as
an American in Germany either but at least they
left me alone and many people gave me the benefit
of the doubt by giving themselves a chance to know
me. But that wasnt about me it was about being
an American. Once thet realized that I didnt have
some rather odious traits that we export all went
realatively well.
Henri
The original poster does make 2 good points.
1.) I completely and totally disagree with him
but "I will fight to the death his right to
speak his opinion".
2.) We as a nation are deeply shocked by
13 dead. We as a nation just got thru
"accidentally" killing people in a vegtable
market/hospital complex in Yugoslavia and
"accidentally" bombing the Chinese Embassy.
Ooopsie!
The violence is part of many societies and
that is the problem.
yeah! fuck you! you motherfucker! you suck shit! fuck! shit! screw you! die! scumsucking shitslurping asshole! yeah you! that's right you! fuck you. FUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOUUUUUU. blow me! suck my dick! drop dead! eat shit and die! fuck you!
Good evening,
8 249
It is not too often that I use the medium to send out missives beyond normal day to day communications, but on this occasion I am compelled to share some very important thoughts on the Colorado tragedy. It has bothered me for some time as I am sure it has also you. The problem being, I could not pinpoint exactly what chord it struck with me until today when I read this article on slashdot org that put it into perspective.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/04/25/143
The cross section of people I have mailed today probably only shares one commonality. We use the Internet to communicate. Other then that I know the experiences everyone has had are unique. Different cities, different lifestyles, different familial situations, different ages and different levels of "popularity" in school. In that only Jeanne and Ari knew me in High School, you probably have a distorted notion of how life must have been like for me in High School. Most everyone knows about my mother having Cerebral Palsy. Most of you know that I am fortunate to be somewhat intelligent. Most of you know me as being gregarious, fun loving and occasionally, pardon the phrase, cool.
What you do not know is how being intelligent affected my life in a negative way which I am only now beginning to grasp. While the acts of the killers in Colorado are deplorable and the thought that someone would become so twisted as to resort to those actions literally makes me sick, I do understand how they, and other youths around the country must have felt and are feeling now for being "different". The article I have linked above is a discussion of this with email excerpts from kids around the world describing how they are now being treated as a result of these two psycopaths(sp?). Rather then leading to more understanding of how society fosters this ostracism, it has only served to reinforce it and increase the intensity on all levels as evidenced by today's statement by the ACLU and the kids in the article.
I have never really discussed this with anyone until now so this may seem odd. When I was a child growing up in Miami, FL I was often ridiculed for many things from my general dorkiness to my "retarded" mother. Most of all though, I was tormented for being smart. Kids used to call me "encyclopedia head", "the dork with 2 brains", "eggbert" and a few would throw out "watermelon head" among other epitaphs. This occurred from my days at Elementary school all the way through High School. Fortunately I never did really get beat up for it, though the emotional abuse hurt tremendously.
What I did about it, as many others have done, was sacrifice part of my independence/originality in order to blend in better. For a long time I even referred to it as "my quest for normalcy" - presuming that there was something wrong with who I was. Even playing football my senior year of high school, other team members teased me. Still, I was not about to give up and I was able to break through many of my mental obstacles by sticking with it. I did manage to have a lot of fun in High School by going to parties and hanging out with my friend Ari, but wherever I went I did not feel like I fit in well with my peers so I hung out with a lot of sophomores and a few juniors. There were a few groups of people (they still call these 'cliques' without really understanding what they are) who would throw things at me, or hit me in the back of the head in class, generally insult me and literally push me around on occasion.
I did not have it nearly as bad as some of the other kids, I was fortunate as I was trying to blend in. But really as I look back, I was most unfortunate. Not for how I was treated, but for what I did to myself as a result of it. In order to fit it, I gave up my independence of thought and robbed myself of my confidence and acceptance of who I am. I essentially dumbed myself down to distance myself from that stereotype while dealing with many people and embracing it with others. Worse still, because I was trying to be normal and I came from the neighborhood that I did, even many of the smart kids (mostly sons and daughters of doctors, lawyers, professionals and entrepreneurs who lived around my High School) did not accept me. Despite these daily reminders of being different, I did have some good friends and I did have quite a good time.
Still, this has far reaching effects into my present day life which I will not explore here as this not about me. It is about the fact that what is happening today in our schools has always happened but it is more greatly magnified by the speed of our society and our communications. We saw this behavior. We lived through it in one way or another as either a participant or an observer. Why isn't the media talking to us (the graduates of the high school system from 8-15 years ago) about our experiences here and what we have learned from it. Trying to find out what the longer term effects of the "cooler then thou" attitude really are. We are still close to it, the first ones to come out of the system with computer skills and video game experiences, our collective insights and recollections would be of tremendous value to educators, politicians and most importantly, students.
The real tragedy of Littleton is that the general populace has yet to learn the real lesson. In absolute terms the deaths are tragic - so is the fear that has been created for all school going children. But more tragic still is that our children are not learning how to look at other human beings as their brothers and sisters. While there is no doubt that friends and a sense of identity are of paramount importance to a maturing mind, the exclusion of those who are different in any way is unconscionable in this day and age.
Though I do not want to digress profoundly from the reason for this email, it is for this reason that we are fighting in Yugoslavia today. One culture (which could be called a 'clique') wanting to get rid of another because they are different. Though violence is not the preferred solution, for some people (particularly Milosovic) that is all they understand. Of course, in school the option of choice has been to crack down on those who think differently and ostracize them further as you can read from the article. This obviously will only contribute to the underlying root cause instead of solving the problems we face as a society. Yes it starts in the home. Children of KKK families will learn to hate others who are different. It extends form the home to the community. It extends from the community to society as whole and is reinforced by media. Why can we not spread our positive message in the same manner. While I do not know how to deal with situations of hate like the KKK and and other groups who do not understand we are all the same despite cultural and physical differences.
The common thread has been revealed. It is not video games, it is not the Internet, it is that society as a whole going back to the smallest subset of the family has learned to covet and seek the wrong things. The notion of friendly competition is only that - a notion. Excelling at sports is great, but not without the education. Position and authority are only good when used for good purposes, for serving the people being lead. Freedom of thought and independence should be admired and rewarded, not conformity and popularity. It takes the same effort to knock someone down as it does to lift them up. Children should be supporting one another instead of knocking each other down. But it has always been like that. Bullies are Bullies. Jocks are Jocks. Geeks are Geeks. It is time for this thinking to change.
It is time that everyone understands we are all one. It is time for us to shout this message.
Don't get me wrong, I understand that the reality is people who are not smart compensate to support their ego by expressing their physical superiority or resorting to emotional bludgeoning. This is the same treatment which they have most likely been subject to by their parents and other kids. I also understand that we can not easily alter the reality of multi millon dollar signing bonuses and the power that comes with wealth or the power that comes from manipulating or controlling others. The forces of human nature are most definitely at play here as well. We know that the one thing that separates us from other life forms on this planet is our ability to be self reflecting. Supposedly our ability to think makes us superior, but it does not guarantee that everyone will think appropriately. Only that they will think - occasionally before they act or speak.
Let us communicate this message with vigor and conviction at every possible opportunity. Perhaps one day we will all be able to look back - yes in our lifetime - and say "Look at the wondrous world we have helped to create. We are all one." We have not done enough to help people understand this truth which we have taken for granted. We have not done enough to get our educators to teach this or for the media to understand this. Muslim, Christian, Jew, Indian, Hindu, black, white, Asian - it does not matter - we are all one.
We must intervene. How? I do not know the specifics yet, but the time of reckoning is definitely upon us. If we do not do something soon, there could be very dire consequences for our future. Perhaps by just adding your thoughts to this dialogue and sharing this message with others you know via email, a small movement can be made. Great things come not from thinking good thoughts, but rather from communicating those thoughts to others and taking actions with right intent.
I look forward to the day when we can truly be one people of one world of one society with heterogeneous cultures mixing freely and often. This can not happen unless we all begin to share the message and expand this understanding of accepting everyone without exception. Taking a strangers hand in yours and saying "I do not know you, but we are one. Though we look different, possess a different set of cultural experiences and believe in different versions of God, you and I are the same. For this reason alone, I embrace you and call you friend."
The more this is discussed, the greater the impact which we can bring to bear. Thank you for taking the time to read this.
With loving thoughts for you all,
Chris Heuer
I find it amusing they everyone wnats to blame the internet, Marylin Manson, and geeks. But when you look at, these kids were obviously ignored by thier folks. C'mon, they police said they found the Bomb just lying around the house! My foilk would have been at least a little suspicous about that.
Assigning the blame for this situation "to mean jocks and uncaring teachers" is specious. Unfortunately, this is a straw man; the article
discusses the misery caused by social pressures in light of the colorado incident.
Truthfully we don't have any good idea of "why" these kids decided to do what they did; we don't really know (short of some slightly educated speculation) that it wasn't quake that was "The Cause."
What we do know is that tons of people play quake (and do not murder people) and tons of people are shunned socially (and do not murder people as a response.)
What I think the point of these people in saying "I understand a little bit of where the TCM were coming from" is that from personal experience they know how punishing the sort of ostracism that *is* caused by "mean jocks and uncaring teachers" really is. People have different responses to this stress. There are some pretty good indications that this sort of stress was a big deal to the TCM.
The point (at least from Katz and people who think about it) is *not* that the kids involved are "not evil." The point is that in the scramble to offload responsibility onto video games/movies/whatever, which have a dubious causal connection with the shootings at best, most people have overlooked the fact that by their own report the TCM were responding to brutal social behavior. This doesn't excuse the shootings, but this behavior is evil in its own right, as well as having some sort of connection to certain violent crimes.
Everyone (not just Americans) is interested in sexuality, and violence is a concern to everyone.
Arguably americans don't deal with these very well, but I think instead of saying "violence and sex on TV cause people to have sinful interests" it would be more accurate to say "the content of television is necessarily dictated by what people are interested in." No one has to be taught violence and hate, but they can be trained to deal with these.
This story hit me hard. 12 years ago and the thought of high school still cramps my stomach. I could never hurt anyone, period, and if these shooters had survived I would not want to see them released, ever. I am however willing to wager these 2 kids were subjected to special treatment for being "different". What makes the bile rise is not the idea of being un- or not-popular, it's the fact that the whole process is *institutionalized*.
:-/
I came from a small town, where the total HS population was like 400 kids. The Jocks and the Rich Preppies got special treatment while The Geeks got silence. Example: You take your seat while the other students are streaming in; the teacher stops some of the 'elite' students to ask them How Was The Game, or How Was The Weekend Ski Trip? There's no accounting by the teachers for smart kid kids who are NOT well-dressed (so you're not a 'rich preppie', some of whom are not so smart..).
When over and over a teacher asks the same set of students for input, what they are really telling the class is The Geeks, The Others have nothing to contribute. Kids are smarter than adults think, but we tend to forget this as we get older.
The kids don't miss the subtleties of exclusion, and following the scent they Prey Upon The Weak. It's the Law Of The Jungle, riiight? Well, when some "freak" snaps THAT'S *also* Darwinism! About all that seperates us from rats is tool usage and more efficent language skills.
The media is perpetuating the witchhunt, and the teachers who are supposed to know better, express at the very least "unease" towards what they do not understand.
The CNN closeups on the product packaging for DooM was a CHEAP stab at an "emotional push-button" for those who are always looking to control what's on TV, the Internet, games, etc. DooM is a release, like I suppose working out does for people like Henry Rollins.
So do the Serbians play Doom, where they're doing massacres like this EVERY DAY..? How about US Postal Workers (do they play Postal?
Everybody snaps under pressure (war confessions anyone?). Most people seek help before it's too late; however some people have been successfully alienated so far they will avoid talking to anyone.
The gun is just an easier tool for venting rage. Ban guns, and these kids would still have killed. HOWEVER they would not have killed more than a person or two each before "mob justice" stamped them into a grease spot.
Living well is the best revenge
Now I earn 5 times what those jocks who made my life miserable in school do .... their lives have been marginalized - some have been in and out of prison because they came out of school without a career - lets face it there are only a couple of hundred people in the whole country who can make as good a living playing football as all us geeks can make programming
In the mid 1970's I attended Renton High School of Renton Washington, a true redneck stronghold whose entire reason for being was to churn out worker bees for the Boeing assembly line. For anyone with even a bit of intelligence it was hell. For someone who did not or could not fit in it was worse than hell. I never fit in...
Instead I was the 1970's version of the 'Trenchcoat Mafia'. I was a punk and a rocker. I was involved in theatre arts. I wore weird clothing, said weird things and dared the jocks to do something about it. The pressure to conform was incredible, but I am a very stubborn person; it just made me more determined to be different. All the while hating the fact that I couldn't fit in (after all, teen years are a time of inconsistency as well).
This was before things like 'Goths' and the Camarilla, before even RPG's. Star Trek had not yet spawned the hordes of Trekkies. As I grew older I learned to subsume this part of me and conform outwardly. My two greatest outlets were Science Fiction and the guitar, and they both allowed me to have a life outside of the mundane world. It wasn't until this decade that I rediscovered my inner geek when I started programming for PC's and the Internet (after years of doing *GACK* mainframes) and when I started attending Science Fiction conventions and getting involved in Fan activities for the first time in thirty-plus years of reading and writing SF. At those conventions I learned of things like Goths and the semi Gothic types we generically call PIB's (People In Black).
The thing is, those 'Trenchcoat Mafia' kids are not really gothic, more a bizarre mix of several different influences. They seem to be closer to skinheads in their outlook than anything else. I feel sorry for the parents of the two shooters and the parents of their friends. I know they must be agonizing over everything they ever said or did to their children. Wondering where they went wrong. I wonder if those parents will be able to see that the real problem isn't clothing choice or being different, but rather in how the kids handled their anger. How they dealt with being rejects in the only society they know.
There is a lot of truth in thinking this (the tragedy in Littelton) changes the way kids who choose to be different will be perceived. Or perhaps (even, more likely) it will be just one more thing to torment them with. I wonder if those who called the attackers names and gave them a hard time are looking at their own actions at all? Thinking, perhaps, that if they had not been as cruel perhaps this would never have happened? Somehow I doubt it...
I don't know. I do know that I was among the worst of the outcasts when I was in high school and that I never went on a murderous rampage. I had access to all the guns I could have ever needed. I knew how to make bombs. I certainly harbored enough rage and anger. But, outside of some fist fights with the jocks, I never acted on my emotions. Was it simply that I wasn't exposed to violent video games and movies like 'Natural Born Killers' or is there some greater gulf between myself and those two boys?
Could it be that I was taught gun safety and personal responsibility for my actions by my parents (and by reading Heinlein)? Could the difference be simply that when I was a teenager my father could still legally beat the crap out of me and that I was more afraid of such a beating than I was of the final dark of a suicide pact? I will never know. I am not sure I want to. Supposedly the suicide rates of teenagers have doubled since 1975 while drug use has gone down. What does this mean? Anything?
It is truly a different world than I grew up in. Has it changed for the better or the worse? Can you lay the blame on the parents or on Hollywood? Is it the gun maker's fault when a gun is used in a crime or is there any such thing as personal responsibility? Is it fluoride in the drinking water? RPG's and DOOM? Lack of religious training?
People are going to be debating these things for a long time, but the only positive moves we are liable to actually see will be ill-considered knee-jerk reactions of one kind or another. Things that, in the long run, are likely to turn out worse than the alternatives. That is how humans work...
It is easy to blame things that can't fight back. And even easier to blame people that don't fit in.
Thought the ages you always had something that was responsible. Strange Gods, Guns, French, or Doom. It truly doesn't matter what you blame as long as its not yourself. It is much easier to think that others are not as good as we are, then to admit that we are not perfect.
I believe that this is the root of racism and a lot of evil in the world. After all Black man looks differant then me, his hair isn't straight.. and therefore he MUST be worse then me.
Easy answer but reality is much differant. There are many factors that create people. The society, the parents, their friends.. and finnaly something inside of them.
I think personally I had most of the factors that would make me the same as the kids that killed. I mean I lived in the country were everybody was Roman Catholic. I am not. Therefore I was branded, I was the outcast, and the communist (which I never was, but because I am athiest therefore in some people's minds that made me the hated evil communist).
Then I came to America.. and now I have an accent, BRANDED.. OBVIOUSLY I am not as smart as others because I don't speak like they do. I don't socialize, play on teams. Drink, or go to parties. I hate teenage girls, and so I don't date (though I am not gay). Worst of all, I do what at that time was the most evil thing in the world... I play D&D!, and I use computer.
So look at me, I have all the reasons to go balistic. I am the upopular geek, that doesn't fit in, that is made fun off, that isn't' athetic, and that plays D&D. Yet I am almost 30 now and never have I pulled a gun on someone.. nor would I ever even think about it.
My point is simple, stop blaming things that can't fight back, look into yourself. Find the answers that are much harder to accept.
The fault was within the kids themselves. There will always be the "in crowd" and the rest. Part of being a teenager is that you are trying to find yourself. Most teenagers are confused, feel at least partially rejected. They try to find who and what exactly they are. They think they are ready for the freedom that the society is not ready to give them. Plus they think they know the world, and older people just don't get them. It has always been that way, and will always will be.
As much as I can't believe of 17-18 year old being "evil" I also think that there has to be something wrong within them, to have the ability to comit such an act.
"Follow your weird, ladies and gentlemen. Forget trying to pass for normal. Follow your geekdom. Embrace your nerditude. In the immortal words of Lafcadio Hearn, a geek of incredible obscurity whose work is still in print after a hundred years, "woo the muse of the odd." A good science fiction story is not a "good story" with a polite whiff of rocket fuel in it. A good science fiction story is something that knows it is science fiction and plunges through that and comes roaring out of the other side. Computer entertainment should not be more like movies, it shouldn't be more like books, it should be more like computer entertainment, SO MUCH MORE LIKE COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT THAT IT RIPS THROUGH THE LIMITS AND IS SIMPLY IMPOSSIBLE TO IGNORE!
I don't think you can last by meeting the contemporary public taste, the taste from the last quarterly report. I don't think you can last by following demographics and carefully meeting expectations. I don't know many works of art that last that are condescending. I don't know many works of art that last that are deliberately stupid. You may be a geek, you may have geek written all over you; you should aim to be one geek they'll never forget. Don't aim to be civilized. Don't hope that straight people will keep you on as some kind of pet. To hell with them; they put you here. You should fully realize what society has made of you and take a terrible revenge. Get weird. Get way weird. Get dangerously weird. Get sophisticatedly, thoroughly weird and don't do it halfway, put every ounce of horsepower you have behind it. Have the artistic *courage* to recognize your own significance in culture!
Okay. Those of you into SF may recognize the classic rhetoric of cyberpunk here. Alienated punks, picking up computers, menacing society.... That's the cliched press story, but they miss the best half. Punk into cyber is interesting, but cyber into punk is way dread. I'm into technical people who attack pop culture. I'm into techies gone dingo, techies gone rogue -- not street punks picking up any glittery junk that happens to be within their reach -- but disciplined people, intelligent people, people with some technical skills and some rational thought, who can break out of the arid prison that this society sets for its engineers. People who are, and I quote, "dismayed by nearly every aspect of the world situation and aware on some nightmare level that the solutions to our problems will not come from the breed of dimwitted ad-men that we know as politicians." Thanks, Brenda!
That still smells like hope to me....
You don't get there by acculturating. Don't become a well-rounded person. Well rounded people are smooth and dull. Become a thoroughly spiky person. Grow spikes from every angle. Stick in their throats like a pufferfish. If you want to woo the muse of the odd, don't read Shakespeare. Read Webster's revenge plays. Don't read Homer and Aristotle. Read Herodotus where he's off talking about Egyptian women having public sex with goats. If you want to read about myth don't read Joseph Campbell, read about convulsive religion, read about voodoo and the Millerites and the Munster Anabaptists. There are hundreds of years of extremities, there are vast legacies of mutants. There have always been geeks. There will always be geeks. Become the apotheosis of geek. Learn who your spiritual ancestors were. You didn't come here from nowhere. There are reasons why you're here. Learn those reasons. Learn about the stuff that was buried because it was too experimental or embarrassing or inexplicable or uncomfortable or dangerous."
(Note that Bruce is advocating not revenge through violence, but revenge through cultural change. We're already doing a good job; the TV networks and conventional newspapers are already in a panic over the promise/threat of the Net. Let's do more. Let's make manually operated stock markets and futures markets and currency trading obsolete, and put all those Wall Street toads on the street. Let's gut the lobbying business, and marketing business, and make highly paid retail sales positions an anachronism. In other words, let's make all the jobs that jocks eventually migrate to obsolete. Make them live in our world for a change. BWAHHHH-hah-hah!)
Stefan
1984 was supposed to be an allegory for 1948
You mean anagram?
IIRC Orwell needed some arbitrary year in the not-too-distant future, and he pulled that one out of his ass by transposing two digits. IIRC also Winston Smith is only guessing that that's the year, because nobody keeps track any more.
Grim book, I agree.
It had a lot to do with the nationalist attitudes, "My Country, right or wrong" that were prevalent at that time.
That and also the degradation of public discourse into meaningless slogans and bullshit, which was a hobby-horse of Orwell's. He was especially concerned about the retroactive re-engineering of history, which the Soviets were famous for, e.g. airbrushing "unpersons" out of official group photographs. Another good example would be when the first Gulf War started: Saddam Hussein was and always had been the eternally steadfast, peace-loving friend of Oceania -- but then one morning, the truth changed, and everybody knew that Saddam Hussein was and always had been the eternally inimical, war-mongering enemy of Oceania. And hardly anybody noticed, much less cared. (Yeah, I agree that Saddam Hussein is a shithead -- but a lot of people had been saying that for years before George Bush did, and they had always been dismissed as fringe lunatics. The "new, improved truth" was probably a lot more accurate than the old "truth". My point is not that Bush was particularly good or evil, nor that that war was or was not justified; rather, my point is that the state was able to redefine "black" as "white" overnight and make it stick.)
The fact that a lot of it is still relevant is what scares me...
Now more than ever, I'm afraid.
What ever happened to equality. You're denouncing the underlying foundations for our society, which is an evolution that has occured over the past couple hundred years. The rights of the individual are paramount. I suggest you read 1984 by George Orwell, or observe similar phenomenon in Kosovo at this time. This is not acceptable behavior. period.
My expereince is going to come to an end in about 30 days. So, I have a pretty fresh look at experience in high school. My high school is located in a affluent suburb of New Jersey and thus my experience probably deviates from those experiencing high school in a city. However, I am predisposed to thinking that my experience should be similiar to others in suburban high schools, or at least similiar to other's in north eastern suburban high school.
I'm definetely not apart of the 'in' crowd or popular. I do hwoever have several friends, most are not 'geeks'. I have rarely been cruely ostracized by others. From my observations and experience, derogatroy remarks to others are usually meant in a 'joking type of way' and not meant to be harmful and usually only occur when both parties feel comfortable with the situation.
In addition, classes are usually segregated by ability or motivational level. In other words, you aren't going to find people completely uninterested in learning taking Calculus I or college level Biology. Gym classes, lunch, and extra classes of course are not segregated. In these classes, I have generally found very little problem. Occasionally in gym, some ass who is obsessed with winning makes some belittling remarks. However people who follow the aforementioned behavior pattern are surprisingly few.
As for the distinction between jocks and nerds, its almost nonexistant. The valedictoria plays on the varisy soccer team, she is going to UPenn. The saledictorian plays varsity soccer and lacross, he's going to Harvard. Other people who participate in sports and extra cirricular activities are evenly disperesed between the various levels of intelectual abilities and motivations.
Maybe my highschool is a deviation and not the norm, I'm not sure... From comments by other posters, it seems it is the devitaion.
You're basically just described the embodiment of myself in High School. Academically I sat in the same percentile as you. Teachers DID tell me that I was smart, and I naievely believed them. In my last year I did wake up from that three year sleep. This is when I realized something. High school isn't hard; your just have to try. I found that everything was easy providing that I stayed on top of the course material. This is coming from someone who did NOTHING throughout until senior year.
From then the world started looking a lot brighter. I was actually interested in literature, math, law, and science. I even presented myself and argued my point of view instead of holding back. Before I had kept to myself and had been relegated to the library each lunch, gripped by paranoia that other people would make fun or persecute me; but as I payed more attention to social nuances, friends naturally came.
I am now in University and working towards a BS in engineering. If it wasn't for those teachers who motivated me, I think i would most likely be flipping burgers to pay for my night school devry classes, hoping to get a sysadm job with no BS and an ultimate salary cap of 45k a year.
You are right though. It's the social ineptness that kept me back. It also distorted my view of the world, and kept me laying in bed at night, wondering why we do anything at all. I was kidding myself that nothing mattered, when in fact, I was crying myself to sleep.
I have never been popular in school. In elementerey school, I continually picked on to the point where I actually got pretty good at defending myself with my fists. In middle school, I sat at a table by myself for lunch. I was even harassed by my teachers there for expressing too many of my own opionions. At the beginning of the year, I was told by my Reading and Social Studies teachers that I would fail both of their classes if I continued my efforts to rather eloquently criticize the views expressed in classroom materials. My social studies teacher once made us make posters that would increase our awareness of environmental concerns. I never really liked making posters of any sort, especially in 8th grade where we should be learning to read and write instead of doodling. I explained this matter to my mother who agreed such an assignment was a waste of paper, and proceeded to write a speech on recycled paper about it. My teacher would not hear the speech, and she made me stand up in front of the class while she told them, "It's people like this who are destroying our ozone layer." This event made it really hard for me to participate in many classroom activities, not to mention school activities. I was also an outcast in high school as well. I discovered linux early in my freshmen year, and spent a lot of time on doing computer things nobody understood. I was constantly criticized about my long hair and odd style of clothes (my nickname there is shagz, I don't mind it as long as the tone isn't demeaning). I didn't go to any high-school dances or games until this, my senior, year. My attempt to join track only meant that I was exhausted all the time and repeatedly thrown into the pond. It was only this year where I discovered a place where I truly do fit in, a club (that shall remain namelsess) open to people under 21 on Saturdays. Here I could truly be myself, and meet other individuals like myself. The place has changed quite a bit last Saturdy. Parents have dropped in to see where their sons and daughters are going. I'm not sure that it's a step in the wrong direction, but I sure hope they can look past the strange garb and different music and realize that the people who go there are all intelligent, caring, individuals--people more kind than the Tommy-Hillfigger(tm)-wearing, SUV-driving kids who spend much of their time attempting to merge with the right crowd instead of being an individual.
let's face it: the "REAL WORLD" (TM) is whatever universe you're living in NOW !
Not what the world will be in X years.
Not what the world is for someone else.
Not what the world is elsewhere.
Not even a combination of the above.
And for some people, that REAL WORLD is hell, for whatever reasons.
That's why I think computers/games/Internet are great for those people : for a moment, you can evade hell and live in another universe far more interesting and pleasing, even if it's just for a moment, even if it's just a virtual world.
At least, with a little imagination, it FEELS real for a moment. Helps alot when you go back to Hell after a lengthy game of Quake/AD&D/whatever...
At least you had fun for awhile.
Just a few notes (no particular order here, lower your flame-guns flamers) :
- I feel sorry for these 2 kids. What they did was BAD, I agree. But they were kinda pushed to it.
Imagine how hard it must have been for them to think that the only way out is to kill others and die. yeak.
- I feel sorry for their victims, too. Whatever they did, they surely didn't deserved to die that way.
- I hope (I know, it's utopic) some kids in school will think about how the way they treat other kids can make those suffer.
- knowing what pushed the killers that far is interesting, but let's not think it applies the same to everyone. Even if you could identify exactly what externals conditions led them to those insane acts, you could not predict that the same external conditions applied to someone else will lead to the same results.
(hope you get what I mean, I know my english is poor)
- it's kinda ironic that school admins. are worsening the pressure on kids by trying to adress the problem (cf. stories of kids asked to not wear this or that, etc..). What they are actually telling kids is "I think you're a potential killer" - I hope some kids won't think "I'll prove them right"...
just my 0.2 $...
Nicson
[too lazy to create an account and log in]
>my suggestion: go to a large school (I'm at Berkeley)
I wish it were that simple. When you are under 18 you don't have much (if any) choice of the school you'll be attending.
I've lived in small towns in Wyoming and North Dakota that had just one high school (unless you went to the Catholic school) and that was *it*. I am also a geekgirl/woman/programmer/gamer/whatever (just hit the big 3-0, whoo hoo, so that might be putting me outa the 'girl' range...), and while growing up my family moved around a lot.
Here's what my experience has been. I tend to ramble, so if anyone reading this has a super short attention span, please feel free to move on. And I want to state for the record that I have very little sympathy for the shooters because everyone is ultimately responsible for their own actions. So don't get the wrong idea from what you read below.
Ok- first a bit about me. I was born in California and come from a racially diverse background (caucasion and creole). My father work in the oil business (roughneck) and we moved wherever the oil was. Early on I lived in Odessa, TX and Casper, then Douglas, WY, back to CA and back to Casper.
I don't have any particular bad experiences to recount from there as I was really young.
On to Dickinson, ND (I lived there 4 years). I moved there from Casper in the fifth grade. I arrived after the school year had started and was the new kid. Dickinson is the kind of town where people are born, they live, and they retire and die there maybe venturing as far as Bismark or Grand Forks. I am somewhat exaggerating but you get the idea.
Anyway... I tried to make friends there, but it didn't work out very well. I didn't look like them or talk like them (speech therapy eventually fixed that) and they could be very cruel. I don't know, it's kinda hard being a girl with a 'fro and a lisp in their perfectly feathered hair world.
I tried to fit in. I'd get the same clothes, try to do something with my hair. I went to the skating rink where the popular kids went, tried out for cheerleading and student council, *anything* to be accepted.
Nothing worked. No matter what I would try, I was not_like_them and would never be. And they were very active in their dislike. I was hit, spit on, had gum stuck in my hair, not allowed to sit next to them on the bus, etc. I would tell my mother about it and her response was: 'What are you doing to make them not like you?'
Hmmm... let's see here. Oh yeah, I don't have the blue Nikes with the white swoosh, I have the white ones with the rust colored swoosh. Strike one. My hair won't feather. Stike two. I live in a trailer park. Strike three. I have a lisp. I could go on with the reasons but it should be 'obvious' why someone would hate me as clearly I am not as 'good' as the rest. Do I sound hostile? You bet! Even just composing the post has opened up something very raw and painful. Do I to this day have a strong dislike for them? Yes. Would I have taken a gun and shot them? Hell, no.
As it turned out, I have the last laugh as I got outta there and am doing quite well...
To anyone still reading this, whew! You stuck it out this long with my public venting. Thanks!
DL
...for this and countless other reasons.
And to hell with any smarmy politican that wants to save it, or entertain fantasies that it can be reformed. The whole notion is structurally flawed. Let's finally scrap it. Let's go completely to private schools.
For the underprivileged, there's parochial schools. Yes, I'm aware that catholic schools are really messed up places, but they're still not as bad as inner city public schools. Those borderline psychotic nuns are the lesser evil.
To all these kids that feel this way, hang in
there and fight the good fight. To people like
us, high school was the worst experience of our
lives. But from there on out, it gets easier
to find your own cliche and fit in in your own way. Just don't give up because it does get
better. And remember, five years later you'll
probably be earning twice as much as the jocks while they're still living with their parents.
I really have to agree with this. What I have
found most disturbing about the media coverage
of this tragedy is the lack of examination
of the environment which cause those two
disturbed individuals to feel so ostracized
while the media looks for easier scapegoats.
Only salon.com and Cokie Roberts (on 20/20)
have pointed any blame at the cruelty of the
kids in the high school.
Marilyn Manson and video games are easy target
but unfortunately these types of feelings have
been going on for a long time. Just look at
other pop culture references which have been around for a while. The Boomtown Rats song
"I don't like Mondays", Julie Brown's "The
homecoming queen has got a gun", or the movie
Heathers which all show that these feeling are
nothing new.
When one looks at where these event have been
happening, it's appear to be smaller, more
conservative towns. While some are surprised at the violence in these "safe" communities, it
seems obvious to me that the homogeneous and
rigid nature of these place is at the root of
the problem.
I went to a large diverse high school in a major
city. Like all high school kids I struggled
with fitting in versus defining my own identity.
Feeling a bit like an outsider I always found
some solace in the fact that all the exterior
scenes from Heathers were shot at my junior
high school. However, in such a diverse
environment, there are some many groups that
you could never feel actively excluded by
EVERYONE. There was such a mix ethnicities,
socio-economic groups, and individuals.
In a smaller, less tolerant situation, with
fewer options and less tolerance, I can't
imagine how oppressive it must be. Persecuting
those who already feel oppressed and removing
their ability to express their feelings at best
is only going to gloss over the situation. At
worst, it will create an ever more oppressive
environment. The only way this is going to get
better is to create a more tolerance environment,
both in high school and in the society at large.
I spent my high school years watching the best and brightest moulded, manipulated, mutilated by the American school system. There were two choices: you could give up your identity, your free will, and conscious thoughts by "rebelling" and conforming with the "non-conformists" or you could be fully conformist: getting the best grades, joining the right clubs, being the darling child. All the while reeling in the pain at having to cut off your most personal appendage so that you would not be constantly attacked and berated.
But there is always another choice. You can coose to withdraw and focus your attentions on the teachers that care, the few subjects that you have passion about. Those rare lines of study that you didn't test at a post high school level for in 6th grade.
On some levels I feel amazingly lucky that I was able to find a large enough group of people at Boise High school that simply accepted. That was all we really wanted so we gave it to each other.
Oh my the rewards of being outside the outsiders. The most inane comments would receive scrutiny from the counselors. It must be luck, In two years we were scrutinized not by local law enforcement, but the FBI and the Secret Service.
Big brother stepped in to make sure we knew who really was in control. Did it really matter? I gave up the prestigious college. I run into those people every once in a while, their spirit broken, happy because they have found "success" but hollow because a part of them is missing.
Never stop searching for the answers. High school sucks, but that's the point. This is life at it's worst. It only gets better from there. Get together with some people and watch all the high school angst movies.
Gee can I spin some more cliches together for a feel good speech?
Seriously the American Educational system is the embodyment of one singular goal: conformity. We mass produce people with the same grinding industrial assembly line that we use to produce cars and computer chips. We even use the same terms. Non-conforming kids are "defective" and must be "corrected". People that excel at embracing conformity and celebrated.
This is a societal issue. It's also an issue of control. It is easier to control people that have given up questioning authority and the decision making process.
This all comes back to the siren call of the Internet for many of us: Acceptance. A group of peers. We can go into thousands of chat rooms and IRC channels and gaming servers and find people like ourselves. People who want to find the truth, who don't want to give up their freedoms. People who are willing to accept other people as unique human beings. Some better, some worse, but all people, human beings.
There aren't any pat answers or sources to blame. These are fundamental societal questions. I don't know what we can or should do. I just know that we have the collective intelligence around here to do more than bitch and I hope to see that happen.
chris
chris@pugrud.net
--
p.s. for the polls I do own several guns and I have a license to carry those guns in public. I do dearly hope that those guns are never used for anything but the target practice that I so enjoy.
If you want to maintain your rights and freedoms you must exercise them.
Hello all... This is my first post, so forgive me... I have just never felt so deeply about a subject... I'm sorry if any of my comments below offend any of you - they are not meant to. I am just curious if there is anyone else out there who is like me in any way - If you are, please tell me - I'm tired of feeling so alone...
/. readers do as well... Every major accomplishment that mankind has was either invented by us, or by people like us. Yet, I apply for a good paying job, and I am turned down because I never went to college. I guess the days of Andresseen and the others are gone... I respect the truely educated people, and give them the honor that they earn. But, in my mind, to quote a woman like us from IRC, a degree is nothing more to many people than an expensive paper that says you are a trainable monkey. (Sorry if I am offensive to anyone, but come see this years graduates from the local college, and you'll see why i feel this way)
I, like most other people in America, did their time in High School. In my case,I 'literally' did my time - in jail. When I was a junior in HS, I skipped school where I was 'learning' how to play basketball, and went to the local Air Force Base and learned how to hack Unisys machines... Of course, the establishment didn't see it this way, and I went to Juvenile Detention - 4 times in fact. After a year of this, I was forced to go to a group home, where many of the other people there had long histories of sexual abuse and being abusers. So, I lived there until I graduated in 1991. Here I am up in my little room banging away on my Amiga, learning how to compile a compiler... I never will forgive my mother for this (My parents were divorced) - my father, thank god he is as geeky as I am...
Back in school, I'm learning about everything that I taught myself with a good set of encyclopedias when I was a kid. I taught myself to read when I was two. Everythin that I learned that I needed to know, I taught myself. Any of you ever learn about phreaking in high school? Any of you ever learn how to set up a BBS? How to program 3D tesselations in your mathematics classes? I don't think so.
I was one of those people that all the other people that was strange. I was a complete outcast. People thought I was going to kill others, or set the school on fire, or kidnap people and hold them hostage. Why? Because I looked different? Because I got good grades? I never caused anyone any trouble. Damn school psychologist `arranged' for me to be evaluated. I wish I would know was it is they found - No one ever told me (go figure). I'm not a deviant person. I've never hurt anybody else in my life. I've never attacked anyone, or abused anyone. I remember one time when I was in that group home that I refused to take the damn medications. Three hours later I was in the back of a police car on my way to the Juvenile Detention center yet again - BTW, I was over 18 now - big lawsuit here... Life has been so crappy...
When I got out on my own, first thing I did was shrug those drugs into the toilet. And then I moved away. The moving away was the best thing I ever did. I had no money for college, let alone food sometimes, but I saved it up...
I'm now 26, and I am so much happier now. My fiancee is in many ways like me, except in her case she was ostracized because she was involved with theatre. We have both been through these things, and all I can remember is that the whole time through all these evaluations, and drugs, and therapies, no one ever bothered to stop and think that maybe I was the healthy one. When you are a smart kid, I guess that also means that you are insane and evil and all you can think about is wanting to kill, kill, kill. Not me. When I would use my computer, and other computers, and when I would read, I would begin to understand. The pieces of our world suddendly fit together. I see the possibilities where everyone else thinks "so what?"
Everything I ever needed to know about life I learned from skipping school that junior year. I learned about people and how they are scared of the smart ones because we are different. I learned to stop living day-by-day and to step back and look at the whole picture and see the world for all its possibilities, not its differences and failures. My five year reunion was a few years ago, and nobody ever even cared enough to send a notice, let alone an invitation. One of my friends went, and from what he told me I should be damn thankful I didn't - after five years, nothing had changed other than we aged a bit. Something tells me that even in twenty-five more years things will still be the same... At least I can save on plane fare...
I never went to college. I got accepted at most of the major `technology' schools in North America. I never felt like I could. I'd spent 13 years of my life (K-12) on this school thing, and I never want to go back. Everytime I go to the local university and begin to register, I see so many people that do those same high school things like they did when I was in school that it scares me off.
I did at one point try to become like them. I bought the fancy expensive clothes, and went from being the computer nerd to the computer nerd with the expensive designer clothes. Made no difference. I was still ostracized. No girlfriends in my school for me. All the personal relationships I ever had came from those who were like me and understood. My fiancee now understands, but I don't know if she really does. All those years of hurt have affected me in many ways. I am a way-over-achiever now. But, I am misunderstood. That is the problem I would like to solve. I have never really been understood. Sometimes I feel like I don't belong in this world at all, but it is here, so I have to try. Sometimes that is all I have is to try.
Someday maybe the world will understand and accept that there are more of us geeks and nerds than they care to admit. Maybe the world needs a real wake up call - in some odd way maybe the Y2K problem will be our saving grace, so to speak. We could be the only ones with power, lights, heat, telephone, computer, etc... Only because there is an unquenchable desire to know all that is knowable, and to see a better world for all of us, not just the geeks and nerds...
You know, I have a lot of knowledge, and I know that all of the
Like I said at the beginning of this post, i'm sorry if I have offended anyone. But when I saw these posts, I realized that I needed to tell someone my story. I have never in my life felt so emotional in the ten years I have been on the Net about something in either a newsgroup or later, on a website...
Something has to change... I have always prayed that the geeks would inherit the Earth... Something tells me though, that it's not going to happen in my lifetime...
Thank you for you time - and for letting me dump on you. I feel so much better now.
moriarty@americamail.com
I quit debate between my sophmore and junior year because I was fed up with this abuse. Many jokes were made that one day I would snap and kill many students, but luckily that never happened. I dropped out quietly mainly because I was still afriad. I got it taken out of my schedule and skipped the end of the year banquet. I didn't show up at the before-school-year workshop and told them about my desicion when asked.
I was scared of school at the beginning of my Junior year, but now everything is okay. It's amazing how much of a difference a couple of peers can make in the world of high school. I am enjoying school, as much as a geek like me can. I still loath pep rallies, homework, and many other staples of school, but that doesn't stop me from having a good time inside my classes. I enjoy playing chess, spades, or other games with my friends during lunch of free time. (Many of my friends are gamers, but I enjoy more traditional games..)
A girl at my highschool was sent home for having on black fingernail polish, They called it "suspicious behaviour"
Why do you think that the public keeps brigning up the easy answers?
Because, easy answers have easy solutions, also always invole the other guy. It's easy to blame Marilyn Manson, DOOM, the Internet, and trench coats, becuase these have nothing to do with the persons placing the blame. Now with these answers there is now an easy solution, just get rid of these things and the problem will go away. Of course, this is just a solution that will not really work, but it will cause the public to belive the problem is being worked on. The real problem here is the High School Culture, and even American Culture. Now to accepet this answer would require people to blame themselves, which of course is a hard thing to do.
The high school culture is very messed up, it basicly one of confority, and control, if doesn't fit in and play by the rules, then one is punished. Now this is not a easy problem to fix, there some hard truths that need to famced and some hard changes will need to be made.
The problem american culture, is the desire to have everything, yet give up nothing. This leads to a porblem with many american families, now when a couple has kids they are unwilling to give much of anything for the welfare of the kids. In order to keep a big house, the expensive cars, and the other luxeries of life, both parents have to keep working, and there is no one to properly raise the kids. The real soultion is for parents to reailize that parenting is not a part-time job and not a job that someone else can do. Then decide that they want a family there needs to be a strong commitment do doing it right.
Jon,
Great article, it's good to hear what is really happing, and further expose the stupidity of easy answers.
Geek power and all that jazz.
I think there is an interesting point to be gleaned from acb's statement above. Highschool prepared/s us for the modern industrial society - which is the source of our public schools system. Highschools, last time I checked, is doing a mediocre to terrible job of preparing us for the information economy (sorry about the overused cliche, but it need to be there).
Highschool sucked, in university it got better. The 'real world' (as much as I'm in it) got even better.
- Caro.
"Forget world peace. Visualize using your turn signals" - seen on the net somewhere
Wow, pretty contradictory, eh?
The system is all around us in our culture. It is all about rules, controls, checks and balances. This system is implemented by the powers that be to keep things running smoothly. Powers fear change, and therefore need the system to ensure that everything runs according to the plan.
As an individualist, you have probably already dismissed the plan. You have probably already recognized it's shortcomings and weaknesses, whis is why you have chosen to branch off from it, rather than try to conform to the expected norm. I feel that this is a good thing, but you must realize that, because the powers fear change, they will resist you. They will try to force you into the system. They will become frustrated, and you will become angry. You wmay be branded as an "outsider" or "troublemaker". This is not a good thing.
You cannot simply go against the system. The system is like a fast moving river, and you are stranded somewhere along it. The current tries to push you in a certain direction. If you try to fight the current, you will lose the battle, and be swept away nonetheless. What you must learn to do is work the system, the current. No one is asking you to go where the stream pushes you, but by watching how the water flows, and observing and learning it's patterns and behviours, you can use the current to take you where you want to go.
As it is in the system. If you fight the system head-on, you will fall. It's not fair, but that's the way it works. What you need to do is look at how the rules of the system work, and learn to use, manipulate, and bend these rules to get you where you want to go. Don't reject the system outright, but rather use it's power to your own advantage. Don't let it change who you are, but rather find a way to make the system work with you.
You will need patience. The system doesn't always let you move where you want to immediately. You must learn that, if you move in the right way, at the right time, you can go where you want to through the system. Attaining a harmony with the system, but not letting it control you, is the path to success. Ever see The Matrix? Kinda like that, only without having to jab a probe through your brain.
So how do you make it through the system without becoming a drone? That's where the other point comes in: fuck it. No, I don't mean literally. You must also see that, despite the power of the system within mainstream society, it is not omnipresent. You must be able to "escape" the system every now and then. By reaching out and finding a peer group of people who are "on your level" and have also learned to see the system, you let yourself exist on an intrapersonal basis in an environment free of the rules of the system. The Internet is a great forum for this, as the deliberate environment of agreed anarchy precludes the intervention of the system. A warning though, don't let it become all-consuming. Don't let the Internet take the place of real intra-personal relationship, or the real-world skills that help you navigate the system will soon begin to decay.
Once I made this realization, life suddenly became so much easier for me. I am still learning the rules, but the more I know about the system, the more I can manipulate it to my own ends as a non-conformist. You'd be suprised how often the powers can look past your individualism so long as they can't detect a threat to the system.
In summary: The system is there. You can't stop it by fighting it. Don't give up your individualism. Learn how to work and use the system, and you will rise above it. Keep a few good friends, with whom you can relax outside of the system. Be yourself.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Adam Schumacher
cybershoe@mindless.com
I can't say that I have as much life experience as you, but I can definitely understand your situation.
:) is your will, knowledge and imagination. In the past I've done a lot like running a BBS, programming since I was like 10 or so, administering computers and networks, etc. Currently I'm working on my own CRPG (online, static-world, high-capacity roleplaying game...www.avalonent.org) and I love it, I feel like a god whenever I work at the code, creating my own world. But there's another side to life, and it certainly isn't all that great for me at this time...
...hopefully I can find an understanding woman in my future, one who is fine with me being myself. I'm sorry that I really can't offer any advice but I can only share my short story and hope that you find that you're not alone, there are plenty of others like you and I who have been "shown the door" concerning inclusion in society, some more than others. The world is a scary place, and those who brave it while staying true to themselves are the real winners.
I've been involved in computers from the age of 6, when I got my first real PC, a 286/16 (currently I'm almost 17 and a sophomore at high school.) Ever since then I've been hooked, in that little gray box there is a world of possibilities and adventures, and the only thing holding you back (if you aren't using some shitty OS like 'doze
Where I live is known for being a very liberal town, hell, even the mayor is gay. But I still take plenty of crap for being different. I've become really good at hiding what makes me what I am rather than risking being ostracized for it, the state of the public school system in America is rather sad. I don't really pretend I'm someone else, I just don't openly share who I am with others, if I do it's usually on a very superficial level. Some would say to "be yourself and don't care what others think about you", but I've been there and done that, and in high school it only makes your life hell, or at least it did mine.
Right now I fit in alright, I'm not popular or anything, but at the same time I'm well-liked by most others. But I feel that I'm not *living* my life...my potential is constantly oppressed and I can't really talk to anyone about who I really am because they just can't understand me, so I've all but given up with trying. This is a good indication as to the fact that I've never gone to see school counselors, etc.
I'm really a good guy at the root. I hate being mean to people (I'm sure it bothers me more than them when I do it) and I just love having fun, fun that doesn't involve putting others down to make yourself feel better (that's certainly hard to find in my environment.) For me understanding comes from children, I love kids. Just spending time with them makes me feel somehow fulfilled as a human being...all you have to do is give them attention and love and they'll love you back for who you are. I don't have to pretend in front of them, and that's what I love about it. Of course they most likely can't understand what I do, nor do I expect them to try, just the fact that they're there and smiling at you is enough. It's sad to see them grow up and be filled with stereotypes and misconceptions, but it's inevitable these days, I don't know how it was back when you were growing up.
People fill that void in different ways, for me it's children, for you hopefully it's your fiancee
Robby Dermody (Nova)
nova@avalonent.org
The issue of how much time parents have available for their kids is an economic and social issue. In a society where, in low-middle class families, both parents have to work to make ends meet, some people have to have more than one job, and so on, parents may have to make this choice: spend quality time with your starving children, or work all day.
Think of it. If a parent stays home and dedicates him/herself exclusively to care for the children, the system considers that person to be unemployed!!!
Anyway, look at the economic indicators for the last 20 years. The situation of the US lower and middle classes has been continuously getting more and more fucked. This with horrible consequences for their children.
---
Well, I would have to agree that these couple of recent pieces by him have been VERY good... And they have provoked a lot of nice comments from people.
I wish I'd read this story when I was back in high school. I was at a Jesuit school in Puerto Rico; it was hell, and I really wanted to kill myself. Luckily I had a couple of very good friends who were into what I was into--- playing music, electronics, and computers.
Anyway, I escaped that hell, and went to college. I had a FUCKING BLAST!!!! Studied literature, math, philosophy, programming, art, psychology, and more. I got to meet lots of bright people.
Now I have some advice for all the geeks still stuck in those hell holes. Finish high school early, and go to college. I skipped my senior year--- took the courses I needed from that in summer--- and it was definitely worth it.
Then, you got to pull the strings right to get the most out of college--- otherwise, it can really suck, as I've seen it has done for many people. Go with the brightest, most challenging professors. Try not to be locked in to some particular program, say, CS--- you'll learn more from a general studies program where you carefully pick classes all over the field with the bright professors than from a structured program with lots of requisite courses you don't want, taught by mediocre guys. If you're going for grad school, anyway, the most important thing is not what area your degree is in, but what courses you've taken, what books you've read, what good stuff you've written, and, overall, what you know.
If you're not going for grad school, still, spend college doing that, plus teaching yourself stuff. Think of all the people who write in slashdot that got sysadmin or programmer or whatever jobs, and are not only self-taught, but have a degree in something seemingly unrelated--- economy, political science, philosophy. You'll be happier that way.
---
I can't agree more. High school for me sucked incrediably, I have the same story as hundreds reading this, outcast, picked on, doing my best to hide from any and all attention and just make it through another day without being embarassed publicly again.
:(
Toward the end though, things got better. I started working out in the gym, started rock climbing and found I was *good* at it. After high school I hooked up with some new people in college, and was so so so incrediably happy to meet people who were mature, and who didn't find joy in making fun of my shoes/jacketc/shirt for no reason other than to make me feel bad.
Finding good people is the key I think you can thrive off of each other, and if your environment is comfortable and happy life is so much better.
But that said, I really feel for the kids in HS today, because at least when I was there (6 years ago or so) we didn't have nearly the drug/weapon and gang problems that are more and more apparent these days
Good luck guys, and just remember that there *are* people out here who feel as you do, and this "evil internet culture" can (and is) used for support and communication.
Listen to that first verse...that's Littleton, CO, right there, and N other suburban towns around the country. And the chorus just describes perfectly what I've seen posted in other messages in this thread, the way high school is for many people like us, the way it must have been for those two kids.
I don't know if I can look at this tragedy in the same way again...for now I can look at the way my high school years were, and what must have happened to these two, and say "there but for the grace of God go I." True, I didn't go postal the way these kids did...but I can easily imagine the possibility.
I listen to the song, and I think about what's happened, and I think, "What have we done?" Neil Peart penned those lyrics in 1982, right about when one of the Littleton killers was being born...have we learned nothing in all those years? Will we learn anything now?
Eric
--
Be who you are...and be it in style!
Maybe I just went to the wrong high schools, but I had no problems. I wasn't exactly mr. popular, but I was never ridiculed for doing well.
On a typical day I would come to school, late of course because I was online all night, do all my homework during first period and spend the rest of the day either keeping to myself or socializing with a few friends I had.
I never felt any pressure from jocks or any other social class. Then again, I didn't exactly pay much attention to others.
I went to two schools, an upper/middle class school in northern california and a full range school in southern california. Both where basically identical, though the one in LA did have a bit more violence.
I guess I don't get it. I've been playing first person shooters since wolf3d, but never had any violent tendancies. I never wanted to strap on an uzi and paint my school with blood. Personally I detest senseless killing.
And you are most definately wrong about jocks having a free ride in the world. Once you get past high school you have to enter the real world, where work performance is more important than social standing.
That's not to say social standing isn't important, without good networking skills you are sunk in a large portion of the business world.
What I'm trying to say is that the kids in Littleton were, as far as I can tell, mentally unstable. If high school didn't push them over the edge, something later in life would have.
--
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
First, as regards those who are being mistreated in school as a result of this, the admininstrators are not your friends. Accept this. When you find this isn't true in the case of one individual or group of individuals (rare, but happens), treat them accordingly, but remember that they're there to make things run smoothly. If they can lower their workload by walking all over you, most will do it without hesitation. Expect it.
So what to do? You people are supposed to be smart. God or nature may not have given you beauty or strength, but one of the premises here is that you to have brains. Use them. The letters to Katz show several lawsuits waiting to happen. Be aware that you don't have to file them (I never did). Go to the library. Read the relevant areas of the Constitution. Find some court cases that set precedents that favor your position. When Joe Administrator tries to force you into counseling for speaking your mind, lay it on him calmly, coolly, and with confidence. He will turn tail and hide.
And if this doesn't work? Pick up a pen. "The pen is mightier than the sword" is an old cliche, but it's true. If you know how to use it. When my school implemented a draconian dress code (for no real reason that anyone could ascertain; the vice principal just decided to do it) I wrote a long editorial for the school newspaper. I pointed out the flaws in the reasons given for each specific rule. I did not call names. I did not use inflammatory language. I did use humor. I did cite legal angles. When the vice principal tried to kill the article, he was unsuccessful because he couldn't point to anything that was actually wrong with it other than it kind of made him look stupid. The dress code wasn't repealed as a result of this (it ain't a perfect world), but neither was it enforced. And if he had killed the article? First I would have offered to send it to the local paper along with an explanatory letter to the editor. This will usually work. If that hadn't worked, I would have gone ahead and sent them.
The point is, you need to do what the TCM didn't. Take responsibility for your life. If you can get help from your parents or a teacher do so, but if you can't (I usually didn't) don't just roll over. There is always a way to fight back. You'll have to work harder than you should have to to find it, and you'll lose some frustrating battles, but if you're smart (and you are, right?) and careful, you'll win most. It is worth it. And you'll find that you might not have to wait until you're out of high school to laugh at the people who are putting you down.
In 1963 the Supreme Court voted to ban prayer in public schools. Since then, the ideas of "love your neighbor", "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.", and "forgiveness" have not been uttered or espoused. These are the things that a complex society needs to have if its constituents are to be happy, healthy, and wise. However, these values are considered "religious", and thus cannot be uttered. It is a truly sad and paradoxical situation.
However, that said, it is really the responsibility of the parents to instill these values. Obviously not every parent does, and it seems fewer do all the time. When kids go on a shooting rampage like this it is always due to problems in the home, compounded by problems in school. Many posters here complain about abuses in school, but home life and family values are at least adequate and so they do not go out and shoot up the school.
How can a couple of school kids make bombs and amass weapons without their parents knowing or caring? That is the crux of this problem.
--
--
The early bird catches the worm. The worm that sleeps late lives to see another day.
I think the best thing to do for your kids is to teach them self-reliance and independance. Not just teaching them to be totally different all the time, because that is just another form of basing you self worth on what others think about you, but truly doing what you want to do, whether that be the same as others sometimes or not. Like many people on Slashdot and around the world, I am just like these kids. The difference is that I was taught to do my own thing and not to condone or condemn other for doing theirs. The most important thing is to teach your kids that yes, high school is usually four years of shit, even for the "popular" kids, but it will end. The real world is nothing like high school and definately worth waiting for.
The main problem I have with homeschooling (I wasn't but I know those who were) is that you only have one teacher, maybe two if both your parents teach you. I did not really enjoy high school but I did like the many different types of teachers and many different styles. I got a lot out of just different things we did in each class, even if it was just the same stuff I could have learned out of a book. I also think you have a bit of a disadvantage in the socialization department because you don't have the tons of different types of people to be around. When you only socialize at functions you choose, you are dealing primarily with people with the same interests as you, not the weirdo sitting you behind you, the pretty girl in the next seat over, whoever.
'nuff said, again. >;)
That's absolutely right. I was so damaged by high school I tried to kill myself! It took _years_ to heal from all that, especially because I didn't realise it WAS NOT the real world. It's been a long hard road learning that lesson. But now, I have self-respect and know who I am and where I have value, and you know what? I may have faults, but there are ways in which I'm just _better_ than the people I felt so less than in high school.
Honest to God, when you quit taking High School and the whole High School perspective seriously, it gets better. There are whole areas of human experience (slashdotters of all people should know this already!) in which the high school In Crowd will always be _losers_.
Your popularity with the football team will never help you write a line of code. In FACT, it will not help you run a business worth a damn either if all you know to do is schmooze. In other words, know yourself, learn, and DITCH the high school values as quick as you can, or you'll be somebody's half-bright employee all your fscking life! I can't overemphasize this. Far from being the golden key to life and happiness, that whole high school in crowd thing is the biggest obstacle to success and fame you could ever have! Be _grateful_ that crowd are wasting their lives by complacently acting like royalty _now_ in a protected, artificial environment with Mom and Dad paying the bills. They, not the geek crowd, will be hurting in ten years, or singin' 'Glory Days' in dingy bars wondering what the hell happened.
'Nuff said.
I'm afraid I'll have to agree with the initial poster. The parents should not take away the computer as an easy solution to keep themselves from having to spend time with their child. Either spend the time to supervise him, or hire somebody who will. Just getting rid of it is not an option.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Well, homeschooling obviously has its advantages, but it also has its disadvantages.
If you spend most of your life at home, with relatives, and with a few close friends, you don't learn how to deal with other people. That could be a serious problem.
Also, leaving the education of children up to the parents only works if the parents are themselves responsible enough to teach the children. If you have bible-thumping fundamentalist parents who teach you that evolution is a sinister conspiracy of godless atheist scientists, you're going to be laughed out of college.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
That's the problem I have with homeschooling. Teaching your kid "this is what the Bible says, and it is the one and only truth" is not doing them any good. If it is indeed the one truth, you should allow them to reach their conclusion on their own. Teaching a kid to accept things as truth from other people without thinking about them on their own is definitely a negative influence on their intellectual development.
I have no problem with the teaching of religion, as long as it remains in the context of "this is what christianity says, this is what buddhism says, this is what islam says, this is what judaism says, and this is what i personally think," and then allowing the child to come to his or her own conclusions.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Hmm, I've heard references to that several times, but i'm not sure of the details. Could you elaborate on the connection?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I'm a government school product. I know of dozens of homeschooled kids, and know over a dozen very well. Without exception, they are far better socialized than their government-educated peers. The reason ought to be obvious: they are not plunged into the pit of peer-pressure hell. Instead, they interact both with other children (of all ages) and with adults (note: not just their parents; homeschoolers frequently collaborate).
Well, I suppose it would depend on the way things are set up. If there is a good amount of collaboration and contact with other people, that's perfectly fine. What's not good is if you sit at home all day and never meet anybody (what I'd probably do if I were homeschooled).
Ha ha ha! That was cute -- no, really. I know one homeschooled girl who scored 1400 on her SAT and was an A student in college. She rejects evolution as so much garbage (and rightly so). It obviously didn't hurt her education, and it surely wouldn't, either. But hey, I suppose you had to get in your digs at Christians somehow. Feel better?
I have no problems with Christians. Many of my friends are Christians, and my parents are Christians. I find fundamentalist Christians a bit odd, but I'm acquainted with some of them, and they're not entirely unpleasant to be around. What I do have a problem with is them trying to impose their beliefs on others. If you want to believe that the scientific method and all current scientific theories are fundamentally wrong, that's your choice, and I'm perfectly fine with that. However, imposing that choice on others, such as your children, is not ok. Giving the children both sides of the story and letting them decide would be much preferrable to giving them a pile of Creationist texts and telling them "this is what is correct."
I personally find evolution to be the most plausible theory to fit the evidence at hand, but I've seen both sides of the story, and my parents (who are Christians) were not afraid to show me both the creationist and scientific sides of the story. FWIW, I got a 1570 on my SAT.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
What is this carnage you are speaking of? Only thirty or so kids have been killed in the last 18 months in school shootings. That's less than have been killed driving to school in that time period. That's less than have been killed in inner cities by gangs in that time period. There's countless other factors that have taken more than 30 students' lives in the last 18 months.
Why does this one get so much more attention? Is it because the victims were mostly wealthy and white, while inner-city shooting victims tend to be poor and black?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The two responses to "Sharkeys-Day"'s post that I've read so far both included just the sort of assumptions and attacks on religion that geeks are suffering on other topics.
That's not how it was intended to be, I'm sorry if it came out that way. I disagree with foisting one's religion on one's children, but I have no problem with the children choosing to follow a religion on their own (whether it is the same as that of their parents or not).
I don't know what to believe with respect to religion but I firmly believe that we have the right to believe what we want, right up until we start harming others with our beliefs.
I agree. That's why my previous post stated:
I have no problem with the teaching of religion, as long as it remains in the context of "this is what christianity says, this is what buddhism says, this is what islam says, this is what judaism says, and this is what i personally think," and then allowing the child to come to his or her own conclusions.
Which is basically what you said - anybody can believe whatever they want, as long as they don't harm others by their beliefs. IMHO, forcing your religious beliefs on your children constitutes harming others by your beliefs, so it is neither beneficial nor morally acceptable.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I can't agree with that. What is wrong with a parent teaching a child about his/her religion?
There's nothing wrong with a parent teaching their child about their religion. There's a problem with the parent forcing the child to follow the same religion.
t is a tremendous fallacy to suggest that participation in an organized religion somehow is a form of brainwashing or intellectual laziness. It is just as much an active choice to stay with and practice your family's religion as it is to choose one of your own.
If you are conditioned since birth to believe that a certain thing is wrong and certain other things are right, it is very hard to overcome that conditioning. Hence, somebody raised as a fundamentalist Baptist Christian, fundamentalist Orthodox Jew, or fundamentalist Muslim will be extremely likely to follow that religion for the rest of their life, mainly because they have never even given a thought to the possibility that they might not be right about everything.
And to say that religous training will somehow get in the way of a child's intellectual development is an insult to the memory of such towering intellects as Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and Albert Einstein, to name just two handy examples.
I'm not familiar with Mr. Brandeis, but IIRC, Albert Einstein was the one that said that Buddhism was the only organized religion that made any sort of sense. He didn't seem like a big fan of organized religion. Again, IIRC, he converted to Buddhism later in his life.
As for counter-examples, take William Jennings Bryan, a fundamentalist Christian (perennial presidential candidate and witness for the anti-evolution side in the Scopes Monkey Trial). Or how about Osama Bin-Laden, a fundamentalist Muslim. Or perhaps Jerry Falwell, a fundamentalist Christian.
Do you think any of them have seriously decided to follow their religion? I have a strange feeling they have been a member of their religion since birth, and have never entertained a moment's thought that they might not be following the One True Religion(tm). Of course, they can't all be following the One True Religion(tm) now can they?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The media is so hypocritical. They run news shows on how somewhat violent games are destroying our children interspliced with advertisements for their outrageously violent "specials" on car crashes, riots, and bloodsports. "See these criminals smash cars and run down pedestrians while we stand by and videotape it!" Something else no one has really pointed out is that games actually have a *therapeutic*(sp?) effect on children. I began my addiction to gaming in its many violent forms in high school, when I was feeling exactly the pressures that drove the Trenchcoat Mafia over the edge. Virtual combat was an outlet, where I could work off rage without resorting to physical violence. I remember many times where I came perilously close to simply putting my fist through the wall, but I chose to attack pixels instead of things that feel pain. Perhaps if tried to encourage virtual violence instead of suppressing every form of emotional pressure relief fewer teenagers would go ballistic, to put it tritely.
Read "Sewer, Gas, and Electric" by Matt Ruff. Ayn Rand is a character in that novel (sort of).
You may never look at Objectivism the same way again.
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
More links to articles similar to Jon's...
0 4/22/misfits/index.html
0 4/24/rumors/index1.html
http://www.salonmagazine.com/news/feature/1999/
http://www.salonmagazine.com/news/feature/1999/
Too bad the "mainstream" media seems clueless. Has anybody noticed that the bigger the readership, the more clueless the magazine? Compare Salon Magazine with Slate, for example...
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
>>>
First, there are about 600M people in the US,
>>>
HUH???????
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
like it or not, we eradicated the indian nations. we are now as close as it gets to natives. and anyway, I won't consider myself a second class citizen if my great granparents lived in europe.
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
We're the ones who make the world happen. You are just along for the ride. You may make more money, but you are an accident of fate. If every jock died today, the world would keep going, technology would advance, and so on. But if every geek died, the world as you know it would end. You'd be living like a caveman in a few weeks.
Posted by narrowfellow:
I certainly didnt have it as bad as many kids, but I don't look back on my high school years fondly. I hope this is an issue that gets heard in the mainstream media. Forward the page link to Tom Brokaw!
Posted by Amar Kinseth:
The Trenchcoat Mafia is about racism and I hope some jock beats the crap out of any kids who can relate to them.
I hated high school and am a standfast geek (and proud of it) but I bear no association to these vile children from Colorado.
Posted by gerstenberger:
I am currently a 20 year old college sophmore and looking back at my high school years I remember feeling much the same has everyone has discribed.
I was probley one of three kids who knew what a bbs was and physical and emotional abuse was a regular part of my day.
So now comes along a couple of kids that were just like me who decide that they can't take anymore and they have the means to take their revange.
So who does society blame? First it was guns. A simple mechanical object whos purpose is to put holes in people. (personal i believe guns are a problem but not the central one)
Next we decided to blame TV, internet, etc.
Next we will jump to the parents.
Then to the school, then to some unknown auther of a book, then back to guns.
This is a cicle of blame and all it is is looking for an excape goat. We have to stop and look into the mirror. We must come together has a community
and look in the mirror.
We are the lucky ones. The ones that at least know there is a problem. I saw it when i was in school i see it now. But we are now on the defense we are under attack and are getting labeled has "trouble kids who are going to kill others" What a joke. Every one wants to give into their rage from time to time. But we must be stronger then that. We need to chalege society and open our eyes. We need to look past the names of geek, jock, prep, nerd and look at what is true. That is that we all are people. We all want to be happy, to love and be free. We can't build these wall that separat us from others. We need to destroy them before the cement hardens.
So my point. Be happy and proud of who you are. Stand up for yourself. But don't play the game, don't hate some one or look down on them becuase they aren't like you. Turn the other cheek. Rise above this school heirarchy bullshit. Don't buy into.
Posted by ChristianC:
If a man who had constantly abused and beaten his wife over a few years was killed by his wife who would you feel sympathy for?
Who is in the right when a whole school seems to turn against you? When teachers ignore each incident. How easy is it to ignore people hitting you? How else can one survive in such a situation except by becoming more introverted, and harbouring an ever building resentment? And if guns are available, is there not a temptation to 'teach these people a lesson'?
I doubt if you can legislate against unpopularity, but you can legislate against bullying and for much stricter gun-control. Unfortunately, more killings will occur, because people prefer to blame red herrings like Doom, Marylin Manson and the internet instead of confronting the real issues.
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
All of these new knee-jerk rules, regulations and mandatory therepy sessions are not about making schools or the country safer. They are about doing two things. The first of which is to passify the dimwitted unwashed masses. In the wake of this horrible event people are understandably upset. This sends the messages that our school adminitrators are "doing something" about the percieved problem. This will keep politicians comfortably getting a paycheck without doing and real work.
The other focus, the main focus in IMHO is that they take the "misfits" or non-traditional thinkers as I call them, and pound into them the idea that those who are in "authority" can do whateve rthey want to you, that they can make any rule that they want, regardless of if it makes sense or not, and there is NOTHING that you can do about it so you'd better accept it.
It was non-traditional thinkers who've changed our world. Columbus (even though wrong about where he landed) believed that the world was not flat like his peers did. Galileo was threatened with death if he didn't stop preaching that the Earth was NOT the center of God's Universe. Those of us who think differently have always had to face adversity. Now the answer is save us from that adversity by bait 'n tackling or betty crockering us into conformity. If we refuse to conform, we must be dangerous because all rational people want to "fit in".
Even though I know it will never happen, but we should stand up and make ourselves be noticed. The homosexual rights community made great advances because of groups like "act up" and "Queer Nation". For Black people groups like the Black Panther Party brought their problems to the front pages of the nations news papers.
What could we do? I guess we're not as intimidating to the masses as black leather jackets, afros, berets and shotguns.
LK
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
I wore a black trenchcoat from the time I was 15 until 2 years after I graduated. Even in the summer time. I liked the coat, and I didn't care about other peoples' fashion sense.
I took shit from people then, and I gave people shit. It was just the way things were. People stopped giving me shit when I was in jr. high. I'd take on guys twice my size, sometimes I'd lose, but sometimes I'd win. It was those victories that made the "cool" people leave me alone. After all how cool can you be if you get beaten up by one of the "nerds"?
My advice to any kid who is in the position that I was is this. Take crap from nobody. Walk away if you can, but running away will only make it worse.
Do what you must to make it through each day, but never let them win.
LK
I've been quietly listening to the thousands of posts over the past week or so, and have really begun to question where I fit into this. You might say that I'm the exception. Like anyone else who reads
Also I'm the product of a broken home (actually it's more like a demolished home). I've moved eight times in my life seeing eight different schools and I've also had three fathers and on father-to-be. The one thing really positive that I can say about my upbringing is that my family was always very loving (I consider this the main reason why I'm the way I am).
So instead of patting myself of the back I wonder what happened. If my lifestyle was supposed to condemn me to an unhappy life and make me the target of endless ridicule, what went wrong? Or maybe this is not it. Maybe the true problems lie elsewhere. The media has targeted all these superficial attributes, not realizing that the problem is not that simple. Basically, the way one leads their life is merely a reflection of their experiences not the determining factor of their actions.
Posted by Open Matrix:
;-) I still visit that area of Louisiana sometimes and I can still see the same mentality that was there when I left. I see it in the driving and the everyday goings on. There is a lot of gossip and backstabbing and stuff that goes on there and I thank God that I don't live there anymore.
First off, I am 19 and graduated and used to live in Southwest Louisiana. This area is known to have some of the worst schools in the US. I have always been fairly bright and was always labeled as a "geek" or "nerd" or "dork". What made this even worse was that SW Louisiana is a very low tech area and therefore I had absolutely no friends that shared the same interests as me. In fact I had no friends at all. At best people I didn't even know would laugh and snicker at me behind my back. At worst (and this is most people) they would physically and verbally abuse me. I contemplated suicide many times but my parents were quite caring and understanding and were really my only friends in life and this is the only reason that I am alive to tell about it. I went through elementary and middle school like this. Luckily my family moved to Austin Texas after 9th grade. I say luckily because the people here in Austin are much nicer and there are actually others like me here. Looking back at my elementary and middle school years I can't believe I actually survived even the physical abuse I recieved let alone the emotional abuse that caused me to contemplate suicide so many times. My parents are always telling me how level headed and mentally stable I am and I can definately see how anyone who has the slightest bit of mental unstability such as the kids in Colorado can go completely crazy and shoot anyone and everyone who has done anything against them.
Well anyway.... I'm graduated from High School now and live a much happier life although I still have emotional scars that probably will never disappear but don't we all
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
I know this isn't really the place, *but* I get greatly annoyed by the "in your face" attitudes of straight edge'ers and vegans.
They often are outcasts by choice. Who wants to listen to "You're not going to eat that are you? Do you know what an industrial chicken farm smells like? WHAT DO YOU MEAN you're going to have some veal? I don't want your fscking cigarette, they're killing you."
Geeks, nerds, et al are on the outside because of the attitudes and prejudices of others.
If God didn't want me to eat animals, he wouldn't have made them out of meat.
LK
Posted by Perkolater:
Once upon a time, I was the most powerful kid in my high school.
I went to something called a "magnet" school, which gathered up these "gifted" kids from the suburbs and bused them to an inner-city school to give them more "opportunities." Most of the base students didn't get those same opportunities, which caused a lot of racial conflict while I attended there.
When I first entered high school, I was pretty much a nobody. I didn't act like the other kids, so that made me an easy target for bullies. None of the teachers knew me very well, and few of them really wanted to. I got into trouble a little too easily, getting coerced into conflicts that always turned me into the bad guy. I had a lot of crying spells my freshman year. I came close to suicide at least twice.
My parents were worried about my lack of socialization with other kids in my classes, not to mention my sudden infatuation with rap music. Being spurned by my "peers," I hung out with the predominantly black base students quite a bit, and back in the late 1980s, Public Enemy was considered dangerous. So Mom & Dad decided to take a more active role in my schooling, not by cutting me off from the things I liked, but recognizing my talents and helping me use them.
For example, they knew I enjoyed spectator sports, something my grandfather instilled in me as an elementary schooler. Even though I clearly wasn't very athletic, I still read Sports Illustrated religiously. So they steered me toward the school paper. Occasionally, even the geeks ganged up on me there, but after a while, they accepted that I was a competent writer, and by my senior year, I had my own back-page column.
During my senior year, while covering the men's basketball team, I discovered something distressing -- at our home games, fans from the opposing school outnumbered our fans 5-to-1, and the few fans we had that actually cheered were often stifled by others. After seeing this over the course of several games, I wrote scathing column that lashed out at the school's clear lack of fan support. I called everyone out for assuming that because our teams never were very good, they never would be, so they never bothered. That column came out the day of our first conference game.
That night, the house was packed. Every group was represented that night -- the populars, the jocks, the nerds, the fashionables, all cutting across every race you could imagine. A lot of people I knew told me they came out because of my column. The grin remained plastered on my face the entire night. The next Monday, one of the players thanked me for writing that column.
And we lost the game, 98-53.
Of course, that wasn't the point. The point was that this little nobody lost in a sea of 3,000 managed to shake that entire school to its foundation with nothing more than a few hundred words. I made a difference, and for everyone like me who gets that sort of opportunity, there are MILLIONS of kids who don't. Because their parents don't care enough to find out their kids talents and steer them the right way. Because teachers and administrators can't be bothered to find out why these kids are different. Because most kids are cruel, and some LIKE being cruel, and nobody tells them how wrong this is.
These are the reasons that Littleton happened. It has nothing to do with gun control laws, black trenchcoats, the Internet, or Marilyn Manson. It's because everyone is afraid of something they don't take the time to understand, and what good is traditional media if it can't spread fear, justly or otherwise?
Yoda may be a goofy little moppet to some, but he has a point: "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." Fear, anger and hate were all prevalent at Columbine High, and it's probably prevalent at thousands of other high schools across the country -- perhaps even moreso now, as adults' knee-jerk reactions to media coverage of this tragedy is leading to an Orwellian shakedown of all things deemed "abnormal" in schools. Students that are already ridiculed their peers are now getting similar treatment from the adults that are supposed to be teaching them. What do they think these kids are learning from this?
If lawsuit-weary schools allow this shakedown to continue, what happened at Columbine High will happen again, and it will keep happening in greater numbers until everyone -- parents, teachers, jocks, nerds, etc. -- stops looking for scapegoats and starts looking in the mirror. Until we reach out to those kids we have ostracized for so long, we are all to blame.
David J. Warner
Durham, NC
April 26, 1999
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
That's right this is the "Greatest Country in The World" if it were not for my country and the sacrifices made by my great grandfather's peers you'd be speaking German right now.
LK
Posted by JimBalcom:
In talking with todays teens, it seems that high school is a hot bed of hatred all of the way around. Everyone seems to have their own secret 'fetish' that excludes them from the main circles - the main circles that consist of other teens with their own fetishes in common. And, if you don't subscribe to their fetish then they make you an outcast, an outsider. I can fully understand the shooters being tired of being outcasts, but they chose the wrong way to deal with it.
-= Jim =-
Posted by jpfinger:
Is it just me (and the girl I'm dating) that see the connection of the Colorado High School event and the late 80's movie "Heathers?" If you've seen it (its got Winona Ryder *drool* and Christian Slater), does the analogy make sense to you too? If not, go rent the movie and think about this satire on high school life.
Posted by Pete H.:
Religion != (bad || fanaticism)
Keep in mind that this thread is about intolerance and abuse of people who are or behave differently from the "norm". The two responses to "Sharkeys-Day"'s post that I've read so far both included just the sort of assumptions and attacks on religion that geeks are suffering on other topics.
Religion and science are not mutually exclusive.
Every healthy individual should have a dose of each. For many of us geeky types that typically means more science than religion but to each his own. One without the other is sheer folly. What good is technology without some sort of moral code that you use to evaluate it's worth with? Morals, often embodied by religion, are what make us different from every other species on the planet and we should cherish that, not ridicule or fear it.
As with all aspects of the media only the edges of any group are ever reported. They are the most "interesting". As a result religion often gets a bad name, especially with respect to it's relationship with science. Assuming that anyone who mentions religion or alternatives to "scientific" teachings is automatically discarding anything scientific and using holy water to short out computers in the local library is, well, stupid.
I'm agnostic, I don't know what to believe with respect to religion but I firmly believe that we have the right to believe what we want, right up until we start harming others with our beliefs.
Peter
Posted by Radjan Spirit:
good god man. The media, followed by the hapless mob that is America, has successfully framed all forms of nerd subculture for this incident. In the past two days I have lost two trenchcoats to the blinded fury of my parents. Plus, in a well-thought-out-maneuver they ripped up my acceptance letter to an ivy league school after I tried to wear a trenchcoat (as I have for 2 years) out of the house, "How do you expect to expect to succeed at all in life doing stupid things like this [wearing a coat]" Wow, good thing they did what they did too! Now all the murderous anger that coat put into my blood has been replaced by a serene feeling that can only come after the positive results of 18 years of hard work have been ripped up in front of your face. (note sarcasm)
Posted by rozetta:
I am really grateful that you posted this article today. Reading the emails from those school kids who are being persecuted on a daily basis made me almost cry as I have been in that same situation. I can tell you now, anyone who might be reading this, that those things never leave you. I have been out of school for over 10 years. And to this day I look back on the things that happened to me with a feeling of hatred, anger and helplessness. Something like this can change the way a person is forever. I will never feel like I fit in. I will always be paranoid. I will always feel persecuted. And no amount of counselling can change that.
The thing that really made me sick was how these poor people are now being treated now. As if what they've been through is not bad enough, they're being intimidated even more now.
The problem, as has been very well pointed out by a previous respondent, is the American media and social attitude. This is a country where values are based on selfishness, revenge and blame. It is very obvious that with values like these, no progress will ever be made until things change.
What needs to be changed is the attitude of parents of the "popular" kids, who are driving people like ourselves to the brink of insanity. If they knew what their children were doing to others and empathised with the other side, they wouldn't be happy about it. The problem is that most people here are incapable of seeing the other side of the arguement and incapable of putting themselves in someone else's place. This is why things like the death penalty still exist in this country. This is why this intimidation occurs ona daily basis.
I hope someone of importance knows of this article and takes the time to read it and the responses so that the correct word gets to people, not one of blame, revenge and scapegoating.
Posted by Pestlence:
A great number of people out there seem to think this is some great tragedy. Well I'm sorry to say that it has almost no importance to modern society and history, and the same goes for the ones who died. Let me point out some pressing issues. Hitler didnt play video games like Doom, DoomII or Quake 1,2,3 or Tribes. (All of which I play) Stalin had no knowledge of either violent TV or D&D and yet the two of these guys managed to massacre upwards of 35 million people. They also were brilliant politicians and leaders of their time (nutty, yes...but very smart). If anybody can possibly say that these media inpots caused this they are missing the whole point. I believe and know that the aggrandizing of the "poor victims" who were part of the group of people who harrassed and taunted the two "shooters" (as if they no longer have the right to names since they are now infamous "perps")is clearly wrong. These people at this high school created the environment that bred this incident. They must accept responsibility for causing this and try to change the way all of is nerds, geeks, and loosers are treated. Somone once said the the level of enlightenment of a society is judged by how the most fringe members are treated. This would mean that our society is heading toward a fascist police state. This incident is a wake up call (dialed collect. We should just be thankful that the really smart kids dont do this kind of thing on a regular basis because it would be Hitler and Stalin all over again. Also, I was one of these kids, and I'll be fucked if I'm going to shut my mouth and take one more second of this crap from society pinning all the problems on the fringe, MY finge. If they dont do something to start opening the door to all of us this will happen lots more than it has. I will also obligitorily refuse to hedge any of my statements with things like: "of course I dont condone violence", "what they did was wrong" and all other moralizing crap. I will speak my mind and not have to qualify it to please the school board, or the parents, or the media. I will say this once, I am the fringe, I live on the edges, I like it here, If you dont understand that, fine but dont harass me for being different. I will play games, I will dress how I like, I will listen to the music I like, and if you kick me enough I will defend myself. Peace to the parents of the two "shooters" and I hope that one day they can learn to go on after their losses. As for the rest of the hype, oppression, and harassment of our kind that will come of this: the harder you are on us the longer you will have to look over your shoulders for the few who are willing to commit violations like this. My sympathy is gone since I am the victim of brutal beatings, psychological and emotional rape, and marginalization at the hands of the "jocks", successful, good-looking, "NORMAL" members of society. They never gave me any sympathy after beating me, only a good spit in the face.
rasa ipsa loquitor
Pestilence
Posted by Pestlence:
Get real. Some of us actually know what is going on. You obviously are not a geek and have never been treated this way. Go away poser. Argue on some "normal" page.
Posted by Pestlence:
Loser. Racist. Bigot. Go hang out with Pat Robertson's anti-gay league.
Posted by Volkadav:
;^) (mike jackson, class of 96)
Howdy!
Posted by Pestlence:
You take last...Tune in, turn on, drop out?
Go ahead, keep talking, loser.
Posted by Pestlence:
Oh yeah.....you dropping out shows in your lack of argumentative support. Rhetoric is not your strong suit. Learn to read and write. You have never been the target. Standing up for yourself will only cause the beatings to become more severe. Welcome to the harsh cruel world. Idealistic moron.
Posted by Pestlence:
Could you pick out your indended target from 1300 students. No. Their motivation was not stemmed from insanity. Random is not the word I would use to describe "blacks, jocks, and christians" which happened to be their targets. They actually asked questions, and picked thier targets, otherwise the body count would have been higher.
As for proof, there is no proof needed that they were treated poorly as a fringe group in high school. That is the way that all fringe groups are treated in this bigoted setting. (Including homosexuals, "goths", skaters, punks, hippies, druggies...etc).
Posted by Assmodeus:
i know what its like to have people think that you are going to hurt them...well after a friend of mine managed to burn off my eyebrows in an firery explosion when i was 12 people always sorta tried to stay on my good side. and it didnt help that i was always mixing shit up in chemistry to make hydrogen and then lighting the resultant gas. i was a pyro, but i never hurt anyone with that...never even dreamed of planting bombs to injure people. the one bully who did try to pick on me managed to find himself flat on his back with my elbow in his larynx... but i was another harmless kid who everyone thought would blow up their house or something. it was something i liked, cause everyone left me and my friends alone for the most part...we werent dorks but we werent "cool" either... ahh well... im sure you all care...
Posted by Pestlence:
Where they go to (insert college, high school, grad school) how much money they make or who they know to gain a reputible stance in an argument. It makes you look nothing more than foolish. Argument is the merits of the retoric you use not who you know or where you go (maybe).
Posted by Meurn:
:-)>, but people in this world are still not equal and from what I've observed, woman often get the raw end of the deal when put up against an equally suited man.
Yeop, I would definately say that geek chicks have it harder than us geek guys. When you figure in the fact that chicks have that added mark against them of being an intelligent WOMAN,
they literally one up the rest of us geekguys. Dont get me wrong, I love women
Posted by Meurn:
If I've learned anything in my life so far, its that communication is the key to success. From experience I've found that learning how to deal with people is one of the most important skills one can ever hope to attain. I once was a quiet, classic geek, who stayed in most of the time to do homework and playvideo games. This was not because I didn't like people, but rather because I was picked on and ridiculed because I was one of the smartest kids in school. This went on until about eight grade when I learned how to talk to and socialize with people. It turned my whole world around. But note, I had many failed attempts at making an entrance into social groups, but I persevered. One of the things I learned from all my failures was to know your audience. Geeks often try to engage conversations with things that they are native to(i.e. Quake, Linux, other computer junk). This is just setting oneself up for failure. You gotta expand your horizons. Start off general, and project a sense of confidence. Even if you are scared as hell, dont let them see that. If you just keep up your composure the real confidence will follow.
I dont know if any of this advice will sink in but It's helped me through some hard times and now I have plenty of friends and aquaintances. I just hope to help prevent another tragedy like the one in Colorado. I've felt the pain of exile and know that its hard to work through, but feel that violence is not the answer, for it just further fuels the fire. I also hope to see the media halting is rampage to find a scape goat to blame the trageties on. To go after the net and musicians. If you pick up the new Marilyn Manson album, you might just find that he has some valid points about our society. Hell, all I want is for people to see the whole picture before passing judgement.
Posted by Noctavis1:
My thoughts are almost identical to what that article states. My bro has been trying to get me to become a regular reader of Slashdot for awhile.... I think I'm hooked now. You're almost afraid to say such things... for exactly the reasons that the article (and its responses) describes. ANY sort of statement to the fact that you might possibly understand or hold the slightest sympathy for the plight of those two dead teenagers brands the author a traitor and possible menace to society. Suddenly the nation has embarked on a hyperparanoid witch-hunt for "whomever is responsible for this" (Funny how they dance around the issue as to whether the parents could be culpable in any way - The USA's left wing likes to point fingers all the time, unless it means taking a position which appears to support family-centered or religious values). I was a military brat, and as such, moved to a new area every few years of my life. I had a *VERY* difficult time fitting into some places, and received very, very poor treatment by my "peers." I really believe that children and young adults can be some of the most cruel people in the world. And I'll even admit that there were times that I wanted to do something - anything - to make the others sit up, take notice and maybe give me a little respect. I was a smart kid too... I had taught myself basic electronics theory by age 14, had collected numerous books that described how to build tasers (stun-guns) or other electronic weapons, and had even designed a few detonators and other devices which would probably have worked (Including a simple "turret" device that would fire bottle-rockets at motion or a heat source within a certain range) Now... that was mainly just for the challenge, and not out of any sense of malice or uber-plan for the elimination of all jocks at my jr.-high school, but any knee-jerk moron could take that as evidence of my nonconformity. Am I a sick person? If you ask any of my friends, coworkers or family, they'll likely tell you that I'm one of the most well-adjusted and rational people they know. Hell... Know what I do for a living? I'm a home-health pediatric nurse that takes care of babies and kids on ventilators, at night. (Geez.. I didn't think I had any paternal instincts until I started taking care of these kiddos) Heh... I can just see a couple of individuals out there cringing and thinking, "I've GOT to find out who this guy is and get him locked up!" Get real! And do you know what? I'm also a COMBAT-nurse in the reserve! I own an AR-15! (The civvy version of the M-16). I play Quake, Myth, Half-Life, paintball and umpteen other "KILLER-games" without any percieved warping to my values. Adversity is something that I learned to deal with at a young age - especially with the help of my parents, who were supportive and loving. Through discussing my feelings with them, and from some of my martial-arts instructors (who advocated talking BEFORE violence), I learned various conflict-management techniques. As a result of my experience, I tend not to be very timid about my opinions when it comes to some issues... especially when I think that something wrong is being done.(Friends call me "The Crusader" after a couple of situations that I took a moral stand on, with employers or other people) Jr. High was the worst for me. Because I was of a certain religious denomination and not 100% pure-bred white, this one kid would spit on my scriptures sometimes (we had a religious group before school). He also would hit me and then run down the hall while yelling insults and epithets. One day I couldn't take it anymore, so when he tried to punch me, I was ready and lashed out. I flipped the kid on the floor and choked him until a teacher came to break it up. We were taken to the principal's office, of course, where we were to see a counsellor. He knew both of us pretty well, and immediately dismissed me while he proceeded to chew the other kid out. (As I said- he knew us both pretty well). After that, suddenly all of the other kids who would give me crap at that Jr. High had a newfound respect (Seriously... some of them clapped me on the back and expressed their APPROVAL!) It made me physically nauseated to learn what it took to gain respect from such people - a lesson learned. Perhaps nonviolence is not *always* the answer? We use smaller, controlled fires to deny huge forest fires the fuel they need to continue their rampage. These kids became a giant tinder-box after awhile. Then again, maybe this analogy simply doesn't hold true? What do YOU think? And don't try to accuse me of having no sympathy for the victims... nothing could be farther from the truth. Especially because I actually KNOW at least one of them! Maybe if these kids would have had some other sort of outlet for their pain and anger, instead of letting it get stronger and stronger while taking its toxic toll upon their souls, things would have turned out differently. I guess we'll really never know... and until something in the pattern of American society (and NOT the alteration of gun laws and other such idiotic symptom-based approaches) changes, then we will continue to endure such tragedies... -Noctavis
Posted by infamous_cygnus:
Yes, high school was a real bitch. But, at least now I can look back and rejoice in the fact that the jocks make a fraction of what I do...at least its a little hope for all the "nerds" still in the educational system you know so well as Hell.
Posted by kreos:
dude I can feel it: check out this profile tell me what ya think:
single male: 28
location: Bronx, NY
interests: heavy rock music ie: pantera, candiria, machine head etc.
skills: computers, military trained, killing, communications, etc.. [fuck I should apply for a job with the CIA..Hmmmmm???]
and yes I'm an equal opportunity hater,
ethnic status: hispanic
relationships status: poor at making friends and great at burning bridges and making enemies
dislikes: people who put thier own skills down, being taken for a fool, and pure people bullshit in general
likes: geek girls, computers hardcore, beer and whiskey, law, finance, marketing, con games, and lots of time on my hands to cook and read books...
would I's?
kill people at a school, Hmmmmm, tempting but NO!!
I am a geek at this stage of life and I'm very unstable emotionally and I can't recall have it dandy at the high schools I've attended in my life there have been a few...
as far a reproducing someone like me, I've always been against it becuase it's cruel to pass on the torch of social exclusion, humilation, redicule, that play havoc on the mentle senses..
but I got a geek baby girl on the way and I'll be there to show her the fucken ropes first hand, and trust me she won't take any shit from anybody...
Dude I can feel the kids in Columbine HS, it just so fucken much anybody can take before an unjustifiable hail of gun smoke sparks into this unexpected but slowly and latently systematic retaliation on the part of us geeks erupts, Fuck all Hell breaks lose and I hate to say it but this isn't the end, it's perhaps a new level awareness, a beginning aimed at showing society that a geek can be as dangerous as anyone else...
Posted by Noctavis1:
:::Student gives an answer::: - "Wrong! It means this!"
I dunno... I think the whole of Texas is pretty much screwed as a place for us to set up a "geek commune." I've lived there... in San Antonio, the heart of "Texan nationalism" (Where people sometimes fly the TX flag above the American flag and LOVE to tell you about how Texas is a sovereign power that signs a treaty with the U.S. every so many years... etc. etc. ad nauseum)
Maybe Arizona, New Mexico or Utah? (Nevada was what was left over when everyone else took what they wanted - you'll agree if you ever drive through that place)
I have been holding onto a domain name for a little while, because I wanted to use it for something important. Suddenly I'm wondering if I should devote it to the reform of the American education system, from Kindergarten all the way up through post-grad (including medical school - which essentially hasn't changed much within the last 100-150 years).
If anyone finds this idea interesting, then please E-mail me at: noctavis@irradiated.com
I was blessed (cursed?) with a high level of intelligence, and so found myself bored by most classes that I was required (by law) to attend. Anything I found interesting I would get scores ranging from 90-100% in without trying that hard, usually. But it was so frustrating when I would let the material percolate in my head and ask questions of my teachers... and when they would go back and read the same paragraph again (instead of researching or trying to even approximate an answer) I would simply turn them off ("You have nothing to teach me - POOF! Begone")
Even more aggrivating, even irritating, to me is that most teachers, in their narrow-minded arrogance, would always require you to do things their way (even if you got the right answer) or to INTERPRET poetry or literature (for HELL'S SAKE!!!) the way that they did - "What does this mean?" -
Case in point: I had difficulty learning multiplication and division of large numbers from my teachers, and so my father (who was going to be a math professor before he was drafted into the military and became a JAG [military attourney] instead) tried to teach me. Somewhere along the line, while I didn't get what he was trying to show me, it clicked! Suddenly I was able to look at these then-complex problems and pop out answers almost instantaneously.
However, the teachers at my school refused to accept this, and FORCED me to write out my work the long way (even though I was capable of solving problems right in front of their faces AND getting the correct answer most of the time.
Because of their stubborness... their idea that somehow it would be bad to let me continue to perform calculations in the superior manner that I was, I lost that ability. I don't know if I shall ever forgive them for that.
This is only one aspect of it all... certainly, the crazy culture which has developed in American schools needs to change as well.
I am a firm believer that skills such as balancing a checkbook, free-thinking, conflict management, negotiation, tolerance (not the liberal form of the word, where you simply eliminate anything religously, racially, or culturally-oriented from the environment) and various other principles are taught.... but would we risk creating another environment for the alienation of students? I guess it depends upon the people who create and execute policy.
-Noctavis
noctavis@irradiated.com
As far as I can see what's happening, "High School", (Senior School over in England), is great, if you're not intelligent. For those of us that are intelligent, it's not so great, and lets face it, if you're reading /. on a regulars basis, then you're someone who des something with computers other than play Doom and look and poor GIFs of blurry p0rn. If you read /. you're more likely to be someone who actually knows what they're doing, uses computers at work, and plays Q3Test, but anyway, back to school.
;-)# ). People who didn't believe quite the same things as others were ostriciced, and those that did did really well at some sport were laughed at.
.nl (I live in .uk) twice more before September, to do network consultancy. The jocks know this. This is all because of Linux. The jocks know this too. They wish they'd hung around us geeks more.
Over achievers are labelled nerds. People who hang around the computers are nerds and geeks (although they do distinguish between the two, the go to the geeks for help. They also were instructed to do anatomically impossible things by us geeks when they did
Well, now the tables are turning, and the "jocks" are still stood on the tables, and it's the geeks, nerds, and the others trying their very best to throw the jocks to the floor as hard as they can. And we're succeeding.
Like several other people from my High School, I'm on a year out before university. Near me, there's another couple of geeks doing the same thing as I am. There's also a couple of "jocks". The "jocks" are sitting around, unemployed, and unemployable, trying to get a job and failing. They're not doing well, they're unhappy, and they're just waiting for the year to end. On the other hand, the geeks are all employed, and earning fair amounts.
This means that the geeks will have some money to survive university with, and, when we apply for our first job, we'll have something good on our CV (resume for you Americans) for what we did on our year out. It's something we like doing... it's something we're going to be doing again after university, it's going to give us a higher starting salary than anyone else. Now consider the "jocks" job interviews. "Ok, Mr Sporty-Bloke. You're in serious debt from university, but now you have your degree, and you want to work for us. Tell me, what were you doing in this missing year before university?", "Erm. Nothing.", "Nothing? Hmm. Next!"
This year, I am a Network and Security consultant for an ISP, running Linux almost exclusively. I have to go to
I ought to say though, there were some geeks not teased and ridiculed by the jocks. Those were the Electronics geeks. The ones with access to 0.2 Farad capaitors. The ones that would push these fully charged cap's onto any exposed flesh on a jock that happened to be annoying him. The ones that the jocks stayed away from. I decided to hang around them.
Posted by sad_old_dog:
No sympathy, no empathy? If my dog went nuts and ate somebody, i'd shoot it. But i'd have some sympathy for it. If the poor old thing was off it's head, then that's a fact of life. My dog has gone crazy. Just one of those things.
Sympathy? Yes. Empathy? Yes. Excuses? Never.
It was wrong. Nothing can it any better. Those boys should fry, not for retribution, but simply because they're too fucked up to live.
Practicality is everything.
Posted by INFILTRATOR:
I have to agree. It may piss some people off, but I have joined the mainstream. Long story: (feel free to skip to the moral at the end)
I was a scrawny geek who wasn't allowed to play sports in 8th grade. As a freshman in HS, the only team they let me join was the golf team (a real jock sport, eh?) I ate lunch in the Multi-purpose Room, because the cafeteria was too intimidating. I played lots of video games and drank a lot with my two or three friends.
By the time I graduated, I was making serious progress. I was getting awards from the Marketing Club, instead of the Continental Math League. I knew lots of people, and they no longer called me "brainchild" In fact, I went to parties and barely ever got dirty looks. I rented a shore house after my senior year with a bunch of barrel-chested jocks.
In college, it began again. I didn't get bid to any fraternities, so I joined up as a founding father of a new house (actually, a returning ex-house) We were not highly accepted by the greek system, but we had a lot of fun. As the years went by, the friends I retained after my fraternity dissolved grew into a social network. By the time I graduated, I was the bouncer at my favorite local bar, and the patrons consisted mostly of my friends and acquaintances. The bar was always packed.
After college, it began again. I took a job selling computer systems for my best friend's fiance's brother-in-law. I moved over to the service side, eventually becoming a LAN administrator fo the US Postal Service. One day, I was drunk at a baseball game, and I got to talking with another guy we were with, and bam - a job!
Now I am a member of the corporate elite. I wear a suit, not slacks and a blazer, everyday. People at my company frown upon non-white dress shirts. I have an expense account, even though I'm not in sales. I receive stock options just for being here, and our company stock has not declined in 80 years. My work is technical, but not geeky.
The moral of this story is this: Although I abhor the mainstream, I have intentionally moved towards it at every opportunity. I have never changed me, just my outward appearance. I avoid talking politics, religion, philosophy, or anything else at work. I do not fit in at my company, yet I am the only one that knows it. I have done all this without lying to myself (unless you count cheating on drug tests)
The reason: After many years as an anarchist, I realized that I didn't have a lot of grassroots support. It came to me that the best way to change a society or culture is: Infiltrate, Acheive, Lead, Change.
What if I could be elected President of the United States? (not likely with my arrest record, but what if?) Of course, only white anglo-saxon protestant frat boys get elected president. (exception: Kennedy was Catholic) So, although I'm a mixed race athiest and I quit my fraternity because I wouldn't sign an anti-drug pledge, I still feel like I'm on the right track.
My friends know who I am, but none of "them" do. My co-workers have no idea that I used to have a white skunk stripe in my hair, and my jeans had so many holes in them that you could see my underwear, and I enjoy slam-dancing at punk shows, and I used to follow the Dead, and I am a political radical, and I once spent six hours throwing bottles at cops during a riot. We don't even barely have democrats at my company, much less anarchist liberatarians.
But god help "them" if someone ever puts me in charge. Will it happen? I don't know, but I've put myself in the best possible position to take advantage of opportunites. Bill Gates, as much as I despise his evil empire, has shown us that geeks can and will take over the world. It's up to us to be in position when the time comes.
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
>>We should all start weraing black trench-coats.
I've been wearing a black trench coat for 7 years.
It's nothing new to me.
LK
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
>>Well, europeans could say "Without europeans discovering and colonizing North-America your country wouldn't exist at all!"...
Dream on. "Discovering" there were people who knew of North America long before the europeans found out. Some of those people were my ancestors. I'd exist, but I'd probably look different.
Posted by she who groks:
Hazelwood refers to school newspapers produced as part of a journalism class. Papers which are strictly co-curricular activities have a great deal more freedom from censorship.
The grounds on which student expression can be censored are broader than they should be but narrower than many administrators believe. Also, there are several states that have passed STATE statutes guaranteeing student expression in student publications. Also, individual boards of education, school committees, or whatever they're called in your state probably have policies IN WRITING about what they can do to control content of student publications.
I second the suggestion to go to the Student Press Center. They are VERY helpful. A second place to turn is the American Civil Liberties Union, specifically the chapter of the ACLU in your state.
I'm the adviser (that IS the correct spelling, BTW) to The Trident, Amity's school newspaper. We are strictly co-curricular, and we have NEVER been censored in the six years I've been adviser.
We HAVE been asked on occasion to allow administrators to read in advance-- when we report on matters where lawsuits are involved. And I do sometimes offer a pre-reading so the admin's aren't blindsided. They support us so we let them know if they'll be taking heat for what we write.
We're doing our centerspread on the Littleton situation. We'll be quoting students who will say that the school is full of people who are cruel and violent. The admin won't like that AT ALL. And I'll probably let the principal read it in advance. But NOT ONE WORD WILL HE CHANGE.
You see, not ALL schools are totally uncaring and unaware of how kids are suffering. We adults can't stop it all from happening, but we can try to intervene, try to provide safe havens, try to love the geeks as well as the preps and the jocks.
We're not totally successful here; I know kids who left here in as much pain as many of you on the list. But we try, dammit... and we have succeeded at least a little bit. And we cry inside for all the kids we've lost or not protected... as well as for all the kids in Littleton and elsewhere-- the shooters as well as the victims, b/c we know all the kids are victims.
Posted by ju:
I can't believe these high schools! My school must have matured way before it's time. We no longer have "clics" and the cool group is made up of the kind people. Kids just need to realize the cool people are not who they seem to be.
The problem will never end. Someone will always feel left out. The real problem that no one seemed to notice is the students could not get out of the school building. Luckly, I go to a rather small school with less "security" and I could get out of any room.
Students need to be taught they will make it further if they are always nice and being mean does not make you look cool.
Hey with that attitude I went from class loser to Homecoming Queen...Voted in by the "geeks and nerds" of course.
And by the way PLEASE don't label Jocks as always being mean...people are who they are not what they do!!!
Posted by Pimpbot3k:
You just don't get it. We don't want to be the homecoming king/queen. We have never wanted that. All the geeks want to do is be able to do their stuff in their group without being fucked with by the jocks, cheerleaders, yuppies, ect. I was less than a year into highschool when I quit and got my GED. I couldn't take it anymore. Every day I would get up, and feel sick. If I didn't feel sick I made myself feel sick just so I wouldn't have to go to that prison called high school.
When I was forced to go I was constantly tormented, people like you would get up during your little fucking lameass prep rallys and go "lets all be equal and have fun, GO FOOTBALL TEAM" , never once mentioning the kids that sucked at sports (me) but could rip a pc apart and put it back together in a matter of hours, or use something other than AOL for internet. NEVER, NOT FUCKING ONCE WERE WE MENTIONED, NOT ONCE. Then when it was all over the same people that were up on stage, talking about how we were all "equal" (damn do I love that bullshit of a word) were bashing me and my geek friends. WTF is up with that. Where's the equality now? huh?
Thats why these kids snapped, they were sick of it. They couldn't get up another day and be called names like "fuckup", "queer", "freak", ect. It was too much, trust me I know. But no one seems to understand. They all think games or their own problems made them insane, but most likely it was this stupid social system. It's almost always the system.
Then someone like you bothers to come on here going "we don't have clics" and "I went from class loser to Homecoming Queen" thinking your cool. You not cool, your a trader. You sold out to this very system geeks and loser have been fighting then you bother to come on a geek website and tell us we should do the same. You have no right. People like you are part of the problem, not the solution, wanting people to become something we're not. Until attitudes like yours change there's gonna be alot more problems, instead of solutions, in the future.
Thanks for your time, Pimpbot3k out
Posted by DRoper:
I just found this website as it was listed as a
good place to hear kid's comments about the Little
ton incident. Incidentaly, the list is PSYART -
Institute for Psychological study of the Arts and the main threads for the past 2 weeks have had to
do with Littleton. Most of the subscribers are psychologists, profesors of and students of and all of you should be encouraged that this list of over 750 people agree with you regarding the reasons for the shootings,the ridiculous coverage by the media and the subsequent backlash that is making your situations worse. I knew it would happen and I knew it would not be reported.I am responding to this particular post because I graduated from MSU (MI) and now live in Memphis and sure know the difference between that one and Ol' Miss. I was popular in high school but also considered a non-conformist. Yet, I was just popular enough to be friends with anyone I chose and not be picked on by the other 'A list' kids.
My son, now 28, was the same way. An A student, a jock, but a free-thinker who had geeks for friends and no one dared challenge him. My heart goes out to all of you. I've seen the cruelty to kids that are considered nerds. One of those guys is now a nuclear physicist with NASA and one very cool guy is an alcoholic, disinherited by his very wealthy father and runs a shabby cheap motel in Northern MI. SO THERE! I was called into the principals office and was told (by a nun) to cut my long hair because it was "sugggestive" to the boys and because I was a 'leader' other girls were growing their hair long to emulate me. Of course I didn't cut it. I was chastised for having a "boy/girl party at my house (with my parents there)in the 9th grade. My parents were called because I was reading Lolita in the high school library. My parents sided with me, told the school to give me back my book and I could read it at home. This was in the early 60's. Ask your parents what their life was like in high school. What did they think of the war in Vietnam and were they in the majority or minority. What about the Detroit riots following the assasination of Martin Luther King. There were "issues" then too although not as complicated as the ones you have to deal with today. I wish you all the best. Stay true to yourselves but don't fall into a reverse snobbery position. Just wait until your 15 year class reunion and see who has done what with their lives.
Posted by MGX d50:
Okay, number one, most of the people who read this will not heed a bit of it for one reason. I'm a (GASP) adult. I'm 30 years old now, and on my way to my 7th mill. In high school I was a geeky little runt with a brain and a big mouth. Now I'm a big geek with a brain and an even bigger mouth. Wanna know the main difference between then and now? simple. No football teams, no cheerleaders, and i finally learned how to talk to beautiful women without tripping over my tongue.See, the rules change my future colleagues, and you are much better suited for these rule changes than that 200 lb jock with an IQ equivalent to his waist size. You are going thru hell now. You will go thru hell until the end of this PC BS. But you will get thru it. I am hoping and praying you get thru it. Because comps have taken over a large part of our lives, and they will keep taking on more, and I would rather have you, the girl with the flat chest and thick glasses reading "enders game" and understanding it, or you, the guy who gets a strange look because you are 15 and buying books in the local college bookstore, being a friend of mine and/ or working for me than any jock, student government flunkie, or Mr. popularity contest winner anytime. YOU are real people. they aren't. And as long as you are still real, I want you as my friends or working with me. Thank you in advance for getting thru the hell of high school. You will make it.
Posted by ju:
OK.. I understand your point completely until you label him a jock. He is one person....not all "jocks" are jerk! No one seems to understand that. I don't feel that anyone should be treated like that, but for everyone to blame the jocks....that is just not right!!!
I can't believe the media is giving the killers an excuse.
Posted by ju:
Finally I find an article I like and agree with. These people are morons. Thank you for putting this in perspective for them.
Posted by nicodemuss:
I posted this on an investing forum of outside the box thinkers after reading your stories.
I re-post here.
Many pardons to the Kitco.com family,(for off topic) this is for gwyz, Squirrel and others like them that think outside the box.
I am of course almost 40 and am definately one of these teens that posted on the slahdot forum.
I feel for these teens, they are the next generation's contrarians for sure.
I see in their comments that some of them blame the "church", the "stsate" etc. I agree. I also, however follow the ultimate non-conformist, Christ. And look what the "conformists" did to him.... Many groups do not like many other groups and our leaders seem hell bent on
"profiling" or "labeling" or in the brave new world term, "counseling" us into insanity where once there, they can declare us free game.
I guess they like power over others more than the joy of living....
Yes I counsel teens, I work with high schoolers, I love them and want them to know that a loving God loves them. I often reach out to the ones that seem the farthest away, and le me tell you they are right there asking the questions aobut life that really matter.
It's just like an unjust society that would convince them that God is the enemy, not thier friend. Certainly churches at different times have lost the real faith and just rolled over into conformist societies, with none of God's life evident in them. (white washed tombs).
I was bullied in school, and so have many others I know including my father, and when we brought small weapons to school out of fear, we got reprimanded, the bullies still continued. Perhaps as a desired part of the system to police us truly inteligent ones that might someday bring about change to the whole system.
Perhaps they feared us more than the daly abusive thugs..... Some of the faculty was abusive also.
To be fair, there were some gems in my school life.... When the principal of my school saw that I couldn't relate to the abusive approach of most kids "play" at recess, (i have a small visible handicap), he allowed me into his office by myself for lunch, every day. He trusted me, brought me a few books on electronics and a bunch of parts and let me do what I do best!
A few years later more conformists ousted him in a disgracefull "kangaroo court" led by some local fear mongers. The guy was a gem.
I see now that the bullying just continues and has a more "civil" appearance.
Hence my disdain for the Klintons and the like....
What conformists don't get from the story of the two prodigal sons, is that conformist or non-conformist, the father's love is for both. That's why conformists often mistakenly call it the story of "the" prodigal son...
ooops... oh, conformity does not equal christianity? 10-4,
Go gold, let the non-conformists have their day... Gold investors tend to be non-conformist, not always.
Nicodemus, went to Jesus by night for fear of the conformists....
Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.... Christ
Nicodemus
Posted by 30something Indievidual:
Right on! Those kids have figurative bloodstains on their hands. Like Lady MacBeth, they won't wash off, either. The popular media wants to shy away from the fact that many kids are facing daily harassment in our schools. And how that harassment sometimes forces an explosion of rage. Afterall, you can only push back on something before it either breaks or swings back.
See, it's not the system (school) that's different, its the input to the system (students and their families) that's different.
The fact that private schools are peopled only by those students whose families will pay more for education is an incredibly strong filtering factor. Either they are richer families, or they are families more willing to sacrifice for their childrens' educations. Either way, the private schools don't have to worry about trying to accomodate the lazy students whose parent's don't care, or the poor students with too many other life crises getting in the way.
Private schools aren't necessarily any better. They just get better input.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I was meek. I never 'worked out', never did anything physical (to the detriment of my health.) I did the D&D thing and the computer thing, but I was not a straight-A student. I hated classes because most of it seemed like irrelevant memorizing of facts that I could just look up if I needed to know it in the future, so I never really tried very hard. (Later on, I found out that my problem is that I'm bad at rote memorization, but good at remembering things that have 'reasons' and 'patterns'. My problem with American schools is that they place too much emphasis on memorizing lists of facts without rhyme or reason, and that was my weakest area. (For example, I was horrible at arithmetic, but good at calculus).). Anyway, I had the standard list of cruddy experiences, which I won't go into because they are pretty much the same as what everyone else here has already talked about.
Anyway, the point is that one day I snapped too. I got into a fight. Now, that by itself doesn't seem very strange, but in this case it was a fight with the principal. In the cafeteria. With everyone watching. I'd had a bad week, and someone had been 'scuffling' with me after having tripped me or something like that (I can't really remember anymore what started it). Anyway, the pricipal just happened to be nearby (walking down the hall past the cafeteria), and so he was the one to break it up. At first I was glad he broke it up, but then he immediately started blaming me for the fight, and not the other guy. Up until this point I had been relatively calm and rational, but then this was the last straw. This was not the first time this particular principal had done this. He was well known for going "light" on jocks when there was a fight and going "heavy" on whomever the other partcicipant was. He had recently installed a rule that anyone involved in a fight would be automatically charged with a misdemenor 'disturbing the peace' and charged the standard $67.50 fine for that offense in that county. Time and time again, I had seen friends get roped into this by some jerk coming along and starting a fight and leaving the person with the choice between standing there and letting himself get hit, or defending himself and getting a $67.50 fine for it. (The antagonist being some rich jock kid who thought the $67.50 fine was easily worth it for being able to pummel someone without them defending themselves.)
We had brought this up to the leaders of the school through the 'proper channels' and had been summarily ignored. So the problem got worse. The fights got worse. Instead of walking away, people figured "If I'm probably going to get fined $67.50 anyway, whether I do anything or not, I might as well make it worth it and fight back." This idiotic principal's policy had made things much worse, making fights much more violent. (Because in addition to the normal anger that goes with a fight, you were also mad at the person for costing you a $67.50 fine.)
So anyway, as I struggled in the grip of the principal, the cafeteria students had started chanting "sixty-seven-fifty, sixty-seven-fifty", which had become the standard taunting chant. This reminded me that this self-important twit was indirectly responsible for the crap I had just been receiving, as well as a lot of the crap I'd been receiving the last weeks, as well as my entire time in that school. Finally, little meek me, who usually sucked at fighting and let everyone walk all over me, finally snapped. I socked the principal right in the kisser, saying something about "This place sucks and its all your fault!", or something equally lame sounding, I can't remember. I had knocked his glasses askew and raised a bruise. This was in front of literally half the school. (We had two staggered lunch periods.)
I stood in shock. With the adreneline still running like crazy, making me shake, I realized what I had just done, with a big fat "oooops!" running through my head.
Well, obviously there was disciplinary action, which wasn't helped by the fact that I chose not to be the least bit apologetic when the principal talked to me later in his office. I told him off again (this time more coherently, with reasoned arguments) and described exactly what led up to the incident and where my anger was coming from. He asked me to apologise. I refused. I tried to explain that an apology under duress is empty and meaningless, and I wouldn't do it just to get out of trouble. Maybe later I would, but not right now. Not when my motivation would be purely to get out of hot water - my apology would be a pack of lies.
Anyway, where this is going is this: After I came back to school a few days later from my suspension. the students actually respected me (they didn't want to get all buddy-buddy, but they now thought I was 'cool' enough to talk to on occasion, with an occasional, "Wow, you hit the principal, that took balls, man- I guess maybe you're not so bad after all."
This made me sick. After taking the time to cool down, I was ashamed of what I had done. (The principal got that apology a few days later, BTW, but I think it baffled him more than anything.) But *this* was how to gain respect amongst these people? To let my anger take over and go off and punch the principal? (Side note: it was kinda fun to notice how the tale had grown in the telling while I was away. In the few days I was gone, It seems some people thought I had pulled a knife on the principal, and sent him screaming away while yelling obscenities at him.)
Anyway, this made me ill. After having done the second most shameful thing I had ever done in my life, these jerks thought that this was a great and wonderful 'cool' thing to do. I was so glad the day I graduated and got out of that mess.
So, yes, High School is hell. And the faculty are often a part of the problem (not all the faculty - some were familiar with the principal's favoritism in discipline and were sympathetic - but not many).
Somehow, 11 years later, that is one event that still sticks out in my mind about high school. The fact that my 'peers' were so deranged that what I percieved as one of my more shameful moments, they percieved as one of my better moments. It still makes me sick to think about it.
No, this was not some inner-city school from a violent neighborhood, either. It was a lilly-white suburban school of about 1000 where just about everyone goes to church on sunday and all that. (It turns out that the fact that I *didn't* go to church was part of the reason for my not fitting in, but I didn't realize it at the time. - everyone's cliques were started in their churches.)
So, if I have any advice to give to highschoolers out there it is just to echo this one fact: High School is not the real world. Others have already said it, and I'll say it again. And people change too. If you go on to college you will find that some of those bullies and self-important types actually do grow up and get to be less of a pain. They probably won't ever be friendly with you if you are of the geek persuation, but they will stop trying to make your life a living hell at least. (until they get their MBA's and become your pointy-haired boss, but at that point you have a little bit more weight you can throw around, given that they can't easily find someone else to do your job.)
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Yes. I remember that song well. While it was already about 4 years old when I first heard it, it was the first Rush song I heard, and it's what got me started listening to them. The lyrics in that song are so very TRUE, and I remember listening to it thinking, "at last, someone who knows what its like and tells it like it is."
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
In that school melting pot, there's the same adversarial relationships that exist in society at large, except they exist in cruder, crueler form in schools -- it's gang warfare, whether Bloods v Crips, Jocks v Geeks, or the politician-inspired farce Soccer Moms v The Unlucky Sperm Club. The power relationships are similar, but the rules and scorecards shift around in the outside world, e.g. a jock can't derive as much value from his jockhood unless his talents take him from high school to college to pro sports.
"Geek Profiling" a problem? Try "Driving While Black" in Westchester County (or on Interstate 95), where all the adult status points you've garnered amount to nothing when a cop ruins your day for no useful reason.
It's not a geek thing, it's a societal thing. Alienation and Orwellian nonsense aren't the exclusive preserve of schools. Why don't we work on the bigger picture instead, rather than let this devolve into yet another /. Veneration of the Geeks article? Society's other victims don't have such inflated egos. Which victimhood is more dire, that of a teenage Merkin geek or that of a teenage Honduran toiling on a banana plantation?
Get over yourselves. "The big story out of Littleton" is that the mass media (isn't Katz an alumnus of Big Media?) and its consumers judge some lives (cruelly murdered kids in posh suburbia) to be of more value than others (all the nameless, faceless homicides that happened elsewhere; all the poor kids who died from malnutrition in the name of "fiscal responsibility"; all the kids who died stillbirths from the fallout of US depleted-uranium weapons in Iraq, etc, etc). When I see Al Gore attend a memorial for all the kids born deformed in Basra as a result of Desert Storm, or when I see Phil Knight apologize and make amends to his ongoing Indonesian or Filipino victims, maybe I'll begin to see a glimmer of hope.
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=8^
The hazing and ridicule and victimhood is society-wide and worldwide, though it's usually much subtler when adults do it -- and it gets handed down to our offspring to play out in classrooms and hallways and athletic fields.
And the notion of many posters here that an alienated high-school geek should just bide his/her time and "get revenge" by succeeding later in life just perpetuates the vicious cycle: the grown-up geek's kids will carry on the tale of Dr Seuss' Sneeches for another generation. And we'll go through this bullshit again; all the media attention and hype will amount to nothing until we do some serious, honest introspection -- which is hard to squeeze in with all the Audi, SmithBarney, and MasterCard ads cutting into Jon Gibson and Dan Rather's face time and all the satellite feeds from Our Man in Yugoslavia and Our Woman in Littleton.
We, the well-fed techno-masses on /., and the young techno-masses-to-be (God willing), are more part of the problem than part of the solution -- that's why I'm a little less than enthusiastic about all these threads that Our Man in Cyberspace (Katz, God bless him!) has unleashed. But maybe I just need my nap :)
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=8^
This is exactly the kind of thing that needs to be written about the Colorado massacres. I just think it's a bit of a shame that we can't get columns like this into all the paper media.
School can be hell. I think most of us know this on some level. I didn't go to school in America, I went to school in New Zealand and every day I experienced the same thing, the nasty comments, the abuse (both verbal and physical). I remember one day when four successive people walked past me and simply spat on me for no other reason than that I wasn't a conformist, I wasn't popular. I wasn't like them and what they don't understand they fear.
The administration of my school, Riccarton High, in Christchurch, New Zealand, did nothing to stop this. What can you do when one of the people who teases you is the pricipals son and one of the people who spits on you as they walk past is the Deans son? Nothing, because you are different and they simply don't care and won't take the time to understand.
The experiences I had a school almost made me leave, there were entire mothns when I didn't show up to shcool because I couldn't bear the thought of what would happen when I got there. I ended up in deep depression and in counselling for a couple of years after that.
My only satisfaction comes from the fact that now I'm 23 years old and earning more than most of my teachers and have a hell of a lot more prospect that most of my fellow pupils, they may have been half-decent atheletes but they'll get old and slow and fat and I'll be sitting behind my terminal making their porn connection work.
To everyone out there who is getting hell at school, bear with it. Let it flow past you and get on with your life. It will be the one of the hardest things you have to do but if you get through it and don't let them break you then you will win.
We are not misfits, we are not dorks, we certainly aren't idiots. We are Morlocks and we will be the ones who make their world work when our time comes around.
Silver
I live in Europe, in Portugal to be more exact. When at high-school I would be called a geek or a nerd, if there was a equivalent word in portuguese. It so happens that there isn't, or there wasn't. While I was not the most popular of my classmates I was never harassed in any way, and my eccentricity even gave me a certain status.
When I saw the movie "The Revenge of the Nerds" I didn't get it at first. The concept of an underclass of gifted kids opressed by the sporting elite was completely alien. It did not happen here.
It's been a few years, and I don't know how things are now, maybe some american values are being imported....
ATTY. GEN. RENO: Again, that comes back to how we raise our young people, how we teach them what's right and what's wrong. Ten years ago you could go to the library and get a book that told you how to make a bomb, but it wasn't as accessible. But you didn't take the book off the shelf. We have got to teach our kids that there are things that you don't do with the Internet and things that you use to broaden your education to learn from and to expand your horizons.
This is malarky! I checked out all kinds of books when I was a teen about chemistry, guns, explosives, electronics (no computers back in the 60's) and then I went to the hardware stores and bought the necessary supplies. I tested my concoctions. I never tried to hurt anyone; I just wanted to see what it would do. Today, I'd be a big time suspect. My point is books were MORE accessible then. Nobody paid attetion to it then because there weren't any incidents like this but the information was very available. More importantly, the materials were very easy for kids to get. The drugstore sold sulfur and sodium nitrate in big plastic jars. Powderize some charcoal and you can make gunpowder.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
I was on my high school newspaper, so I know that the national (forget the name) high school newspaper socity takes the idea of administartors killing articals seriously! Get a lawyer now, don't bow to the pressure, remember you have better lawyers (through that orginization) than they do!
PS, if you go to a private school, this doesn't applie. Public schools cannot mess with student papers, courts have held that up many times.
I've thought about the Colorado situation for a while, and concluded: This is the price we pay for freedom.
WE could prevent this situation. 1984 basicly. Radio transmaitters on everyone (surgicly implanted, non-removable), mandatory random searches, and so on. Yes, we could have prevented that situation, but the simple moves to prevent it that you hear suggested (more gun control as if those kids legally had the guns in the first place), banning video games (even though quake is sick, and anyone who likes it needs help) or so on won't help. Either it is all 1984, or nothing.
Personally I'll take my chances that I and my friends will survive today. We may not, but I prefer taking my chances with death then to know I will live in the other socity.
Mine too. Parents have a right to take comptuers away. In fact at times I think they should more often. (Not just comptuers, TV too. ground more kids. whatever will get the kids attention)
The point though is that the parents said "We don't have the time to deal with you, so we will take the comptuer" (not a direct quote). Rasing kids is hard. I don't have them, and I know that. I can't belive how many parents think they can raise kids correctly and still have whatever life they want. Kids are not a two hours a week thing, they are number one priority for years. (not that parents can't have fun, but they can't neglict their kids)
First off, don't get me wrong. I belive that homeschooling should be an option for everyone, and every loving parent should consider it.
Homeschooling generally misses one thing that you learn in high school, because it is not taught in class. (and it is taught poorly) How to deal with people! You need to learn to deal with people, and you can't learn that lession unless you deal with people byond family. You can get around this porblem if you remember it is amajor lession, far more imporant than most of the usless classes you have to take. this lession requires people who disagree with you, people who are not like you. Most of the home schooled kids, while smart otherwise lack this skill. (Not that I'm claiming to be good at it)
High school isn't the only, nor perhaps the best way to learn this social skill. As one of my college professions said "When I first went to the university everyone thought it was a good thing, but they were worried because I might meet a democrat up there in that big city." Of course he did meet a democrat in life, and it didn't kill him. He was a great teacher, one of the few I found in college. His education failed him though, in that people were afraid of democrats, instead of teaching of them as just misguided people. (Note, that this is not intended to be something on politics, I picked democrats because his small town was entirely republican. there are comunities of democrats who have the same narrow view)
I also bring to mind one home schooled girl who isn't stupid, but she gets worked up and distraught over anyone who disagrees with her. She was taught how life, right and wrong, and she never questioned them. She never figgured out why wrong is wrong, and she is the worse for it. Some things she does are IMHO wrong, but she wasn't taught they were wrong, and so she refuses to consider any viewpoint that would suggest they are wrong. (Not that she should belive they are wrong, but she considers any viewpoint she wasn't tought wrong).
Still, homeschooling must be an option. Sometimes it is the only thing that a parent can do when faced with all the bad things in the other systems. I won't disagree with many of the criticisms leveled against schools. Schools do a lot of things wrong.
Accually it is even more fun to treat them well, and hope they remember all the bad things they did to you. Anyone with any conscience at all will kick themselves for all those horid things.
The poster above mentioned buying something (wine I think, but I don't recignise it) that costs more then they make in a night... Well, by that, and then inviste them for a cup full. (Note, the poster above me mentioned drug treatment, don't tempt someone just out of treatment with even legal drugs, but if they are just out of prison they are fair game for this mind game)
This is also a very christian thing to do, and it can't hurt no matter what your religion.
I, Like a lot of people. Did not have a good experience in high school. It got worse every year. When I started Jr. High school It seemed to be no end to the number of people that wanted to beat me up. ( giggle giggle ) I was 6 feet tall by 7 grade. For some reason this and the fact that I creeped out others with my views on the world made me a target. I actually gave up computers for beer in order to try and fit in. My attempts never worked. I never made friends easy in high school. The music that I liked was too strange. My choice of clothing was weird. I had no interest in sports ( I did try sports to fit in but there was no real hope). I was told by teachers that liked me (very few). That I was very smart and that I needed to learn how to apply myself and be more like the others. I went from a pretty happy kid to a person that did not trust. I knew few others like me, and they were my friends. We found our own fun outside of our school, out of site of the popular kids. I could not take going to school any more. I was getting suicidal about having to deal with the same people that hated me every day and it was getting harder ti hide. I knew I needed a change.
So I quit school.
I was 16 when I did it. I quit school, got my driver license, and took my G.E.D. on my birthday. My score on my G.E.D. was a 95% correct without studying. I started the Community college in my town a month latter. It was amazing.... There was a whole world of learning with out social pressure. My grades picked up fast. I was making friends almost every day. And things I was persecuted for were now strengths in making friends. I was an interesting individual for the first time, instead of being strange and alien.
I later got back into computers. Funny it was about the time I quit drinking.
There seems to be no tolerance in our schools. I also think it goes farther then what game you play. Or the amount of time you spend in front of the TV. We are forcing our kids to be joiners. When everyone knows that it's the individual's that make the real difference in the world.
They call what I did a "geographic escape". I call it getting out of a bad situation befour it was too late.
P.S. A "Jock" That picked on me.... Well now he makes my Pizza's. The funny thing is that I treat him with respect. I don't know if he would do the same if I was making his pizza. I guess I still have a problem with trust.
Last one in jail is a fascist.
I realize the following avoids fixing the root problem, but anyway...
If you really hate high school, but are a good student, see if there's a chance you can graduate early. A friend of mine skipped 11th grade by taking English in summer school. Just think, one less year of torture...
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
>How many tens of thousands of people were murdered in New York or Los Angeles last year alone?
r ders990101.html
Ten thousand is approximately the total number of murders in the US in an average year. New York had the second-most murders of US cities for 1998, with a total of 629 (Chicago, at 689, had the dubious distinction of first place.) Given that New York's population is around 10 million, this means the murder rate was about 4 times as high.
An excite search on +new +york +murder returned this page, among others:
http://204.202.137.113/sections/us/DailyNews/mu
You have an immense amount of information at your fingertips. Consider using it.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Since it's obvious that we aren't going to learn anything in high school anyway due to the tragedy, lets organise a mass drop out day for may 19th, (star wars day too) We all drop out, give the man the Finger, and take the year off, all the while bringing attention to the tragedy that the Media and School Administrators fueled. Whos with me?
-Shanoyu
Ironically, I don't think administration tends to come from the popular groups. The system of self-hate and envy often makes high school's rejects its later proponents.
A lot of people find something else to be part of -- their own small clique, some interest that can give them identity. But a lot of people don't find these things -- they are lost, hoping to belong and making pathetic attempts to be part of something they cannot have.
And those kids make sad cliques, where they all hate each other as much as they hate themselves. Many geeks out there must have had the experience of trying to make a friend with one of these sorts, but being rejected because they didn't want friendship as much as social promotion, and geeks lead to little social promotion. (I think this happens more among girls than boys)
When these not-quite-geeks grow up they won't condemn the system. They have too much emotion invested in it -- more emotion than the popular people even. They are many of the people who make up administration -- the popular people generally find better jobs.
I find the circularity of that class of teens much sadder than the geeks -- at least we have a way out.
hell.
I don't think so.
People who really do devote their lives to 'Jesus' (or more likely his ideals and a Christian code of morals) wouldn't do anything remotely like this, by definition.
However, most of the 'Christians' in the high schools rarely aspire to such a high moral code.
As they show, the actual belief in a God can be kept completely separate from the morals that the religion also teaches.
I don't believe in a God because I don't think it's rational. If I had a good reason, maybe I'd change my mind. However, I live a fairly moral life, because I think it's right, and that's what needs to be taught to avoid situations like this.
Religious zealotry historically has created more violence than it has solved.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Depending on what classes are going on, even jocks and preps and whatnot have to be in the library sometimes. I don't even know if that's where the shooting started. Maybe they just ended up in there because that's where alot of the kids went. There aren't enough details yet.
As for your other point, I think you may have something about their obsession with Hitler. That was something that I noticed early on. I don't know how intelligent people could consider Hitler as someone to be idolized, which makes me think that these kids were alot more screwed up than we might think at first.
Basically what you end up with is that kids who are not just different or intelligent, but also screwed up in their moral values and maybe other ways as well and cannot handle the social descrimination and harassment that goes on in school. In the case of mentally unbalanced individuals, I can certainly see violent movies, music and games contributing to their becoming killers. But why couldn't football be included in that list? But isn't that always the case when someone is mentally unbalanced? They don't act rationally. They don't consider consequences. These teens were suicidal. Does everyone think that was caused by violent movies too? Plenty of kids commit suicide because of the pressures of school and fitting in. It takes an exceptionally screwed up kid to try to wipe out the entire school before he goes himself.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
School administrators and parents won't accept the responsibility for addressing the real problems here. They can't. To do so would mean accepting liability for the actions of the teens. In a society that will sue at the drop of a hat (let alone a serious situation like this one), they can't admit any fault. It would open up parents and schools across the country to thousands of lawsuits. So now we have school administrators that are conditioned to deny any and all responsibility for tragedies like this. Parents do the same. The can never solve the problem until they can identify and accept the real problem. They can't do that as long as they fear the crippling lawsuits that will inevitably come from that admission.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I must confess that I am of mixed feelings about Jon's response to the killings. On one hand, I've had the experience of bieng an schoolyard outcast. I never really "fit in" with the mainstream crowd, and probably had about two regular friends through middle school. One of those friends actually had thoughts of committing suicide. He worked through it, and none of us walked through our school killing other students.
I think we managed because we were friends. We were all rather introverted people, and so we formed close friendships with each other. I think our parents had something to do with our survival, too. I know that my parents brought me up with a fairly good sense of morals, and they made sure that I knew that they were proud of me as I was. Knowing that there are people that accept you as you are helps a lot, I think.
On another hand, there are a lot of violent influences on people these days. We play first-person-shooters for fun. The military uses very similar programs to desensitize people to killing. Many of today's blockbuster movies feature violence and mayhem. The heroes generally must kill dozens of enemies (but it's ok because they're "bad guys", right?) and emerge victorious and lauded.
On the whole, I think it comes down to psychological well-being. Someone who has difficulty distinguishing between reality and fiction has severe problems to begin with. Whether they're a gamer, quake player, or apparently "normal" person, the cause of the problem is far more deep-rooted than just "He played Quake and it taught him to kill."
I don't think that there's an easy answer to either teen violence or schoolground ostracism. But we can let people know that it's OK to be different, and that there are non-violent avenues that may be taken.
--Phil
355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation!
I went through TAMS, another residential academy, this one at the University of North Texas. The chance to get out of an unpleasant (though certainly not hellish) highschool environment was a great gift. I learned a great deal more than I would have in my local high-school, and met some people I will never forget. There are great things that happened when we came together. I bet that these the things that we do will be magnified because of the accepting, deverse culture we lived in (well, more accepting and diverse than your typical highschool, anyway).
--
-- Have you ever imagined a world with no hypothetical situations?
Not eveyone is so stupid as to beleive that by targeting video-games and goths we will prevent further tragedies.
I watched the first ten minutes of Meet the Press on Sunday morning while waiting for a ride. The US attorney-general Janet Reno was being interviewed about her take on the mess in Colorado. The transcript of this interview is availbile from MSNBC
Here is an illustrative quote from the interview:
She also answered some questions about metal detectors in schools, parental responsiblity, etc. in a similar fashion.
So, when you are looking for a good quote to back up your argument, you might just be able to snag one from the top law-enforcement officer in the federal govronment. And that can be handy.
--
-- Have you ever imagined a world with no hypothetical situations?
And it turns out to be an interesting property of Slashdot's comment form that when you preview, it takes an HTML quote-symbol and displays it literally in the "Preview Comment" subwindow but turns it into a double-quote punctuation mark in the source (Post Comment) subwindow. So "Preview" repeated twice fixes the problem...
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
As to High School: Been there, done that. To all you outcasts and misfits and loners: hang on. Give the football stars and cheerleaders their day in the sun- yours is comming. Pity the people whose _best_ years are high school- for them, from here on out it's all down hill. Your best days are still comming.
Trust me on this. I've walked your path.
I am now about 15 years out of high school. I'm thinking part of the problem is school discipline (rather, the handling of discipline). Often, I see or read news of some student being punished for something that I never would have thought of as a violation (even after reading the rule that was supposedly violated).
For example, a high school student gets suspended for having a stick in the trunk of his car (rule: no weapons). The student says it was used to prop the trunk open (demonstrated broken spring on trunk lid). I'm glad I'm not in school, because I would have never imagined that I could get suspended for that. Jon's article mentions several other good examples. Considering the unpredictable nature of these things, and the impossabliity to avoid all possability of a problem, these punishments (As required councilling is seen as a thing to avoid, I regard it as a form of punishment in this context), the punishment is more or less random.
Now, consider what happens when you apply random negative stimuli (punishment) to a rat. The rat will become neurotic and display anti social (for a rat) behaviour. In addition, negative stimuli will become ineffective as a means of behavoiur modification. (Human equivilant "Well, if I'm going to be punished anyway...").
Add to that other rules that while well documented are obviously arbitrary, the social pressures that seem to be unique to school, and a lot of young people who are still trying to figure out how they fit into the world, and you're practically begging for trouble.
Of course, the police aren't handling things much better. When I was in high school, several of my friends and I considered black powder and other explosive compounds to be recreational. Having them didn't get you into much trouble (grounded, lectured etc, yes. But not real trouble), and we never used them in a way that would get us into trouble (a few black marks on the driveway, a few pulverised rocks etc). Now, I've allready seen several stories about high school students being arrested and kept in juvenile detension for having those same things. I'm sure that will give them a politically approved opinion about the police and criminal justice.
I knew kids that had been imprisoned when I was in 5th grade. Mind you, I grew up in a less sanitized neighborhood. Violence of this kind is nothing new. What these kids did was just a little bit more extreme than what a hood might have been doing geek by geek in a middle school or elementary school 20 years ago.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The police don't have the obligation (or the resources) to defend you as an individual. They are there for the "public" safety. If someone is at your door, trying to deprive *you* of your life, you get the standard 20 minute police response time. If the attacker succeeds, you're left dead. The fact that an APB goes out as they're putting you in a bodybag isn't much of a consolation, IMHO.
Besides, the places in the US with the highest murder rates are also the places with the most repressive gun control laws (Washington DC, where guns are banned outright, and California, for instance). In contrast, the places where people have been given the right to carry concealed weapons, violent crimes against them have dropped (Somewhere in florida had a big problem with rape
As for guns being the basic problem, I don't see how you could be further from the truth. Since bombs are a big factor in the event being discussed, I think it has been demonstrated quite well that it's easy enough for anyone to obtain a means of killing people besides guns (cars, knifes, poison, etc) Firearms are unique in this respect because they have excellent *defensive* value.
Sure, freedom has risks associated with it... I'm of the firm belief that the risks are worth the result. Besides, there are lots of other countries out there where guns are not legal for people who do want to trade their freedom for the illusion of security.
The NRA wants the good guys to be able to have guns. The bad guys can get the means to kill regardless of any legalities, just as people can get at cocaine and the like, even though that has been illegal for nearly a century.
On a side note, the NRA also supported instant check systems at gun shops, so that if someone is a convicted felon, sale is declined.
Sadly enough, I was forced to go through the perverbial rat-race of school. Constantly teased, tomented, and such for being a computer geek. Ostrasised by the princial, and others of that level, but had a couple good teachers that reaslized what I could do. That made it almost bearable.
The guidance councler made a very interesting error when I reached 7th grade. At first I resented it, but after the fact, am very glad. I was put in the -=specal ed=- classes for most of the things I was good at, math, sicence, and such. But the way the specal ed teacher went, was great, she gave you the materels, and let you go, helping as needed. I finished about 3 grade levels of work in the first year. Realy a pointless matter, but I was actualy allowd to move at my own pace. Not that this helped with dealing with the bloody jocks, cheerleaders, or teeny-bopers. But being picked on when you are a martial artist is a dangerous thing...for the asalian. Solely used for defence 1 time, but one time was enough.
I eventualy was put in suspension for an undetermend peroiond of time for getting some evedince that would have put the pricipal out of a job, and dicided that hell, I don't need this place. And, at 16, quit school, and, got my GED six months later. (the leagal time limit) Since then, I have been a hard working individual...mostly. With the job I have right now, I make about 25k a year, not much, but I do live in Nebraska...
Now, being 21, I have yet to actualy meet anybody I went to school with, and on the rare occasion I notice one of them passing by, they don't notice me...I like that.
BTW: I have also been wearing a trench coat for years.
http://www.xpurple.com
All this talk of Doom and Quake have diverted us from one of the discussion of something that could have been done to keep things like this from happening. Namely, keeping people from being able to have easy acess to weapons of mass distruction.
The NRA lobby is extremely powerful and they not only control much legislation, but also seem to be able to command puplic opinion. People talk as if having the means to kill a large number of people quickly and easily readily at hand is some sort of god given right.
In a civilised society, it is not. Lets stop pointing fingers at ridiculous things like video games and start to point them at the NRA and other groups that have seen to it that if you want, you can get ahold of enough weapons to do the sort of things that these boys did.
Lets break it down to the core. While pipes, baseball bats, knives etc have various purposes, one of which might be to harm some one, a firearm is created with one purpose and one purpose ONLY: to make killing as easy as possible. PERIOD.
Yes, if some one wants to kill bad enough they will find a way, but guns make it so damn easy to kill. You have to want to kill enough to move your index finger a few mm.
Guns raise the level of violence to an automatic deadly level. A conflict that might have ended in a broken nose without guns can so easily end in death.
We defend having these things with all the insane arguements you see here because we like that power. It makes you feel powerful to know you can take a life so easily.
That is what these boys wanted. They wanted the power. They felt powerless. Guns gave them this feeling of power.
Some say that they feel that guns make them feel more protected. It is a false sense of security, however, for the truth of the matter is that a gun in the home is MORE LIKELY TO ACCIDENTALLY HARM someone in that home than EVER be used to protect it. You say BS? The person who teaches gun safety at VMI (who could be more qualified or careful?) shot and killed his 7 year old son accidentally when cleaning a gun.
No, easy access to guns aren't all the problem, but it is sure the hell a HUGE part of it. We Americans need to wake up and realise how insane we are for having a society saturated with these things whose ONLY PURPOSE is to make killing as easy as possible.
On CNN, I saw a thing about how the students were making Blue and Silver ribbons for people to wear to remember the 13 victims.
13 victims.
These two boys, to me, were just another (of the thousands) of teen suicides in this nation. The only difference is that they decided to take their tormentors with them.
I think that TCM-types everywhere should wear a black ribbon, to show support for the TRUTH in this matter, and to protest what's REALLY wrong with America's schools. Not to condone the violent outcome, but to mourn the tragedy of how these two boys met their end, along with 13 of their classmates.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
. . . my ex wife sends our 10 year old son to a private school. It's not much better there either. At least he has me to talk to about this.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I can tell you for a FACT, that my parents did NOT ignore me, and I built bombs, and for a short time, owned a handgun under their very noses (but one time, got in trouble sneaking two beers over to a friends house?!).
People who believe that all parents can be in 100% control of their kids are kidding themselves.
I knew places in my parents' house where I could hide stuff that they never knew existed. They had no clue, and would be totally shocked to know what I was into when I was a kid (and dismayed to find out how nicely I turned out despite all the youthful hell I raised).
That's why you kids should stay away from body piercing and tatoos. Keep them guessing.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
" the high school In Crowd will always be _losers_."
Absolutley NOT true.
Though the pain you sufferred probably feels better when you THINK this, it's not true. At least in MY High School, many of the "popular kids" went on to far, far better lives than I did.
I'm working in a software company - I do Tech Support (2nd Line) because that's what I enjoy and am good at. If I were a programmer I would be making TWICE what I'm making now. Sue me, I think coding is boring. I think troubleshooting is exiting. I like solving problems. (not creating them).
AND, the Sales People at this company, make more than the programmers. They're DEFINATELY all Jocks. In fact, probably the ones who never "grew up" out of the "wolf-pack" high school mentality. Also, I'd say a LARGE proportion of our programmers were probably not high school outcasts. A lot of them are very active athletes. We have a baseball league, at lunch they play basketball and roller hockey out in the parking lot. A lot of us mountain bike.
AND, the popular press (at least the TV News Anchors) which is making such an ugly mess of this whole thing right now, were probably all popular kids as well, which is why they refuse to see the truth in this matter.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
. . . and the burn-out wore a black trench-coat.
So expect this movie to be on the banned list.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Just wait until one of us figures out how to put together an atom bomb.
". . . it fits in a suitcase, it's that small, nobody knows it's there 'till BLAMMO! eyes melt, skin explodes, EVERYBODY dead. .
-repo man.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
. . . how the HELL did we win the cold war?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
you are an idiot, and have probably never been locked in a school locker, or had a swirly, or a wedgie.
It's not about hating jocks. It's about BEING hated. Hating them back, is just a survival mechanism, and for a 12-16 year old, a damn common one.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
maybe they needed to paddle YOU in spelling class.
/.
Jeez Rob, you REALLY need to incorporate an automatic spell-checker into
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
You are an idiot.
Obviously, you didn't go through what these other posters have gone through, otherwise, you WOULD understand. And if you don't, you never will. Sorry.
Yes, life is harsh, life sucks, kids can be cruel to one another, and everyone is at one time or another, on the receiving end of it, but when a kid is in this situation, day in and day out, constantly, with no escape, and no one to talk to about it, it's not easy to deal with, emotionally.
Identifying with what the killers were feeling is != justifying it. If it were, this would have happened many times before, at many many schools across the country.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
To all high-school outcasts:
We do all have something in common, but we're not all the same.
I was a High-School outcast. I've often referred to that experience as "4 years of hell". I'm 31 now, and I've come to grips with what I went through, and why it happened. I dealt with it back then by kidding myself that I was smarter than them, better than them. Truth be told, I was at the exact 50th percentile in the class. Okay, I topped out all the standardized tests, and all the counsellors and teachers had these heart-to-hearts with me telling me how bright I am, how smart and talented I am, but really, I think at least some of that was a thin attempt to get me exited and involved in a world I had no interest in. Academics. So bottom line, I wasn't the "best and brightest" of my school, and now, 14 years later, I don't have the comfort of seeing all the jocks and preps working daddy's car dealership. (some of them)
But I eventually figured out, the problem was me. For some reason, even in the professional world, I just don't fit in. I'm just not very socially - fluent(?). I don't know what it is, but at least now, I don't carry a lot of angst over it, I just deal with it as best I can. At least here, in the professional world, the people I work with are grown-up about it, and the wolf-pack mentality that kept me excluded and ostracized from everything in High-School is no longer present.
I'm not as bad off as some of you. I've read about others in the "Why Kids Kill" column, some people have had counselling, drugs, and even "extended stays" at Arkham Assylum for the Criminally Insane.
I don't know how to solve my root problem, social ineptness. I know it's a problem that feeds on itself, because the more aware of it I am, the more nervous I get around people, and the worse I am. But I do know that being online, and conversing with others online - like-minded or not, helps a lot. I don't even know if THIS problem is what causes ALL kids to be excluded and ostracized. I know there are probably other factors (economics, parental "connections", acne, physical stature, and hobbies). But I DO know one thing: If I knew then, what I know now, I would DEFINATELY done many, many things different, and perhaps, I would be in a much better position in life now.
The main thing was, I couldn't see past age 18. When I was in High-School, I was so preoccupied with my misery, that I couldn't see my future at all. All I could see what I was missing out on. I think that this is a totally critical thing for kids going through this need to understand. That their situation is temporary, that the other kids are behaving the way they do because they're just kids. Most of them will grow up and stop being assholes. You can't wallow in self-pity like I did, because I ended up totally screwing up my life. And while things are going well for me now, at least financially, things could be MUCH MUCH better. (if only I had got good grades, and finished college, and not changed my major to art. ART?! What was I thinking? I don't know.)
I think about these kids and I see that at least they had a clique to be in, though some of the other TCMs say that these two were fringe members, that may be some defensive distancing. I did try sports, and I did play some sports, but I wasn't accepted by the "jocks". There were a couple of instances where I DID actually go postal, but I was unarmed, so I didn't end up in the news. Luckily for me, I had a big brother who used to tease me and beat the crap out of me, so at least I knew how to fight. Won some, lost some, luckily, never got in trouble over it. But I didn't fit in with the intellectual geeks, I didn't fit in with the stoners, I didn't even fit in with the theater kids. I was kind of a fringe member of all those groups (except the preps, that was an economic thing, pure and simple - mommy and daddy didn't buy me a BMW to drive to school). I wasn't even accepted by the D&D players. I did dabble in Paganism, I did have a gun, I did build bombs (take the Anarchist Cookbook with a grain of salt, some of it is just plain wrong), and I read Che Gueverra. I guess I'm just lucky I never decided to end it all and take some people with me.
(although - I wasn't ignored in a class of 400. I was voted "Most likely to blow up the world")
In the end, I didn't bear a grudge against any individual. I guess I still feel anger, but you know, life is what it is, and it's the way it is. You can try to change it, but it's not likely, and bottom line, at least I'm not some poor Rwandan kid, starving in the savanna, witness to his parents being hacked up by machettes in tribal violence. Kind of puts things in perspective.
And do I feel angry at how the press handles this shooting incident? You bet I do, but face it. These TV reporters and Politicians were all popular kids when they were in High-School. They have no idea, and can't possibly understand what we went through, and what you kids are going through now. And when they begin to understand, they HAVE to close their eyes to it. Can you imagine the guilt they must feel? (I do not feel sorry for them, but this is how I rationalize it).
So I welcome this "movement", of outcast kids on the internet. It's pretty crappy that this is turning into a witch-hunt, but I think maybe we'll all be a bit smarter from this experience, and maybe we'll all see what this can lead to, and maybe, the things that I've said can help some of you (and maybe some of those "sociologists and psychologists" out there will get a freakin' clue!). Maybe this gathering on the internet is something that can finally help this situation, something that wasn't possible before (I know I certainly had zero outlet for these thoughts and feelings when I was a kid - there was no internet back then. Not like today.)
So, for the kids who are getting their internet access cut off, I say, go to the library. Stay in touch with those who are going through the same things you are. I think it's the only way y'all are going to stay sane. (and by sane, I mean SANE, not "normal" or "conformist")
And please, stay away from this Nazi crap. That's just stupid. I'm not going to bad mouth Paganism (though I don't recommend it, it didn't get me anywhere, in terms of spiritual peace), This Nazi stuff is just plain stupid. It's SO 50 years ago. . .
Well, good luck.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Private schools have fewer problems because they
can be choosy about who they let in.
I do think it would be a good idea to rethink high school. I think students should go directly to community college after a certain age (at least a certain *intellectual* age) where they
would be in classes with older students as well as other kids. Forcing kids to be stuck with their own peers for four years during their adolescence retards emotional maturity IMO.
I PARTIALLY agree.. I feel for what happened to them, but something went wrong in their heads. Don't tell me you never just felt like beating someone to a pulp becouse of how you where treated. But something in their heads just went, and they did the unthinkable for many of us. I feel for them in what led to this, but I also feel that they could just as well been jocks or cheerleaders. People are targeting the wrong things here.. How many stressed over achivers kill themselves? I'm betting more then go out and blow acouple people away, but you never hear about them. They also had 'something wrong' happen in their heads..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
EXACTLY what I've been trying to tell people.. Eventually, something snaps. And everyone suprised when it happens.. People snap every day, after being pushed beyond their limits.
Suddenly, one of them thought of a way to get back, and be remembered for a long time to come..
For a mind that's been pushed one to many times, this would probrably sound great..
It's sad, but it's true..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Granted, maybe it's because of the area I grew up or maybe it was just luck that followed fellow geeks and myself at our schools but it wasn't bad at all.
Most of the jocks were pretty nice people. People that even did well in school (some of our football players were honors students with 4.0+ GPA's). The geek culture included people that were "popular", rich, etc. etc. Some of the jocks were geeks! I played high school volleyball yet was a geek. Hell, one of my best friends was a popular/jock.
We even had several teachers that were pro-geek. They offered their classrooms as hangouts at recess (nutrition) & lunch. Certainly better than the auditorium dances or other BS stuff they tried to get us to do.
Things aren't the same everywhere. Sure, we certainly had a few outcasts but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as what some of these kids are going through. I really do feel bad for them. I was lucky. I can only hope that more out there can be as lucky as I was.
As a CS major at UC Berkeley, I still feel that people here are shallow and materialistic just like everywhere else. I left high school, wishing that I would find intellectuals, people like me... And while there are a LOT of people here, I don't know that I've found too many real intellectuals... Perhaps I just can't see them.
I've met lots of college students that have bad reactions to me being a CS major. Mostly girls, by some random coincidence. "What's your major." "Um, actually, Computer Science." "Oh, how fun..."
But it is better, I'm not HATED for being who I am, I'm just not particularly liked. I guess I don't really fit into the CS/Engineering crowd, here, either. There are people that LIVE in the labs, and I'd much rather live at home. I DO wear a trenchcoat, but I also comb my hair (unless I have to get up and go straight to the lab).
So, even among geek culture, there are misfits and outsiders. Not that I'm about to slaughter anyone, but... I look pretty silly with my trenchcoat in the summertime.
Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
(Mind you, the Americans weren't against attrocities in the war of Independence, either.)
So, what's the point in all this? First, attrocities can happen ANYWHERE. Britain has limited how much gun-related incidents can occur, but there have been cases of hand-made flamethrowers and other such toys being brought in.
Second, instead of passing judgement on who's right & who's wrong, break up the fighting and get it through the figher's skulls that that's not the way to do things.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
This assumes that the responsibility for our actions lies "elsewhere" with some organisation monitoring them a la 1984 and controlling what we do on the basis of that. However, this is the wrong alternative. Instead, why not accept that we do bear responsibility for what we do, and for ensuring that other people over whom we have influence (like our kids) learn to do the same. To go down the 1984 route is to degenerate into a culture with absolutely no control; when the Big Brother mechanism fails you are left with a bunch of pure savages made more dangerous than those of previous times by the technology they have access to.
I've got a couple of things to say here.
:P) We need geek-only sports clubs!
Firstly, I must disagree with the person who wrote saying that we should not sympathise with the Trench Coat Mafia because they were racist. Let me clarify this; I do not at all condone what the killers did. However, why is it worse to kill someone for being coloured than for being an athlete? Both are groups of people, and all people are equally precious. We should not abhor the killings because athletes were killed or because coloured people were killed, but because humans were killed. Although racism is a terrible thing, discrimination against the old, or against athletes, is equally terrible. However, finally the two boys became killers. It doesn't matter who they killed, whether of some minority or not. Every death is equally tragic. To claim that a death is somehow more appalling because the victim was a member of a particular group is to implicitly discriminate against everyone not in that group. The real tragedy in any case like this, whether the victims be white or black, rich or poor or entirely random people, is that people are driven to such depths of hatred in the first place.
On a different theme, at school I was a geek. I was in the computer club, listened to heavy metal and gothic stuff and played wargames. But I am also a dedicated mountaineer and spend a fair bit of time keeping in sufficiently good shape for the high mountains. There isn't necessarily an incompatibility between geeks and athletes (or "jocks" or whatever). I was in a sense lucky; at my school the teachers actually cared about their pupils and most of the pupils had sufficiently caring backgrounds that they weren't openly hostile to geeks or anyone else. But the problem geeks seem to have with sports (and team sports in particular) is that in general they will be the only geek on a team, and will therefore hate it. I reckon if more geeks could get to try sports in a geek-oriented environment they might like them. It's like computer games (which we all love, right?) only it's good for you as well. (OK, American football isn't but that's a particuarly stupid game anyway
axolotl
Is it really that different in Canada? The mania seems more subdued but the same dynamics are at work.
I didn't care for school as well. I did great, and turned out okay, but I really wish I could do it all over again, with different choices.
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
We can make a support group for People for Whom High School Was Not a Living Hell. :-)
[don't ask me about elementary school or junior high, though.. ]
To everyone: Not all public schools are broken. I've been to one where things mostly worked. Imperfect? Yes. Everything is. And I don't know how long things will stay that way (there were signs of decay even my senior year), but that does not negate the fact that for a time they worked and worked well.
I would probably jump at the chance to redo senior year, junior year..maybe even sophmore year. Is there anyone else there who..even if they weren't class president..wasn't shoved into lockers and wasn't shoved into lockers just for hanging out with computers more than people?
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
I feel for the people that sent in stories...it was my high school as well, and that was 10 years ago. Although I was on one sport team, I was still a joke because it was the fencing team, and not something "normal" like basketball or wrestling. I played Dungeons & Dragons, I knew a lot about computers, I read science-fiction and fantasy (for that matter, I read recreationally). I got good grades. In addition to all this, I was tall and not exactly the standard-looking hollywood high school student.
Well, 10 years later, I am married to a beautiful wife, have a sweet 9 week old daughter, and tons of respect from my co-workers and peers in my field because I still know what I am doing.
It really makes me wonder what the jocks and pretty-boys are doing now. My guess is they've moved from one make-believe world (high school) to another (marketting), still living in the past when they were cool in their own minds.
After reading the stories above about kids getting sent home for this and that, I can officially be "outraged as a parent" now. If my daughter ever comes home for something as stupid as above, I will be in the principal or superintendant office that afternoon.
To the "abnormal" high schoolers, take heart - you are the ones living a normal life, not a the life of someone cut from a mold. Hang in - it gets better when your brain matters more than what clothes you wear.
Public schools cannot mess with student papers, courts have held that up many times.
This is not true. Some cases have supported student papers, some have not.
I suggest you look up Hazelwood vs. Kuhlmeier and also explore the rest of the Student Press Law Center.
Wordnik, a dictionary project which aims to collect
Nick
-- "It's a sad day for American capitalism when a man can't fly a midget on a kite over Central Park" - Jim Moran
I would be interested to hear from any UK posters whether this atmosphere has developed in schools there - it certainly didn't exist when I left school (12 years ago).
The only concillation one can give to those who have a hard time at school is that, although it may seem like the whole world now, as soon as you leave you'll realise how unimportant it all was and how pathetic those children who humilitated you really were. Small concillation, I know.
Nick
-- "It's a sad day for American capitalism when a man can't fly a midget on a kite over Central Park" - Jim Moran
High School was the worst time of my life. I was a computer nerd.... I almost commited suicide once... High School was fscking depressing..
I never fit in very well.. Now that I'm in college... and it's my senior year.. and I'm in a major where everyone around me are geeks.. It's a lot easier... Actually.. it's great... I've hadn't had a dull moment yet..
Lots of linux people around here too.
ChiefArcher
They exist. Or at least, they existed when I went there. Unfortunately, they were few and far between. (And the two that I actually spoke to were both married, strangely enough.)
Ah, MISSISSIPPI State University. Ok, that's a different story. Now, Michigan State University I can vouch for the existence of women in the CS department. Of course, I'm pretty sure that there are some in other MSU's.
No one in the US seems to want to acknowledge the problem.
It's simple. Take a drug test. You have a control group, one with the drug and one with the placebo. In this case, let's replace 'drug' with guns.
In Canada, we get the same games, violent movies, and just about all the same influences as the Americans. But... when have you heard of a Canadian kid shooting up a school? It happens almost monthly in the US, but not in Canada.
What is the problem here? The only difference between these two focus groups is the guns. How could anyone conclude that the problem is video games? It's not scientifically sound reasoning.
I'll play Quake, I'll watch John Woo movies, and I don't have to worry about my freedom being taken away because of some gun nuts trying to shift the blame from the obvious (guns) to the easy target (media)
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
I, too, was not a happy conformist in high school. I was rather depressed (and terribly bored) during most of my high school "sentence". College was better but I still did not quite fit in. I ended up graduating early from a school notorious for most people graduating late.
I have long believed that we live in a society where we a worked on like some raw materials. Think bout how often the terms "molded" and such are used in regard to education. This is probably ok for the status quo. But what about those of us who do not fit the mold? Conform or break seems to be the prevailing additude.
But this is the age of the geeks. After having served my time through out school, I am happily married to a wonderful engineer "babe", I am on the brink of financial success, and I live pretty much how I want.
I finally made the rather socking discovery that I was not socially maladjusted, it was just that I was trying to be part of a society to foreign to myself.
I am still of the conviction that the kids who did this were completely and unquestionalably wrong in their actions. But I cannot but think that high school is very difficult society to live in. One that I want no part of.
CL,
Littleton, CO
The real silver bullet to good programs is caffeine; lots and lots of caffeine! *twitch, twitch*
Please bear in mind that although the assailants targetted many of the "alpha primates", at least one of the shootings was motivated by race. Do not feel sorry for the gun men. This situation which lead up to the incident is extremely bad, but these killers were certainly not martyrs! What cause did they die for other than their own twisted form of revenge?!
Let's also not forget that the worst of the massacre happened in the library!
The real silver bullet to good programs is caffeine; lots and lots of caffeine! *twitch, twitch*
" ...five years later you'll probably be earning twice as much as the jocks while they're still living with their parents."
:-(
... and taxed to support them when they're on welfare.
In Liberty, Rene
So the people that get to make the decisions are those that use "reason"? And who made them Pope?
Of course, that's why I'm a Libertarian and not an objectivist, though the two political (in the sense of politics=philosophy of ethics) views are similar.
Given that we nerds are about the only ones who understand the workings of an increasingly networked and information processed world, perhaps it is time for Atlas to shrug.
In Liberty, Rene
Increasing Labor (oh, excuse me, "LABOUR") supply decreases wages.
Assuming a free market, which is not the case when it comes to NAFTA professionals.
If Canada's so great in computers, they why do they lag the US so much?
Lag in what sense? Canada has (or recently had -- the figures are a bit dated) the greatest per-capita proportion of programmers in the world.
It also produces some of the most sophisticated telecom equipment (kind of necessary when basic communications to a large part of the native population REQUIRES satelite technology).
But Canada is a small country, population-wise. So it certanly lags in terms of GNP. Furthermore, the exorbitant taxes result in a great brain-drain of people to the U.S. (like 90% of engineering graduates leave for jobs south of the border).
Me? I figure that if you can pay your own way, and support the local economy WITHOUT being a burden on so-called social services despite funding them via tax dollars (and not being able to benefit: if I collected any form of social assistance here, it would be a deportable offense), then you should be welcome. Stay long enough, pay your dues, and start to be eligible for some of those programs in time of need. But, that's a different thread.
In Liberty, Rene
seven women were killed by someone who obtained a rifle legally because the proper background check wasn't done.
In Canada it isn't the jocks you have to fear, it's the government.
In Liberty, Rene
Heh, I AM one of the "million" foreigners, though immigration requires that I be paid at least a certain amount so as not to depress the local job market.
FWIW, I am already over the 35 hill, at 37.
Frankly, if the U.S. educational system REWARDED smart students, there would be less need to import people like me -- many of the recent college grads I've encountered working here wouldn't even make the ENTRY requirements to a good Canadian Computer Science university program (though at my alma mater we had (small) riots for this reason).
In Liberty, Rene
I feel rejected and oppressed by all the cool kids in this college. I believe I'll wander down to the commons and take them all out.
I have zero sympathy for the TCM.
I really don't see their "solution" to their problems as having ANY positive benefits.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
I was reacting to Katz claim that the TCM served a purpose in bringing focus on on issue.
Now, I don't disagree with the fact that there is a great deal of misunderstanding of some of these social outcasts, but what the TCM did was EVIL, it shows no empathy of their own for those around them, who were simply living targets for their agression.
There is no excuse for what they did, and no matter why they were outcasts in the first place, no reason to try and empathize with the deed.
They were not "driven" to murder someone, far less thirteen, it was a choice on their part, and indicates serious problems that may have been triggered by their treatment by those around them.
That is no excuse.
No empathy for the TCM,
no sympathy.
I do feel sorry for those of us who have to deal with the backlash of what they did. Those of us in a similar situation, but with sufficient sanity and morality to avoid blowing away our classmates.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
I was reading many of the posts dealing with this thread, and it got me to recall the years I served hard time in seven different 'prisons.' I was always the outcast, the loner. When I was breezing thru classes and toying with computers, others made fun of me for my size, my looks, or my intelligence. Teachers and other school personnel could have cared less about my daily plight, and quite often life at home was no easier. The only thing that saved my butt in my early years was that my family was a military family. Every few years we moved to a new locale. The torment toned down in my later years, mainly because trying to find anyone willing to picking on a s++:++ was getting hard to find. At my last school I didn't encounter as much harassment, but then, I was a senior in high school, I had just arrived there after 5 years in Germany, and I was basically unknown to most people there.
However, there is another kind of harassment that I encounter here in college. I attend Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. My degree program, officially called Information and Decision Systems, should be called Micro$oft Wor$hip. It's tough being a Mac/SGI user when just about everybody else wants to (figuratively) perform vile sex acts with Micro$oft Bill. You would not believe the ridicule I have had to put up with because of my choice of platforms. Hopefully, when I get a job after school, I will be able to work on a platform I want to work on, not the tool of evil that is Wintel.
Say No to Micro$haft!
It is amazing the similarity of many of these posts. I know myself for one went through much of the ridicule and puishment (physical and emotional) that most geeks get in grade school and high school.
There are warning signs, yes. But when one is trained to keep emotion in at all costs so you are not called a "crybaby" often times there are no warning signs. I for one know that had I not had local Bulliten boards (BBS's) I probably would have suffered the same fate. I look back at some of my entries in my diary and quite simply it frightens me.
Most of my friends suffered the same fate as I did. Of the group, I am the only one to be graduating college. This is not a slam against anyone, it is just a simple fact. 3 of my friends actually spent time in mental hospitals because the stress was just too much for them to cope with and they snapped.
Mind you, this was before there was Doom or any of the modern first person shoot-em-ups. The violence was all caused by classmates and teachers. Yes, teachers. There was one teacher in my grade school that would regularly reduce students to tears in front of the class if they forgot a pen or pencil. Yes, a pen or pencil. This same teacher reduced a few _*PARENTS*_ to tears as well. What good is this when she teaches 5th grade. I know it was none the better for me, seeing as though I had to go through counseling because she belittled me so much.
The story rings true year after year. I just wish there was some way that there could be an end to the ridecule and abuse. I know I would have had a better learning experience than I did.
And to anyone that is curious, I am a graduating senior at the University of Michigan - Dearborn. In CIS:CS (computer science). Being a computer geek I am actually respected by classmates and teachers alike. It is definatly a different atmosphere entirely than grade and high school.
Kudos to Jon for a wholelly impressive article, and kudos to the readers of slashdot for keeping the flaming/crap posts down. It's a nice thing to see a civil debate!
Mark Szlaga
aka: Computer Geek
(and damn proud of it)
Good arguments, especially the last half of your post. However, I take some exception to the logic of the first part.
Just because it's a melting pot doesn't mean kids should have to put up with the cruelties of school. From about junior high through their sophomore year, kids are under incredible hormonal pressure-- they are becoming adults, with all the body chemistry and uncertainty that implies. Then, to top it off, they have to put up with the ridicule of their peers.
This goes beyond what *any*one should have to endure. Sure, you can say it builds character; but so does being torture, by that reasoning.
As far as other victim groups not having egos, that's false; in the US, almost everyone is a victim (or at least feels they are). In some sense, every *is* a victim. But in the truest sense, geeks in schools *are* victims. There is no justice; intelligence is cause for societal rejection, and adherence to strict social order is the only way to come out with your ego and sanity intact.
Now, as far as our problems go, vis-a-vis a large part of the rest of the world-- we have hardly anything to whine about. We certainly *do* have it easy, except for one thing:
We're told we live in a world in which everyone is equal, and we all have equal opportunity at success. Yet we are constantly stepped on, dumped upon, and spit upon; we are proud of our intelligence, yet that is what makes us outcasts. And then when we are singled out for ridicule, we have nowhere to go-- and so we discover that Justice is also a sham.
If we were simply taught from birth that we are losers, that we suck, and that we will never be anything other than serfs, we'd be much better off. Then at least we'd have no hope.
(Yes, I realize that having a hopeless lot in life is even more terrible than the hazings, ignorance, and hate we endure in school. There is a certain amount of irony in all of this, no?)
Wow... The article wasn't self-righteous,namby-pamby,and actually took the testimonies of those who were closest to the issue and made those testimonies the focus.
I'm glad I don'tautomatically filter out Jon Katz articles, because this one was worth reading...
-Dean
What will the vast majority of those current high school jocks and their empty headed
:) )
cheerleader girlfriends be 20 years from now?
You're doing exactly the same thing that the media is doing: shoving everybody from one, general category, into a description that really, nobody will fit (c'mon...Al Bundy?
But like another poster said, many of the so-called bubbleheads *will* fit in and be incredibly businesspeople. Life is about relationships...even those killer kiddies out in kolorado had relationships (although they were a bit "different). Nerds have a sort of underground relationship with other nerds. Unfortunately, most people out there are not nerds. Most people *can* socialize. And those are the successful sales-people, upper level managers out there. Because they *can* deal with people.
In high school, I too was not in the *in* crowd. I went for sometimes days at a time without talking to people. I walked around at lunches by myself for lack of anything better to do and nobody to do it with. However, I never felt ill-will towards anybody. As long as you try to be "nice", helpful, and generally sociable when other people approach you, you won't be ostracized.
What I'm feeling is that the general trend here is that a lot of you nerds are feeling hatred towards those who oppressed you. This is natural. However, it probably isn't the best mentality to take, as it only contributes to the already profuse hatred out there.
You and I will never be understood fully by the real world (tm). Think of it more as "differences in philosophy of life", rather than as a competition, where one is necessarily better than another. That's the only way we can positively deal with our differences.
<tim><
Actually, 1984 was supposed to be an allegory for 1948, which was the year the book came out. It had a lot to do with the nationalist attitudes, "My Country, right or wrong" that were prevalent at that time.
The fact that a lot of it is still relevant is what scares me...
InThane
In my post above (under the thread "Jesus H. Copeland") I stated that if this was ever going to end, some pretty big cultural changes were going to be needed. I stick by this. But I've been thinking some more about this, and I see only one even potentially effective first step.
This ostracism must be seen and treated as what it is: a crime. I call it "peer abuse." The legal punishment should be appropriate, but she schools should be empowered to administrate that punishment if the crime is committed on school grounds. I know the law isn't likely to be enforced; that isn't the point. The point is to force the schools to enforce the rules they supposedly have against this sort of thing (students, look in your student handbooks; every single school in the nation has rules against what is being done to you). It also establishes a legal recourse for those who are ostracized constantly; they can charge those who ostracize them with the crime they really are committing, and they can charge the school for aiding and abetting (this is not a lawsuit, by the way; this is pressing criminal charges).
Currently, the schools don't enforce it. Why? Because they're too damn lazy. Make peer abuse a crime, and the schools are committing a crime by not enforcing their rules. That would force them to do something, and maybe we'd have a better chance of putting an end to this.
I, too, have read Ayn Rand. She created the philosophy of Objectivism that puts cold emotionlessnes and ruthlessness above honor and kindness. Unless the world fixes itself we will definitely have some serious problems in the future. However, the teachings of Ayn Rand will not fix them. It is those ideals which have helped to get us into this problem in the first place.
Their peers do indeed carry some of the blame. And ultimately it's the shooters themselves, of course.
But parents who neglect their child to the extent that they don't notice a kid going insane and planning to blow up the school when it's been in the works for a whole damn year are also to blame. Those kids needed help, it was doubtless obvious that they needed help (the police found sawed-off shotgun barrels in both bedrooms in plain view, you know), and the parents continued to look away.
You are right about one thing: parents cannot have 100% control over their kids. That's not their job.
But it is the responsibility of every parent to teach their children right from wrong, fantasy from reality, and all that other good stuff. It is their responsibility to do that by absolutely whatever means are necessary so long as they aren't abusive. There is no more important job a person can have, and it's not even a terribly difficult one. In short, you teach the kid to now need you to have 100% control over them. These parents quite obviously failed to do that.
By the way, if your parents knew you snuck beers over to a friend's house, I'm willing to bet you that they knew about the bombs, but also figured you were responsible enough not to blow up anybody with one.
The martial arts probably deserve most of the credit for my managing to stay sane through my middle and high school years. I started then when I was 11, and I can't think of anything that helped me finish it out more.
For parents who balk at the idea, let me tell you something. I've been a martial artist for 9 years. I've been in far, far more than my share of confrontations in middle school. But I have never once used my skills to fight. Indeed, the cardinal rule of any martial art is that if you have to fight, you have already failed.
Frankly, I wonder if we shouldn't make some martial art mandatory learning material in schools. Start them in kindergarten. The martial arts works to ingrain a sense of honor and gentleness (yes, you heard me right, gentleness) into a person, especially that young, like almost nothing else.
Of course, that leads us to the problem of choosing an art, and you haven't seen a flamewar till you've seen an Art X vs. Art Y flamewar, so let's not go into that.
I am now a grad student, but I can identify with the letters here. Check out the following page for the thoughs I wrote up a couple days ago: Here.
I seem to be well suited for this place. High school (and school in general) was the worst time of my entire life. Just like so many people here, I was an outcast for being different. Right up until the last two years of school.
Every since elementary school I had been tormented and teased by the jocks/popular kids at my school. I turned the opposite way of the kids in Colorado though. I did hate the kids who had been harrassing me, but mostly I hated myself. I was suicidal until a few years after I had graduated. I even still get that way myself at times (I'm 21 now). My first thoughts of killing myself were all the way back in 6th grade or so.
The tormenting stopped my junior year of high school though. It wasn't because they thought better of it. It wasn't because I became well liked. It was simply due to a growth spurt. Generally you don't pick on someone who's 6'5".
I also ended up spending the last 2 years of high school in the computer lab for about 25% of every day. You also don't harrass the guy who's helping you with the software to get your computer working.
Even today I have trouble seeing myself fitting into any groups. I have trouble meeting new people (except online) because my self-esteem is shot to hell. I never talk to girls in bars. I never talk to them at all really unless someone specifically introduces me to them. My last few relationships are with people that I met online. In fact, I've only dated one girl that I hadn't met online, and that one was a matter of convience.
Well, I'll stop my rambling now, but my basic point is, while I don't condone what happened, I can see how it happened. Life is cruel. It always will be if you're anything besides the generic jock clone. The best you can do is seek out others like you, and keep them in your life instead.
The point that's being here is not if what happened is good or bad (obviously it's bad.)
The point is why it happened.
That's what everyone is trying to figure out.
But the media/schools/parents are blaming it on video games and movies.
No one here seems to agree that this is what drove them to murder. More likely they were driven to it by their fellow students.
It's still just as bad.. but if you're going to address the problem, you should address the correct one.
Twenty or thirty years ago, this sort of stuff might not have happened, but there *were* a lot of problems... like murders... at schools. They just didn't get reported. When one kid got knifed at my high school in the 1970s, it didn't make the papers or TV. Two weeks after it happened, a small article appeared in the Dallas paper (100 miles away) about how the kid was getting out of intensive care. As far as the local media cared, it never happened.
And (as a small example) the worst case of school violence happened over 60 years ago, when someone blew up a school. Many more died then in Colorado.
parochial schools are expensive too. The high school i graduated from (a catholic school) now costs over 5000 dollars a year. it keeps going up too.
In most states, the average yearly matriculation per student at a public school is at least $5000. That is way more than other nations...even New Zealand, Japan and England are far less (like in the $2000-$3000 range.) Here in Ohio, we spend $11 billion dollars yearly on public education (that's more than 1/3 of the entire state budget) and we are really only in the middle...about $6000 per student.) I guess the big question is...how does it cost so much?
I've heard of other smart people with smart kids who, not trusting their kids to the Spartan, conformistic machine of the school system, went the way of homeschooling. They kept their kids out of school, teaching them themselves. In many cases, the kids were several years ahead of their conventionally schooled peers.
If you're in America, you're allowed to do this. Here in Australia, school education up until the age of 16 is compulsory.
This is often tenuous. I remember when I was in high school (a public school, albeit with an entrance exam), the teachers vetted the student newspaper, and killed controversial articles.
School is a spartan, authoritarian institution, and that is intrinsic in its nature.
I read a news report somewhere which interview a former Trenchcoat Mafia member, and debunked the whole neo-Nazi thing. Supposedly, their point was that they believed the jocks were behaving like Nazis; they also wore anti-Nazi insignia (patches with swastikas struck through). Of course, this doesn't make quite as good press as saying they were Nazis.
There's a copy currently on http://dev.null.org/acb/
When I have the time to code the rant index, it'll be archived for all time with its own URL.
-- acb
This system evolved to serve a purpose; by ruthlessly punishing difference, rewarding conformity and reinforcing an immutable status quo, it creates the preconditions of a modern industrial society; a population of predictable, conditioned worker/consumer drones, people who accept their place in the great machine of society and don't make trouble. The relatively small number of murders and suicides is well within the margin of acceptable loss.
Meanwhile, when the jocks and popular kids grow up, they take their places in the leader-caste of society; and while most of them are, by then, relatively decent individuals, they do not see that there is a problem. Hence, when a bunch of black-clad angstpuppies massacre some jocks and popular kids, the solution is obvious: sue the video-game companies, restrict the Internet. and ban aspects of outsider subcultures, such as black clothing.
And so, the invisible hand increases the pressure even further.
The single biggest kick I've gotten in the last couple of years was walking in the door of a company that I was working for and seeing one of the biggest jocks from my old school sitting at the reception desk after doing the night shift as a security guard.
;). and think how copeing with the constant bullying in school was worth it.
All I could do was laugh and walk up the stairs.
Send this article to mass media (TV, newspapers) in the hope, that somebody recognizes the problem...
One report I read stated that the Colorado students were "goths", and that goths were in general a death-obsessed violent subgroup.
I guess one look at my wardrobe and CD collection would qualify me and all my friends as members of a terrorist organization. What horseshit.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
And social cliques are real, why do you think the other students referred to the Quake-heads as the "Trenchcoat Mafia"
(BTW, I was home sick that day and watched the whole situation unfold before me. "trenchcoat mafia" was an epithet that the popular students used to refer to them, not what they called themselves. But leave it to the media to snatch up and persue any possible connection to gangs and racism.)
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Although I didn't have a rough time at all in high school, I think I can appreciate some of the problems that occur to "oddballs". High school nor society is ready to handle "special cases". Our country isn't very long on tolerance. It was founded by puritans after all...
It is far easier to run a school like a prison than to maintain a place of independent thought. Even teachers are kept on a leash. It is also easier to fault "deviant" lifestyles, like Goths, Geeks or Gamers, than to admit the utter failure of our school systems to engender social skills in our children. Is it possible that parents need to do this themselves? Please, mom and dad are already working two full time jobs.
In a fiercely capitalistic culture in which "greed is good", one's status increases by the number of people walked on. The outcasts deserved to be abused because they make the rest of us feel uncomfortable, right?
I saw VP Gore talking about how we need to reduce the amount of violence we expose our children to. He didn't mention NATO's "relief efforts" in Kosovo as one of those harmful influences. Clearly, real violence isn't as harmful to children as Doom.
What these Colorado kids lost wasn't their minds. It was hope. It's a shame what happened in Littleton. It's worse that our country won't learn squat from it.
Is it me or does anyone else see some parallels to the movie _Heathers_?
"What's your *damage*?"
It irks me to see the nation going after trenchcoats and video games. That is not the problem. The problem lies with the schools themselves. The social order, or cliques.
Jocks and preps/cheerleaders are on the top. The "weirdos" are on the bottom. If you were to be looked down on by a jock, would you actually look up to a jock?
But of course, because Harris and Klebold played Doom/Quake/whatever and wore trenchcoats, parents are taking computers away from their children, schools/cities are banning trenchcoats, video game makers are being criticized, yet the social order will remain the same.
Schools are too fucked up, and the pecking order WILL NEVER CHANGE.
So let's ban trenchcoats and whatnot even though that's not the problem.
It's sickening to see my elders, people I'm supposed to respect, making these braindead decisions.
Argh.
Period.
It's not an individual decision, however much you would wish for this to be true, it's the behaviour of the global population that counts, and the behaviour of our species has been what over the last 10,000 years? Neither wars nor plagues haven even managed as much as a dent in the exponential growth of human population.
What we experience now are the death throws of a dying culture, a mere reaction to overcrowding, constant population pressure and a vision with it that make man the ruler of the planet, far beyond any laws that might be valid in the community of life. We go on with this, we vanish as millions of species before. We get to the core of the problem and we have a chance to save ourselves (and no, it's not some religious drivel).
Check Bnetwork.com for more info.
Uwe
Ever wondered whats wrong with the world? http://www.ishmael.org/
Hell Yes- "Saved by the Bell" however, was one of the worst shows on record for it's treatment of people who are different. They played up on stereotypes more than I have seen since the 50's!
... are we raising anyways? What kind of people will these kids, who think that ridiculing people who are different turn out to be? How can we even expect a tolerant society tomorrow if the kids of today are not taught to be tolerant today?
If we don't teach kids to act with decency to others then they won't act decently to others as adults.
As a 31 year old adult, far from the years of high school, I can tell you that those years were absolutely the worst time of my life. As a computer head and social outcast I grew up in a wealthy suburban town in Massachusetts. Getting teased regularly is one thing, but these kids assaulted me in large groups. I didn't stand a chance and the faculty refused to provide relief from my tormenters. If I attempted to defend myself the administrators would take me to task for supporting violence, yet would not prevent or punish those committing blatant violence against me and the other outcasts.
This is a human rights issue. I know many who had to drop out of high school because it was just too dangerous to continue in school, even though we lived in a famous suburban town (known for it's involvement in the revolutionary war -- how ironic). School administrators use the threat of being outcast and regularly assaulted in order to force mental obedience. Because of my experience I will never place my children (when I do have children) in public schools. I would rather homeschool or find a good private school than potentially subject my children to that environment.
Of course what those kids did was wrong. It pains me to know that they were pushed up against the wall and mentally twisted to the point where they murdered 13 others and then committed suicide. But the very fact that they planned suicide from the very start is telling: as far as they were concerned their lives were worthless because of the regular abuse they received. So they struck back by taking the lives of their tormenters. Kids who take enjoyment from dishing out abuse should take note of this event; they may reap what they sow in lead from their targets.
And yes, nearly fifteen years after my walk through high school hell I am still angry over how I was treated and how the school administration prevented me from living in a reasonable non-violent and non-abusive environment. So, while banning trenchcoats, video games, and access to the Internet won't stop kids from going on insane murder sprees, school faculty and administrators might consider providing a safe and reasonable environment to learn without danger; that just might bring peace back to our schools.
Interviews with various surviors of the attack quote the gunmen as saying "This is revenge".
Larry King interviewed a girl this weekend(Friday night?) who was friends with the gunmen. She confirmed that the members of the group where excessively tormented by the jocks.
Sunday on Yahoo's Colorado Shooting page there was an article about one of the trenchcoat group members who had dropped out of school becausing the tormenting was so bad. Click here for full article(it's no longer listed on the first page).
In spite of all this, the general public still maintains that games, music, and violence in the media are to blame for these two young men going over the edge. They conventiently gloss over the fact that day-in an day-out they were treated as dirt by the people they took their revenge on.
Assigning the blame for this situation to mean jocks and uncaring teachers in the public school system is just as specious as blaming it on quake. We can not say that because our situations are difficult that we are not responsible for being evil. Those acts were a choice, and any statement that detracts from the fact that it was a choice is ridiculous.
American culture fosters a environment in which violence and sexuality are the two biggest concerns, and where personal immediate self gratification is the lowest common denominator to which we stoop. That's the reason those children went on a murderous rampage, because we taught them violence and hate, and then no one (like their parents) was there to tell them otherwise. ABC radio news is now reporting (minutes ago) that these kids kept a year long diary of their daily attempts to acquire weapons and planned on highjacking an airliner if they got out of the high school alive (where they planned to kill 500 people, apparently).
Andrew Gardner
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog, its too dark to read.
Indeed! I attended Lyons Township in Western Springs, IL where the 9-10 graders attended a different campus that was 3/4 mile away from the one the 11-12 graders attended. Since kids who don't want to be in school could drop out after 10th grade, the last two years of school were SO much better, because the only ones who were there wanted to be there. I firmly believe other schools should look seriously at the physical separation of the freshman/sophmores from the juniors/seniors. This helps break up the cliques that we all know so much about.
Instead of being critical of high school, I have a generally positive view of it. I was lucky, I had some great teachers my last two years who really were interested in the students in class. On the other hand my first two years sucked. I think chance to start over again, in a new campus really made the experience better.
But by far the best part of high school was the music program, with two bands, an orchestra, and 4 choirs. I hear many people say that High school is not real life. Excepting music, they are right. Learing an instrument and singingn in a choir are two things that you can do after school, and can bring incredible amounts of enjoyment and satisfaction to ones life. Make music, its a wonderful thing to bring people together.
Yes, musicians can also incredibly competitive and nasty to each-other, too. But they all work towards a common goal; a good performance, tuning a chord, coming in on the right note, etc. These are all achievements that have immediate rewards for those who participate in the group.
Music is a foundation for Western culture, and is often overlooked by modern educators. Deemed too expensive or non-critical, it is often the first subject to be cut from the curriculum. I wonder how many slashdotters are musicians? I bet many are.
So stand up, attend your high school's music performances. Support your local school's general music class. DO something. Perhaps you can reach some of the ostracised and picked on.
Regards,
--Peter
| Around this time I think was when the first
:)
| seeds agaisnt video games were planted. I
| clearly remember getting strange and concerned
| looks from various teachers the day I bought
| Ultima 8: Pagan
Lots of good comments on this article (and a smattering of comments that just make you want to go "huh?"), but I just had to respond to this bit. The first seeds against video games were planted long in advance of Ultima 8. Anyone remember the _Death Race 2000_ game?
It'd probably be accurate to say that the seeds of society blaming video games for its ills are approximately as old as video games themselves. I don't have studies handy to back that up, but I remember people fussing over games as long as I remember video games being around.
-- Rick
As someone who has led youth groups (some of which included students from Columbine), I believe there is a two-stage process involved in these killings. The first is the alienation phase with which so many commentors are identifying. The second is the blame process, in which they (and many others, especially on TV news) are participating.
As part of the youth programs in which I have participated, we always included a module on cliques. When we discussed this, the kids from Columbine always said, "Our school is the clique-iest."
But guess what? So did all the kids from other schools.
The truth is: Cliques start forming around 5th grade, reach their peak in junior high, and start to taper off in high school. Young people in these years define themselves by these cliques (either by the cliques to which they belong or by their outsider status).
It may come as a surprise to those of us who always defined ourselves as outsiders, but even many who are in the most popular cliques harbor doubts about whether they really "belong." The number who have this feeling that they are just pretending to belong increases in high school and usually leads to an ability to define one's identity independently of in-ness or out-ness with the "in" crowd.
The Second Stage
The other phase which contributes to the kind of events we experienced in Colorado is the blame phase.
We can see this on TV every night this week. We can see it in the comments to Jon's commentary. What we don't always see is that blame is part of what these two boys used to justify their actions.
It is the same whether it is a Christian blaming the shootings on the end of school prayer in 1962 or an atheist counselor saying these kids should have been detected and helped. It is the same whether it is gun nuts who are sure that if more people had been allowed to carry concealed weapons in the school the killings would have been stopped or whether it is gun-control lobbyists saying we should ban them.
What all these people don't seem to realize is that these two boys were able to divide the world into those who they could blame for their problems and themselves. And they believed that their ability to blame entitled them to force the world to take note of their grievances.
And where did they learn to seek redress for this blame?
From the movies? Yes.
From videogames? Yes.
From the media? Yes.
From violent music lyrics? Yes.
But most of all, more than any other source of learning the blame-redress game, they learned it from those very people who are now on TV, promoting their little agendas at the expense of those who were killed at Columbine.
And, until we learn that lesson, there will be more. Because what we fail to realize is that we are teaching kids all over the country that their natural feelings of outsider-hood are the reasons they should become killers like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
And remember: not only the geeks can feel alienated from the "in" crowd. It's really just a natural part of growing up.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
As soon as I got to first grade, around 1963, the teacher heard the way I spoke and walked me down to the retarded children's classroom, where I stayed until my parents realized that my description of my classmates was a bit odd. No IQ tests or anything, she just dumped me in there. Once my parents found out, they tested my IQ (it was high) and put me back in the regular class, but the teacher resented it - she took every opportunity to tell me, in front of other students, that I was retarded and that I didn't belong in the class. This made me the school pariah until Junior High or so.
The problem with American schools is the awful pressure on students to conform, when they simply can not do so due to the misfortune of being bright, handicapped, or in some way unusual. The pressure to conform is the same sentiment that causes racism and religious intolerance - there's simply a different group being hated this time. It is enforced by the students but it must come from the instructors and parents - where else would the students be getting it?
Anger in our schools will be a problem until we can embrace our differences rather than try to iron them out.
Bruce Perens
Bruce Perens.
I believe this may be the most ignorant piece Katz has ever published.
Katz, I'm willing to give you a personal tour of Littleton: the memorials, the gravesites... we'll make the pilgrimmage to the bluff that overlooks the school, observe the sorrow still heavy in the air. We'll see then if you can even mention the name "Eric Harris", much less feel as if you identify with him.
Dodja
I must've read my post at least a dozen times now to see where my message was not getting across. I am not condoning the killers' actions at all. I have no sympathy for them. What I don't understand is the mean-spirited approaches taken by either side in this case. These 2 guys claimed that the "jocks" and others were responsible for their oppression. But instead of attempting to bring themselves up, they chose to bring everyone down.
And as for the students, whoever it was that screwed with those two should not be surprised with the results. That does not mean that the results are justified, only that they could be expected. (Although maybe not expected on this scale.)
Point #1 was that people who go out of their way for attention are very likely to get it, good or bad. Point #2 was that people who play with fire are likely to get burned. Neither point justifies the actions. They are both wrong.
I do not condone the treatment that these 2 guys claim they endured. Neither do I condone their subsequent actions.
I have read several posts from people claiming that they did not choose to be different, yet endured similar treatment. I understand that completely. I have not condemned them in any way. My comments were directed at people who intentionally exhibit behavior that is extremely likely to get them a lot of attention (again, good or bad).
The reason this whole situation sucks so bad is that EITHER SIDE at the core could have prevented this situation by simply acting responsibly. That is not sympathizing with the killers.
I guess your last paragraph sums it all up. "Don't torment others" is probably the best way to state it.
What I wonder is how much of what most "loners" call ridicule and unacceptance is actually brought upon by themselves. I think that to a certain degree, lots of "loner" types actually like being outcasts because it gives them some kind of identity. Has anyone ever tried going out and playing a friendly game of basketball or frisbee once in a while? People make fun of how you dress? If it hurts so badly, dress differently. I'm seeing too much typical teen rebellion here to have any sympathy for the suspects or the people who wrote to Katz.
I graduated high school just a couple years ago. I didn't go to prom, didn't have any girlfriends, and rarely left my room on weekends. Big deal. I'm not pissed at those who did. I hope they had fun.
People need to take responsibility for themselves. Life is all about doing shit you don't wanna do.
When I was in high school I spent two months as an exchange student in Belgium. That was the only time I felt my life was going anywhere until I reached college.
The reasons were fairly obvious. In Europe, the idea of teenagers meeting in public, having drinks and socializing is accepted. In suburban America, teens are expected to be either at school or school-sponsored events (like god-awful football games) or at home. No one under 21 is allowed in any bar or club (except specially ostracized under-21 clubs). In Europe, the drinking age is 14 (and, conversely, the driving age is 18, with *real* driver training required). That means two things. One, people can get together with their friends in their own neighborhoods without much trouble, and two, they can do so in the presence of adults, who are often much more reasonable and supportive than other teenagers.
The family I stayed with had some real geeks - perhaps they were even more geeky than the US, eg one guy would throw a tantrum every time he heard non-classical music. But I think the social matrix there allowed people to enjoy their own social groups without the winner-takes-all mentality of the US.
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
Then what is it? A hallucination?
Understanding the feeling of otrascization doesn't equate to justifying the actions taken by those two kids. Too many people are saying what you've said above and are ignoring the real problem. It's not like all kids go berserk and start killing people. But many kids feel this way. Instead of focusing our efforts on curbing the playing of Quake and other dumb, useless things like that, we should focus on the root of this sentiment of anger and hate, which is how kids treat each other in school.
Sujal
politics, food, music, life: FatMixx
His post is exactly the attitude causing the crackdowns. Sympathizing with students in similar positions does not equate to sympathizing with the TCM. I did think before I flamed. That's what I thought of the post.
Sujal
politics, food, music, life: FatMixx
Sorry, I only got as far as the statement from the geek witch-hunters that said depression was a bad sign to look out for.
It is, becasue it means that person is ill, but just because someone is ill, doesn't mean they are "evil" or killers or whatever.
That statement by those people is just another symptom of an unthinking, uncaring, hostile, selfish and ignorant society.
In many cases, the depression may even be caused by the taunts, hatred, ridicule and constant harrassment of the conformist, "righteous", short-haired ignorant masses, and all to frequently it can lead to self-harm and ultimately suicide.
Here in the UK there have been many cases of young children, some as young as eight years old, who have been hounded, ridiculed and physically abused for their intelligence and sesitivity, who have comitted suicide in the last few years.
It just goes to show how the mob mentality and human nature work combined with the ignorance, intolerance and lack of will to think of the masses.
Hopefully something good will come out of this pointless, shameful and dreadful waste of young life.
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
Fully agree.
Throughout this entire ordeal ive seen the blame shift from the shooters, the net, ID software, the parents, EVERYWHERE. It doesnt really matter whose fault it is at this point. What people have to start realizing is that you cant, can not, push these people around like this. If you push them around, day after day, throw them into lockers, ostracize them, one day they ARE going to retalliate.
Hey folks, look, there's over countries on the planet ... and they don't have the same problems. You hear of no such similar thing in Europe. But ... here in France 90% of the school are public. Only the super-rich or the super-bad go to private school. And violence, though a big problem, is not on the same order as in the US. So what's different? We don't have any such thing as the 2nd amendment. Here, only the neofascists advocate freeing gun owning. And since someone asked, yes, geeks are ostracized here too, but I guess it's to a much lesser extent. Anyhow, I sympathize dearly with the people quoted in Katz's article; especially since their writing skills are excellent (or did Katz edit them?), which is quite uncommon for (young) americans, even to non-natively english speaking person like me.
BINGO!
I want to make a few points about Katz's
article. Some of you bemoaned the fact that
the 10 year old had his computer taken away.
That was an example of GOOD parenting. You
may not agree with their reaction, but they
have chosen to be pro-active about it. They
got involved!
I have a 6 year old son myself and he doesn't
have nintendo, doesn't play doom like games,
nor watch violent movies. He is simply to
young to understand that these are fantasy
worlds. I don't want him de-sensitized to
violence, I want him to abhore it! Further,
it is MY decision, MY right, and MY
responsibility to make these decisions for
him.
Children - AND THIS INCLUDES TEENAGERS - don't
comprehend the implications of their actions.
It isn't part of their thinking process yet.
This only comes with age/maturity. That being
the case - THE PARENTS are responsible for
watching out for their well-being.
Society in general has decided that it's the
"Village's" responsibility to guarantee that
kids are safe and brought up in a nuturing
environment. BS! It's the PARENTS job....
no-one elses.
Also, all of you lament the fact that you
are being persecuted. I will instantly
grant you all the fact that schools today
are overly bureaucratic, that the administrators
are being judgemental and over-reacting. See
my last paragraph as to why they behave
this way! Parents have ceeded their
responsibilities to the schools to bring
up their kids to be good citizens. That is
societal stupidy in the extreme!
We have to get back to the point where we
take responsibilities for our actions, or
those of our children...for they are both
morally, physically, and legally un-able
to exercise adult judgement in their actions.
To the older kids who had their internet
access taken away. Well - your parents
care about you! Respect and love them for
that. Talk to them! Right now you think they
are the dumbest people on the face of the
earth and that NO-ONE could possibly know
how you feel, or understand you. Consider
that you just found out that there are lots
of kids that feel as you do, and that your
parents were kids once too. Seek out their
advice...explain why you feel like you do
to them. TALK!
Steve W.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
Well - I was paraphrasing a report seen on ABC
recently that basically said that teen-agers in
particular think with a different part of their
brains compared to adults. The BIG difference as
to why they are typically more creative than adults,or
perhaps the word un-inhibited might be more
correct.
One of the other observations was that kids(and
teenagers) don't consider the consequences
of their actions - goes with thinking your imortal
at that age I suspect. So I stand by what I say.
Now to why would I want to minimize my childs
gaining experience. EXCUSE ME...I want to control
the TYPE of experiences he has. That is my job,
right and priviledge being his parent. End of
discussion on that.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
schadenfreude, roughly translated to 'taking pleasure at the suffering of others'.. Seeing the former BMOC tending bar on a tuesday after getting out of his drug treatment program, as you order a round of 25-year-old Macallans for your pals (which costs more than the fellow will pull in all evening), feels almost criminally good. Yes it's decadent and materialistic, but anything which rubs someones nose in something well-deservedly unpleasant gives me the warm fuzzies.
... considering part of the reason the US has remained militarized to the extent that it has is because France has proven itself singularly incompetent in combat since, what, Crecy? Imagine a world in which France contributes actively and constructively towards maintaining a free and democratic Europe, instead of detonating atomic weapons on defenseless sea creatures, persecuting shopkeepers who dare to post signage in anything but their desperately beloved French tongue, and kowtowing like a cheap whore before Russia, Iraq, and many (if not most) other fetid sources of oppression around the world. I can't.
Though I admit, after flipping through the NRA's info pages on state gun laws, I'm very concerned that there isn't much mandatory instruction required across most of the country, I still believe that the 2nd amendment provides our ultimate protection against government abuse and injustice. However, we should really require some form of training in handling and firing weapons. It shouldn't be easier to get a gun than it is to get a car: both are deadly weapons.
And who cares, really, that most Americans only speak English? If you're going to learn only one language, that's the one to learn. Either that, or Mandarin. Better to save those brain cells for something in your field, and to learn your job's specialized language..
Perhaps we should be stricter about who should be eligible to have kids? In this day and age it seems much more dangerous to cope with the product of bad parenting...
Besides, my right to own and carry weapons is guaranteed by the Constitution in the US. Which document guarantees my right to procreate? Which activity requires more responsibility?
First thing is, you really have to take everything a schoolteacher or administrator has to say with about 25 kilograms of salt. Figure out which teachers really care and which are merely coasting along to retirement. Both my parents were tenured teachers and could tear mine new orifices without blinking.
.00025 of the NYC school population each year) and was there for grades 6-12. My commute was 1.25-1.5 hours _each way_ to school.
Funny story: My Kindergarten teacher calls my folks in for a conference because she (a dried-up biddy in her 70s) wanted to hold me back a grade. Why? Because I used multicolored crayons to color in a picture (within the lines, just using bright colors). Many parents who don't know any better may simply acquiesce with little thought, thinking the teacher is a professional. _My_ parents asked her if she asked me _why_ I did it.
She never even thought to ask me.
So, when they did, apparently (my folks told me this later on, during a particularly low time) I answered "Because it's tropical". I had spent 2 weeks with the family in Antigua, and had colored the scene in shades of the Caribbean.
For this they were going to hold me back in Kindergarten.
It gets even better. I was so cruelly taunted and harassed in that school that by the fifth grade my family took me out. It had gotten to the point where my teachers were making fun of me, though I could read high school SRA cards (10th or higher IIRC) in the 3rd grade. I was spending every day in the vice-principal's office during lunch for getting into fights or for not doing homework. They took me out and put me in a magnet school in Queens for grades 5-8. I wasn't there long: I ended up testing into a NYC-wide magnet school (Hunter College HS, which accepted
So for me, believe it or not, HS wasn't that bad. It was _elementary_ school which scarred me, and which scars have yet to heal.
My brother went to the local high school. His stories are much nastier. And he only pulled a kitchen knife on me, but he's always been more of a pacifist anyways.
Coincidence?
READ THE BOOK!
Naah, seriously, take some form of martial arts. If you don't have size on your side, use it against your foe. Lots of geeks I know have some skill in some martial art or another, or actually served in the military.
Luckily, after age 13 I had size on my side though I was always a scrapper (and took my lumps).. And now I'm just a fuckin' mutant (I didn't so much grow as metastasize)..
is here, though a nytimes free login of one sort or another will be asked.
I got pushed around a fair deal for a few years by what vaguely passed for jock/popular types at Hunter.
Aah, the swim team.. Still, we simply comandeered our own corridor and played lots of bridge.. converted lockers into duplexes and used them to hold espresso machines..
I think Hunter was lame more because of having to sit in some classes where the mean of the class was higher than the instructor, and the instructor was bitter because of it.
And trust me, I know about inflicting pain, though I am proud to say I never initiated it. There may still be a few nicks in the flagpole from heads I've bashed into it though.. Nothing makes quite the same sound as a human skull hitting a long hollow cylinder.. Funny thing, I ended up being good friends with one of the bashees, I guess it was a respect thing (he didn't think I'd take him up on the afterschool challenge)..
And there was action at Hunter? You coulda fooled me.. Though maybe I didn't have enough money for some of those girls.. Then..
High school sucked, college sucked, getting paid handsomely for your brain kicks ass and soundly beats all that other noise.
Carpe Pecuniam!
What does that do, exactly.. put off the situation until tomorrow, when he and his friends jump you with a lead pipe?
Not necessarily. I've found, at least in my experience, that bullies tend to pick on those who _don't_ fight back, and will move on to the next person if you do. I still got into my share of scraps, and I still got my ass beat (often by a pack of 4 or more), but at least I put up a fight and I didn't stew over it.
And are you supposed to physically attack someone with martial arts if they spit you in the face? What if they call you a name?
If you take martial arts (I took a small amount of karate, and have since relied on simple dirty tactics) from a decent sensei, you learn that it's more about learning self control, self esteem and self knowledge than it is about injuring another person. The idea behind martial arts is the same as global thermonuclear war: the only winning move is not to play. But that only works if you have the faculties to play in the first place.
It's not about kicking someone's ass, it's about not rolling over and taking a beating without resistance. Even if you lose, even if you don't get respect for the attempt, at least you've proven that you're too much trouble than you're worth.
the point is the jock was a fuck-head, and it's people like him that incited the ones in Colorado to go out in a ball of flame
Yah, but I think most of us can agree that we'd rather the trenchcoat mafia had used Aikido and Tae Kwan Do than TEC9 and pipe bombs.. And if their parents could find their ass with two hands and a GPS, they'd have seen their sons' victimization and had encouraged them to get into some form of self-defense, if only for self-esteem issues...
yah, well not for the last 30 years....
And last time I checked we didn't go shooting up the Rainbow Warrior either...
I was in a "day-a-week" gifted program in the town where I grew up, too (Westport, CT - noted for their schools). If anything, it made the socialization problem worse for me. I went from being a nerdy kid to a nerdy kid who got taken out of school one day a week to play with the other nerdy kids in town. I didn't get along very well with them, either. In fact, I didn't even really begin to socialize until my last two years of High School (Westport's HS was a three-year school back then), when I stumbled into developing loose ties with the Players (the theater group). Then I finally began to come out of my shell. I did participate in sports, but I only enjoyed track/cross country - it was solitary in nature.
It wasn't really until I escaped to college that I could put K-12 behind me and start over. Only one of my friends today is a person who I went to high school with. In a burst of irony, she's a psychologist.
As much as the gifted program didn't do much for my socialization, at least it gave me an outlet for my mind. I spent a lot of my time designing and building model rockets, which fascinated me. Today, I guess, that would be considered a sign of impending doom (My God! He plays with explosives!). Problematic though it was, it beats my earliest years in the Manhattan public schools. I already was reading adult books when I went to first grade, so when the teacher realized I already was beyond the entire year's reading plan, she gave me a dictionary and put me in the back of the room to read it. Oh yeah, THAT helped...
Despite this, I somehow parlayed this start into being a moderately successful adult. This proves there is hope for just about all of us - we just have to get through the Inferno that passes for public school.
Perhaps there's a market for a private school devoted to nerd children. But I bet it, too, would quickly stratify into social layers. There will always be "cool" kids, and there will always be outcasts, regardless.
Those of you reading this who are still there - it gets better. Really.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
The Breakfast Club annoyed me because it said they sterotypes weren't real. But it didn't show that. The jock got the girl. The nerd wrote everyone's papers and left without the girl. They were sterotypes.
Okay, everyone's been talking about the problems addressed in the articles, but no one has offered a way to solve them. I fear that these problems may be insoluble in the short term, but certainly are tractable in the long term.
The real question here is, how do you get kids to respect one another? Well, I think that the best way to do this is for parents to raise their kids that way. Parents set the most prominent examples for their kids in their early years, and a good model will go a long way toward keeping the jocks and popular kids from picking on the geeks and outcasts. (Of course, this has to go the other way too; I was a "bossy" kid, even at 5 years old, because I was smarter than all the other kids and I _knew_ it. Not helpful.)
But what about kids today? Is there any way to drive the culture out of the kids who are in school today? You can't allow the culture to fester, because the older kids just indoctrinate the younger ones by example. I'm not sure there's a good answer to this.
Oh, and as a result of this little trip, I have made up my mind that my kids will be going to a selective private school so they don't have to put up with the crap from the stupid kids. Private school might be less "real-world" than public school; but if what I had to go through in middle school and high school is "real-world," then my kids can do without it.
--
Kyle R. Rose, MIT LCS
[ home ]
For those of you not blessed with owning Signals... well, first of all, buy it -- it's a great album. Second of all, here are the lyrics, I think. (From memory, so it might not be perfect. You can probably find them elsewhere on the web.)
"Sprawling on the fringes of the city
In geometric order, an insulated border
In between the bright lights
And the far unlit unknown.
"Growing up, it all seems so one-sided
Opinions are provided,
The future predecided,
Detached and subdivided
In the mass production zone.
Nowhere is the dreamer
Or the misfit so alone.
"Subdivisions
In the high school halls,
In the shopping malls.
Conform or be cast out.
Subdivisions
In the basement bars,
In the backs of cars.
Be cool or be cast out.
"Any escape might help to smooth
The unattractive truth.
But the suburbs have no charms to soothe
The restless dreams of youth.
"Drawn like moths we drift into the city
The timeless old attraction,
Cruising for the action,
Lit up like a firefly,
Just to feel the living night.
"Some will sell their dreams for small desires
Or lose the race to rats
Get caught in ticking traps,
And start to dream of somewhere
To relax their restless flight,
Somewhere out of a memory
Of lighted streets and quiet nights..."
--
Kyle R. Rose, MIT LCS
[ home ]
This is unbelievable. Thanks, Jon. I never thought so many people felt the same way I did when I was in high school. Thankfully, things have changed for me in recent years (as they usually do), but that doesn't make the high school and middle school (worse for me) years any better.
Thankfully, I'm an adult and can't have my net access taken away by mommy and daddy. =)
--
Kyle R. Rose, MIT LCS
[ home ]
And the legacy of it still hurts me today. I dislike being at school (college), even anonymously as an adult student.
I used to be unable to get to or from school without being attacked or harrassed (and I only live a fricking block away!). Beatings, insults, exclusion, etc. All a normal every day part of my life.
I fought back, physically, all of ONCE. A kid had been confronting me in-class, in front of a teacher who was ambivalent. I'd go home bitching all the time. Finally my parents got sick of hearing me and I was told that if he kept it up to beat the crap out of him (I don't fight real well, but I at least have the luxury of being able to).
Next day rolls around, and my daily drubbing happened. I got up out of my seat, and jacked the kid's jaw.
I was sent to the principal's office and sent home for a week. Since I was following orders from god (well, Dad), I didn't get grounded or anything. My parents tried to help (we had a massive feud with that principal for the entire time any of my family went to that school) but they couldn't protect me all the time.
One of the things they couldn't protect me from was the gang-bang-style beating I received the day I got back to school.
I can completely sympathize with these kids who did the shooting (as I was THIS CLOSE to it at certain times in my life as well). I would never have actually done it. It's one of the reasons I didn't fight in the first place. I don't like hurting people at all.
The media campaign on this issue is completely off kilter. Yeah, it's a tragedy that all those people got killed.
But when they focus on the kids who did the shooting? They focus on what the kid DID, not what was done TO the kid. No game, or activity, or person can "make" someone do what these kids did. These kids had problems of their own that had NOTHING to do with Quake or Doom or BattleTech or D&D or anything else in the little bit of a social life the mainstream kids allowed them.
All I can do is express my disgust at the educational, journalistic, and counselling systems in place today. They are inadequate and completely reactive when they should be PROACTIVE. Instead of the useless patch of informing people who geeks are (which only alienates them further), they need to be counselling EVERYONE on tolerance and acceptance of people who don't necessarily share your views.
I know, I'm a dreamer.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I remember high school, do you? Like many of you, I'm sure I was a bit of an outsider. I didn't do sports (not for school anyway), I didn't go to the debate club, or the drama club, or any of that. I did my own thing with cars ans music and computers and what not. I remember being harassed for not conforming with the "norm". I spent a lot of time in the deans office because I belive in free speech, freedom of expression, and just about everything else in the United States Constitution. I'm now 7 years out of high school and a father of 2, and I'm already getting ready for how I'll respond to teachers that don't teach, deans and consulers that don't help kids and security guards that live for busting kids. I find it a grave misjudice to our kids and ourselves that we allow the people that work for us to do things like this without questioning it. I pay the salary of all of them, so do you. Our children need to know that they do have the right to think, the right to have an opinion, and to wear the cloths that they want (with in reason), and they don't have to put up with being judged because they look like they might cause trouble. I own a trench coat, and nice motorcycle jacket, does that mean that I'm going to kill someone, or that I'm in a biker gang? Does it mean that I'm a "rebel", that I refuse to conform to the "man" because I want anarchy. Hell no! I beg anyone with children, babies to college students, please, please, please don't let schools and government officals tell your kids what to think. Teach them to think for themselves, teach them right from wrong, teach them that even when the world is against them that they have you, and family, and friends to help make things better. And for the kids that wrote to Rob with your story, if your parents wont help and you need something let me know. I know that I wont allow the treatment that you have had to happen to my kids. Not now, not ever, and I hope that some day you'll do the same.
if my wife asks a question, and I'm not paying attention, and then I answer wrong does it still count
I need to ask this question, what is so fucking new about this? It keeps on happening, If you don't now the quote from above, it's from a kid who blew away some other kids, when asked "Why." he said "I don't like Mondays"
It's not the "internet" it's not "quake" it's not even "TV".
I was dressed in black in '79' so it's not being dressed in black.
I was a outcast, and many of my friends where too.
Even had one kid bring a gun to school.
Some how it all reminds me of an experience I had seeing repo-man in the theater.
I was the only person laughing no one else got the jokes; you had to have been a outcast to get it.
"Think of it as evolution in action."
I knew it was the Boomtown rats, still have the LP. I stand corrected.
Bleh the 70's damn Im old, I bought it new.
"Think of it as evolution in action."
I was blessed. I got to go through public elementary school in a 1-day-a-week gifted student program. Wonderful implementation. Freedom of expression was foremost. Most of those kinds of programs have dried up. I'm wondering if my child is going to have any way of expressing himself when his time to go through high school comes around. I doubt it. Parents are so quick to put on the Jackboots, and squash individuality. Supress individuality and expressiveness long enough, and it will find its own way out--in short, harmful, and explosive bursts.
As a postscript, my wife and I have raised Foster Children before (and shortly after) our son was born. For children that are truly destructive, harmful, and uncontrollable there are lots of warning signs. In practice, they differ from expressiveness and individuality as much as a shovel from a bayonet. Only when expressed in the dry, clinicians language used for describing behaviour do the differences fade. "Flat, sharp, metallic, with a handle". It's this dry description that's going to be used to hunt down the individualists.
(We had a Foster Child committed to a home for a while because of this kind of desctuctive behaviour, with good results. It's possible to tell the difference, and necessary to act on them.)
Get off my lawn.
The word "superlative" does not imply any sort of value judgement whatsoever (most horrible, most evil, worst - these are superlatives, no?). Certainly what they did was "of the highest degree".
After reading reports about their diaries, I think it's obvious they were out for some retribution, but I am still impressed with the indiscriminacy and meaninglessness of the whole thing. They planned it out rather well (and for a long time, evidently).
It still doesn't quite square that they were abused people looking for revenge, since they didn't (from the reports I've read) take their revenge out on anyone in particular. It was certainly part of the motive, but certainly not the whole story. It only stands to reason that if they wanted to take out jocks and homecoming queens, they would done this at the prom, a pep rally, or something like that. The amount of planning that went into the massacre only makes it more confusing.
support gun control: take guns from cops
What the people can't accept is that the massacre was utterly meaningless. You have to consider a few things:
I just think they wanted attention; they wanted to do something superlative. When life is meaningless (and most surburban youth are upset at meaninglessness of bourgeouis life), there isn't anything else left. This doesn't look like the "suffering chilld being driven over the edge" thing to me.
They were obsessed with Hitler. Hitler was definitely superlative. I guess they could have done something great, but slaughtering a crowd of helpless people is a lot easier than self sacrifice.
support gun control: take guns from cops
For every person who plays Doom/Quake and goes on a killing spree, there are millions of people who play Doom/Quake and don't go on a killing spree. Recklessly making associations is fruitless unless you only want to place blame. What other associations can we make? They're all adolescent boys -- watch out for Timmy next door; he might be a killer!
For those whose parents are restricting their computer use, I sympathize with you, but I support your parents. It is the responsibility of your parents to raise you to be a productive member of society. It is up to them to decide how much freedom you get, and if they have reason to restrict that freedom to make you a better individual, then they are obligated to do so.
I say this not only as a general statement, but also as a warning. If parents are not willing to raise their children properly, then there will be more support for those who want the government to provide the proper values for our children -- see, for example, the (often successful) efforts to remove books from libraries and the efforts to filter internet access at the libraries.
Christopher A. Bohn
cb
Oooh! What does this button do!?
note: this isnt a personal attack to you =)
I'm glad you threw in that caveat.
I'm not going to respond to your mischaracterization of my leadership style here, as it's off-topic (but feel free to email me if you do want to discuss it).
I need to clarify that I don't necessarily think parents unplugging computers is the right approach, but rather that I firmly believe it is the parents' right and obligation to raise their children as they see fit. When I talk of "productive members of society," I'm talking about people who contribute to the general welfare (in any capacity), or at the very least, do not cause harm.
Christopher A. Bohn
cb
Oooh! What does this button do!?
You're right: I should've added that children should discuss with their parents the situation and try to convince them rationally why their computer access (or TV privelages or access to Huck Finn or what have you) should not be restricted (heck, I can't think of a better way to convince parents that their children are maturing).
I was viewing the situation more from the adults' point-of-view -- As a member of society, I expect parents to raise their children. As a supporter & defender of the Constitution, I do not want to see the Government become responsible for providing values to our children, and the best way to prevent that is to raise them well.
cbChristopher A. Bohn
cb
Oooh! What does this button do!?
On another vein, the Unforgiven by Metallica seems to fit the bill as well.
Ostracism is a feeling well represented in all genres of music, I think...
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
With people like you around, it's no wonder these kids went nuts. It's hard to be supportive of someone who has problems when you consider 'waaa' a real word.
Ignoring the problem isn't going to make the problem go away. And despite your conviction to the contrary, it IS indeed a problem. People died. A lot of people. Young people. It didn't have to happen, but neither did the abuse. If you feel that these individuals should have just 'gotten over their problem', would you have advocated the same for those who got shot?
"Waa, it's just a damn bullet wound. Get over it."
The worst part is, the school systems are using this event to ostracize 'unconventional' students even FURTHER. That's what started the mess to begin with! What makes you assume that girl had just bought herself a trenchcoat? How do you know she hadn't been wearing it for the last year or two?
You can say whatever you like, but don't be surprised if anyone with the slightest bit of empathy and understanding (for both sides) assumes you are heartless and cruel. I support your right to say what you want, but it's in poor taste to rail against a group of people who are obviously baring some very painful feelings that our subculture obviously needs to deal with.
I think, in a way, this is one of the best threads to come out of Slashdot. I don't know of any dialog on this issue that has this large of a scale or involves so many relevent people. This is a good thing, and we SHOULD explore it.
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
I agree.
I don't think that Slashdot will change much, but this thread had to be done. I've been out of high school for a few years now (I skipped my last 2 years and went directly to college), but I know what this is about. Although I wasn't really targetted much - I was friends with mostly 'geeks', but had a few unconventional type friends from most of the subcultures.
Still, I saw a lot of it going around. A small school of ~400 people is hell to hide in. I managed to remane pretty anonymous by choice, with my group of good friends. But I'd be lying if I said that high school (and junior high) didn't shape who I am today. It has a profound effect on people - esp. those who didn't like it much. There's often a real reason why.
Anyhow, I want to see more of this from Slashdot... I guess I'm a sucker for introspection.
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
No. 15 people died. These young miscreants killed themselves.
This is more than them just being 'picked on'. This kind of behavior doesn't just pop out of an isolated, happy mind. Something happened to them - something akin to mental torture.
It just so happened that they were weak-willed enough to let it drive them over the edge. There is no good and evil in a universal sense - these people were destructive to others. In that sense, it was probably for the best that they can't do it any more. If only for the same reason that it is good if a rabid dog is put to sleep...
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
I don't believe in any gods, and am functioning quite well.
:>
Whatever works for you, I guess...
agnostic geeks unite.
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
> These two homos tortured and then killed...
[snip]
>Don't associate these selfish turds with us geeks.
...and don't associate us geeks with someone who uses a term like 'homo' as some sort of slur. Geeks aren't that stupid.
Find your own subculture if you want to bash people for being what they are. Don't count us in on it.
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
So - What's your damn point?
if it makes you feel any better, there have been many deaths attributed to the spread of Christianity. The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, The Holocaust, the actions of the KKK, etc. Millions have been killed in the name of Christianity. Does that mean that all Christians are murderers? Certainly not.
>Almost all the victims were white and Christian.
If you haven't heard, the events in question happened in Colorado.
>In fact eye-witness accounts tell us that Klebold
>singled out Christians for slaughter.
By what? Christian secret decoder rings? What exactly does a 'Christian' look like? Many hispanics are Catholic, which is a form of Christianity. Many African-Americans are also Christian.
If you're going to post such garbage, at least post your sources. 'Eye witness accounts', indeed.
Note that KKK and Nazi web sites don't really count as being 'eye witness' accounts. Those kinds of sites are normally run by inbred hillbilly types when they're not findling their livestock.
>But racists hate crimes directed against Whites
>receive no such sympathy by the media.
It seems to me that this event is getting tons of sympathy, despite any misinformation that is being passed around (ie. that music or clothing had something to do with it). The fact is, nobody is dwelling on the color of these peoples' skin. Some of us don't really give a damn what color their skin was. Why should you?
>So we have in Ohio a Jewish-led massacre of White
>Christians.
Where exactly did it go from 'one of the shooters was Jewish' to 'Jewish led'. Let me guess, he was taking orders from Israel, right?
Anyhow, I'm not a Christian (the term 'agnostic' comes close enough, I suppose), but I'll be damned if you are going to associate yourself with an entire group of people whose religion - while I may not agree with the actions of some of its practioners - is fundamentally benign. I've said harsh words to Christians before, but sir, they don't deserve any association with you.
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
That's absolutely right. I was so damaged by high school I tried to kill myself! It took _years_ to heal from all that, especially because I didn't realise it WAS NOT the real world. It's been a long hard road learning that lesson. But now, I have self-respect and know who I am and where I have value, and you know what? I may have faults, but there are ways in which I'm just _better_ than the people I felt so less than in high school.
I'm with you on this one. I came out of high school in a similar condition, and I was lucky enough to get moved to an awesome school for the last 2 years! It was impossible for me to have a good college experience, because of the leftover deitris in my mind from middle/high school. I'm still on anti-depressants and haven't worked out things with my parents, I still feel like *they should have known what was going on* (even tho I never told them). High school is a killer, literally.
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles scream and shout.
I've had an idea for some time, of a possible way to gain the advantages of both home-schooling and normal schools.
This would be in two parts. First, a shared-facilities club, where everyone shares the burden of paying for eg: a school library, a computer center, a science lab, and rooms that are usable for teaching or special-interest clubs and so on.
Second, a clearing center for tutors seeking classes and pupils seeking tutoring. I'm thinking here of a sort of collaborative filtering system, which performs background checks and collates feedback. You could look up who was available in the subject you wanted, and see feeback from parents and pupils on the quality of teaching offered. By spreading the burden of paying tutor fees over multiple pupils, the individual cost can be kept low. Plus of course people could volunteer as tutors.
This would all be a non-profit organisation run by local people, and if it gained enough popularity it could probably be kept very cheap, so not excluding anyone.
WOOHOO! That's a great speech!
Sterling rocks, he's one of my
favorite writers, and seems to
really understand geekiness.
Much more so than Gibson, at
least.
His stories are really inspirational,
especially the Schismatrix/Shaper/
Mechanist stories. We can survive
and continue being radical.
Anyway, thanx for the text, I'm
going to try to memorize it...
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
I hated high school.
/.ers that read this that are still stuck
I REALLY hated high school.
High school, the act of getting up every
fscking morning to walk through hallways of
laughing happy people, to get shoved around
by people I didn't even know, to get called
names for the way I dressed, spoke.
I had friends, very close friends, but we
were a tight group because of the oppression
and crap that got thrown at us every day.
I remember getting slammed into lockers every
day for two years, over and over, for being
a little different. I remember teachers,
especially Mr Gunn, the coke head that stared
down girl's shirts, simply turning away, knowing
what was going on, but not caring.
In my high school, you got kicked out for
throwing a punch, so defending yourself from
physical agression lead to suspension.
I don't support what the kids in Colorado did, I
think it's repugnant, but I understand how they
were driven to what they did. The parents, guidance
counselors and adminstrators don't have the balls,
or intelligence, or compassion, to prevent this sort
of thing from happening. Unless people, that is,
teenagers in our schools, somehow start treating
each other like valuable human beings, instead of
social doormats, this sort of slaughter is going to
continue as more of the discontent snap.
Unfortunately, that does not seem to be what is
happening. It seems that, so predictably, there is
yet another backlash against the geeks, freaks,
nonconformists and kids who don't fit in. "Be normal"
they will tell you, over and over, "Try to get along",
failing to realize that it's not you, but the savages
that are stepping on you that are not being well
behaved.
To all
in high school: good luck with the next few years,
my heart goes out to you. It should get better
afterwards, it might not seem like it now, but there
will be a time after school when you can look back
and think "How did I survive that?"
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
"Unfortunately, the element known as geekgirl (symbol Gg) rarely is found in sufficient quantities to allow for systematic long term tests. Even when found, it rarely occurs in its natural state, being usually combined with the element Geekguy (Gy) for which it has a particular affinity...."
I live in an apartment complex with a T3 attached and 100baseT to each apartment. One would think that geeks of all genders would be there but the complex is still primarily 25-32year old white males. True, there are a few geekgirls around but most are married to the guys in the complex.
Maybe I should put out a personal ad looking for a geekgirl in the Houston area. I can see it now...
SWGy ISO SGg for geeky times and good conversation. ICQ me at....
LOL!
"Dogs and cats, living together...it's mass hysteria!"
You should try living in some of the small towns of Oklahoma...
*eeewwwwwww*
"Dogs and cats, living together...it's mass hysteria!"
"Get together with some people and watch all the high school angst movies."
Anyone else in the mood to watch Heathers?
"Dogs and cats, living together...it's mass hysteria!"
First off, I can definitely see where these kids came from in terms of being outcasts in school. During my first two years of high school, I attended a normal public HS in New England. Happily, I moved on to a sort of magnet-school program for students with aptitude in science and math before I went postal. I'm not sure if I could ever be driven to the point that these kids were, but I can definitely see how others might get to that point.
When discussing things like this, the primary cause of frustration becomes a lack of expression on the part of the outcast. Many students are oppressed by their peers, teachers, and administrators, and aren't allowed to express themselves as they see fit. That's a huge problem.
On the other hand, however, many teens lack the capability to simply express themselves even if they *are* given the chance. I often get frustrated at my lack of "creative expression" in reality. When I feel strongly about something, and I wish to somehow express that, I feel limited by language, art, prose, poetry, or whatever the media du jour is. I just can't express my emotions a lot of the time. Such issues might also lead to the same sort of tragic explosion of "expression" that we've seen in Colorado.
/Andrew
One thing I'd like to point out about this whole situation is that all parties chose Evil actions. Some groups of kids in that school chose to taunt, hurt, ridicule, and give as much pain to the two shooters as they could. Many of us here can understand that from experience; I know I can. The whole situation got out of hand when the shooters decided to escalate the hurt and pain by building bombs and shooting everyone they could for revenge.
Both groups chose to do evil and nobody won.
I'd also like to reinforce what others have said about high school and later life in general: high school social structures are not permanent. When you graduate and go to college or work, you get to start over. People are more mature after high school and appreciate intelligence and ability rather than social standing (except for politics). If things aren't going well for you in high school, just tough it out and get through it. Life does get much better.
Your password has expired, please login to change it.
Look, all this heart-rending stuff is all very well. We in the Slashdot forum know already that the knee-jerk reactions from Media, and Joe Public, are _wrong_ and also dangerous.
What I'd like to know is, what can we DO about it, apart from discussing this here - the very place that "non-confirmists, geeks etc" are likely to be anyway?
How can Joe Public and the Media be made to realise what the problems _really_ are - namely themselves?
The answer, I'm afraid to say, is - not a lot.
The Media deliberately sensationalises this type of story to the point of frenzied scandal - not because it's outraged at what happens - but because scandal and hype _sells_!
Joe Public doesn't want to hear that they're to blame, because Joe Public knows deep in it's heart that this is the TRUTH, and Joe Public doesn't want to take responsibility for it, hence the "witch-hunts".
I fear that getting the message through to them is going to take decades, if not forever. *SIGH*
He's using a Micros~1 product, probably Micros~1 Word, to write his articles. So they're not really in plain text, and it's hard to catch the proprietary characters. The question marks you and I see are Micros~1's misnamed "smart quotes". They are in a dec range with behavior undefined in ASCII, ISO Latin-1, and Unicode... so anything can happen on another OS.
I agree that adolescence is a difficult, awkward, confusing time for most anybody. Wanting to fit in, wondering if anybody really likes you.
It's harder for those who are on the bottom of the food chain, who feel like they're on the outside looking in.
But to add the pressure of a witch hunt, on the slimmest of pretexts, that targets kids who are "different" in appearance, abilities, or social skills is just too much.
To all you kids out there, I just want to say: hang on, it does get better. I know, easy to say, and doesn't help you much now. I have been through that hell. I am so old that the harassment wasn't even computer-related. (small joke). I didn't look right. I wasn't rich or popular or athletic. I wasn't a drama queen or a student government type. I didn't have to put up with physical abuse like some of you, but I was definitely harassed for being different. And lived to tell the story.
5 years after high school, many of your classmates will have bumped into real life. The one or two who still think they're all it, you will find amusing. College, if you go, is a chance to re-invent yourself, where nobody knows what you're "supposed to" be like.
For right now, cherish your friends. Follow your dreams. Do stuff that makes you feel good, like biking or swimming or getting that high score in your favorite computer game or learning to play a musical instrument. If you're smart, don't act dumb. If you're not the college type, that's cool too, but do something you like, something you're good at, not something you hate just because you think there might be lots of money in it. And you don't have to take any bull about the way you look or dress, or the games you like to play. Don't knock yourself out trying to be "popular". It's not worth it. And remember, hate is not the way to go. If you hate people, they won, because you become like their mirror, and they control you. So hang on for dear life, and it will get better.
So you see.. it's true.. the Geek shall inherit the earth
The jocks will inherit the Earth. Us Nerds and Geeks are going to the stars!
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
With my 10 year high school reunion coming up, I'd been thinking a lot about my teenage years a lot. Now with the shooting, I can't think of anything else.
I was always the weird kid. I completely sucked at any sort of sports - I was on the school softball team for a while in Grade 4, but quit after it conflicted with piano lessons. I am pretty near-sighted, so I've had glasses since I was 7 or 8. The school that I attended from kindergarten to grade 8 was living hell for me, especially in the later years (actually, the school shut down one year after I left due to the number of parents pulling their kids out). By that time, I had a shattered self-image and no self esteem. I got into some fights with other students, and began bullying other kids who happened to be just a little geekier than me.
Grade 9 saw a new school for me, with the number of students at least a full order of magnitude greater than the previous school. Here again, I was ostracized and bullied. Gym class was a special sort of nightmare - eventually, I just skipped class. I took the grade 10 computer class along with a number of other grade 9 geeks, but wound up crossing paths with one of the grade 10 jerks in the class. None of the teachers knew me, or seemed to care.
Grades 10 through 12 were at a private residential school in a small town about an hour away from my home city. The total enrollment in that school was about 115 students - the teachers knew each student by name. I believe that the three years at this school is what kept me from becoming a complete sociopath. It wasn't perfect - grade 10 was a bit of a rough transition, my roommate in the dorm that year was a complete psycho, and I threatened suicide twice - but I don't even want to think what would have happened to me back at my old school. The social structure among the students wasn't very rigid - you had your jocks and geeks, but they managed to get along fairly well (I sang in the school concert choir, along with most of the members of the basketball and volleyball teams). I made a number of lasting friendships from those years (and a couple of people that I hope don't show up at the reunion).
I'd say I turned out pretty good, but I wonder what would have happened to me today? In grade 12, I grew a beard and dressed in camouflage. I read "International Combat Arms" magazine. I played computer games (Autoduel and Beyond Wolfenstein were favorites). I loved violent movies (Aliens, Predator, and Platoon were among my personal collection). I listened to heavy metal. I had an UZI water pistol. A kid like that today would be in serious counseling and/or surveillance.
Life after high school has been pretty good. Got into BBS-ing in the early 90's (under the alias "Suburban Commando"), went to university, got into the Internet and earned my B. Sc. majoring in Computer Science, married a girl that I had met in high school, and I'm now the father of a 1-year-old girl. I've got a good job as network admin for a small company (even if it is an NT network), and I'm happy with my life. I don't wear camouflage any more, but I still listen to loud music, play games like Quake and Jedi Knight, and I drive my car a little too fast sometimes. But I survived high school, and I'm happy now.
This shooting has hit me pretty hard. I can understand what the two shooters were feeling - I'm not condoning their actions, but I think I understand their motives. Revenge is a powerful drive, pain and hate are powerful emotions, and it's pretty easy to let them override common sense. To everyone who is currently in high school, I just want to say "hang in there". It'll soon be over, and then you can get on with the rest of your life.
________________________
Corporate Jenga: You take a blockhead from the bottom and you put him on top...
In all of this noise about who to blame 2 important things have slipped our attention. One - why is it so easy for people not old enough to legally drink to buy a gun? And two; why is any criminal infraction committed on school grounds or in the context of the schools' authority treated as a behavioral problem. In schools all over this country students who threaten, assault other students, who bring weapons to school (& I mean a gun or a bowie knife not a nail trimmer) are punished with suspension. Whereas if the same student did the same thing @ the mall or the kwik-mart he/she would be arrested and subject to crimimal prosecution. We don't need more laws we need to apply the laws we have equally regardless of whether the offence is committed at school or not.
What is it that makes the US constitution sacred? I have nothing wrong with people being allowed to carry guns, but perhaps some intelligence tests should be required. The problem right now is that 99% of the people with guns are idiots, and 99% of intelligent people don't feel the need to carry a gun.
I agree that breeding should be regulated as well. Of course, most Americans won't agree with that. Heck, most Americans think that it's evil that China has a one child policy, when they clearly *need* it. Without its one child policy, China's population would quickly reach the point where there'd be mass starvation, yet I always hear Americans saying things like "That's so terrible! I couldn't imagine not growing up with my six brothers and sisters!"
And switch to metric, dammit! What's wrong with you people?
Its comforting to hear that someone else feels
.)
sypathy for the kids that did the shooting.
Whatever it was that gave them the neo-Nazi
ideal and detachment from violence is still
up for debate: its an corollary of the problems
that we have as a violent society.
The rage, though, came from the hate and disdain
that they faced every day. The have and have-not
system is something that young students can't excape
from, and (as I remember anyway . .
can't see through or reason away.
It *is* alright to feel a small measure of sympathy for the
shooters because they were outcasts and have-nots,
and because many of us were as well, or still are.
This will no doubt be a very unpopular opinion in light of the recent tragedy, but I firmly believe that some people are so incredibly moronic that they honestly do not understand any language but pain. I got picked on all the time in school. Once I was beaten up by a gang of five guys. I know all about the receiving end. But experience has taught me that the only way to stop the madness is to shed some blood. Bullies pick on people who are "freebies", ones that won't fight back, ones that are "safe".
The day the other kids stopped picking on me was the day I finally cracked and busted one in the chops. The sight of one's own blood is apparently a powerful deterrent. Sure I got my ass kicked. So what? I was getting my ass kicked anyway. But I made it clear that if I was going down, I would not be the only one.
Likewise the last time my father hit me was the day I hit back. Didn't hurt him much, but he got the message. It was the same with everyone who ever tried to exercise power over me, right down to the US Marines.
Now I definitely recommend against fire-arms and bombs. If you think high school sucks, you don't want to ever be in prison. And suicide isn't really an option: you either go to Hell and have to hang with the same assholes you hated on earth, or you get reincarnated and have to live through high school all over again. In general, violence is a very bad idea. But sometimes you just have to kick somebody's ass. Call this attitude irresponsible, reprehensible, insane, anti-social, whatever you want. But I bet you won't say it to my face, and I guarantee I will never be bullied again.
Vince
Linux help for beginners to advanced users: Control-Escape.com
This I agree with.
My life at secondary school was hell (as seems to be the case with most people), it resulted in me seeking mental health care (and failing with various psychologists and psychiatrists until I found - for all its ills - Pozac as a way out)
Looking back, I can see myself as a trenchcoat mafia type - it wouldn't have taken many changes for me to have gone on a killing spree - had I not become a coder, its likely I might have experimented with explosives (the two areas are quite similar in a lot of ways). I certainly fantasised about killing several of my class'mates'. Had I ever made the decision to kill myself this might, potentially have been a way out - taking the people who had caused the problem with me.
there were several things which stopped me doing this:
The first was that, quite frankly I was too scared to kill myself - this is probably the reason I am still around today.
The second is that I hadn't thought of taking other people with me - had I seen the recent killings I would obviously be thinking differently
The third is an issue of availiability of weapons - I had access to an anarchist's cookbook, so I suppose I could have managed the bomb side of things had I wanted, but gun control in the UK would have made my getting any weapon nigh on impossible without lots of planning.
Had I killed people, my bedroom would have contained lists of those I wanted gone, it would have had my complaints against the world in general documented for future reference - these wouldn't have been related to any particular killing spree, only my general outlook at that period in my life.
I don't know the answer - if I did I would have been pushing at th government to implement it. It seems the people of Slashdot - no matter how educated - have no further workable solutions.
Frankly, school days were the worst days of my life. People, they do get better, but it takes time. Thankfully, you have a wide audience here at Slashdot who emphasise with you. Is there any way we can manage to perform some level of councilling and maybe provide a slightly brighter outlook on the world to those who are at their lowest ebb?
I hear from a lot of people about how much high school sucked for them. That seems to be one of the main themes in the comments here. Something I'm not seeing a lot of though is this: It doesn't have to be that bad.
There are a few ways to escape the ridicule and humiliation that sometimes go with being a high school student and being different, one of which I was lucky enough to find. A small college in Massachusetts called Simon's Rock accepts the majority of its students after 10th and 11th grade. It's a great experience, because a lot of the students who apply do so because they don't feel like they fit in at high school. The community is pretty understanding and very accepting of differences, so being weird is the norm. I'm now completing my junior year at Simon's Rock, and I think the best decision I've ever made in my life was to come here. And the past few weeks have only reinforced that, for everybody I know that wears a trenchcoat or dresses all in black or plays Quake every night is still doing so, without a peep from the administration.
*shameless plug* and it's still not too late to apply for next year *end plug*
Now, ten years out of school, I'd forgotten about
all this. It really brings back some memories. I was trying to figure out why I couldn't feel digust for what happened in Colorado, just sadness at the situation.
For those still in high school, take a long term view. Those jocks generally turn out to be the biggest losers in adult life.
Just a few years later than expected.
I'd dispute the trollish nature of this. Speaking as someone (loosely a typical nerd, but definitely not out oof the ordinary in dress or attitude) who attended a state primary school and a fee-paying secondary, I can say that the mentality is the same in both. Sportsmen are venerated; everyone else is nothing. At my secondary, I was the first person ever to get double colours (chess and debating) and not be a prefect. I am also extremely clumsy, and the PE department was very powerful.
It's not hard to draw a link between these.
Also, drugs were rife, and lead to sometimes serious violence (I would estimate that in the schools in the Scottish city I was in, at least 25% of the 6th year had smoked cannabis); bullying (including of me) was rife, by both staff and pupils (although notably it was not generally the sportsmen who were responsible; IME, it was the nearly-good enough who were trying to hide their inadequacies by humiliating others); and the entire mentality of the school was to ignore these things and concentrate on public image.
School was hell. It's OK to resent it, but don't hate the people - hate the system that turns people into bullies and victims. I survived, although it still hurts a lot to have had to deal with it, and am now an undergrad at a leading UK university. You CAN get through this, people. Prove 'em wrong - if someone bullies you for your intelligence, it is only a mark of their jealousy.
Stick in there.
I would like to point out that you don't HAVE to send your child to school. You can home school them.
The social 'pressure cooker' is one reason that my wife and I do home school our 5 children. We want to know what is happening in their lives and to be there to help and guide them.
As I said in another post, I seem to have been an exception...a successful geek/jock. Didn't realize I was so rare.....
Jim Wildman jim@rossberry.com
Since I started this sub thread, I'd better jump back in here.
/.ers who have been home schooled.
With over 1100 comments (and counting), the vast majority of them detailing the problems and pressures associated with all levels of public schools I have to ask "Why would ANY parent willingly subject their child to such abuse?". Especially when there is an option.
We homeschool for a number of reasons including religious, acedemic and social ones. Our children have all been in the public school system at one point or another, and 4 of the 5 managed to get 'labeled' with one tag or another. We saw that the schools were not going to be able to meet their needs, and that they were going to be facing many of the issues expressed in the comments on this article. So we did what we believe to be the best solution.
I am personally much more concerned about my children's character than about their acedemic, social or atheletic achievements during the first 18 years of their life. I want them to have certain life skills by the time they leave home. We are actively pursuing projects and opportunities for them to learn those character qualities and skills.
We have just about completed high school with our oldest. The others will be home schooled all the way to graduation (or whatever) as well.
To address the 'what about other religions' question... I don't agree with the idea that children should be left to chose their own ways. If you want fruit from a fruit tree, you have to tend it. You have to prune it, stake it out, fertilize it, weed around it, spray it for bugs, etc, etc. Same with kids. I believe my children are a gift to me from God, that I am a steward for a time, that my job includes training them in certain skills and attitudes. One of those skills is the ability to reason and understand WHY I believe certain things to be true or not. (and by extension, why I want them to believe it.) They are free to question my beliefs, but they must be able to show a reason behind that.
We discuss science, creation, evolution, philosophy, and social belief systems often. Naturally the discussions are guided in the way I think is correct. Just like the discussions in a classroom are always directed by the teacher. That's what he gets paid to do, direct the students in learning.
Poke around the web for a while, or just read some of the other comments here from
Jim Wildman jim@rossberry.com
well, if you're thinking what I think you're thinking, I agree with you... :-)
as much as I empathize with the guys in this predicament, I think the girls have it a bit worse. reminds me of the witch trials in europe a few centuries back... among the women who were targeted were people like midwives and other (somewhat) educated and skilled women. one theory is, with the reformation and all, that men were threatened by this... soooo *crack*
that's one of the reasons I like Berkeley -- my engineering professors don't care that I'm a girl. where I work and what I do is far more important to them.
Lea
my boyfriend appreciates geekgirls too :-)
/couldn't/ find them, or where they tended to be depressed from school conditions?
if you think back, though, don't you remember a time where you
Lea
we're not all bad :-)
:-) )
unfortunately, when the smart girls go through school, it can be worse than the guys. when I moved to a "conservative" school in MA, people made me miserable SPECIFICALLY because I am a girl who does not fit their shallow expectations. I'm quite glad I'm in college right now and missing the witchhunt...
at least college is better. and, being an engineer like I am, there are great people around me to hang out with. (and date
I'd like to extend my sympathies to all those who are getting persecuted by their parents or school officials... it will get better. my suggestion: go to a large school (I'm at Berkeley). there are sure to be great people in such a large, diverse group, and professors or whoever don't take the trouble to persecute anyone (there are enough around that they don't really care), but some will take a positive interest in you, if you talk to them.
Lea
The silly thing is, the answer's simple: give authority AND responsibility back to parents. Encourage them AND hold them to blame.
Questions to ask: why weren't the parents charged with having a bomb on the premises? Why aren't parents presented with home and/or co-operative schooling as options when they arrive to sign up their child for 12 years' part-time prison? Why does punishing your child for risky behaviour put you at risk of a jail sentence? And so on...
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Why bother waiting for a football game or something like that? I doubt they even thought of it. Jocks aren't 'people that play sports'. They're just the dumb ones who call you names. The cheerleaders are just the pretty ones who call you names, etc... I don't know if they would have even thought of doing it at a football game. And besides, they hated the people on the field. How are you going to kill someone who's on the field? Yeah, it's possible, but it's much easier to just walk into the school when it's in session and open fire. Why the library? Because they had bombs everywhere else maybe? Because that's maybe where they were fond of hanging out? Because it's someplace that you'd have to get through the bombs to get to? Who knows. Not me.
How can I sympathize? Because I spent most of my life in that hell. I would never belittle the fact that it was a tragedy! But look at the outcome. They killed themselves. That part is what many people don't understand. I would bet that was the genesis of the idea. Suicide. But only after they had revenge. They didn't expect to get away with it. They didn't even expect to live through it. But to them death would be welcome after what they had felt for so long.
So, hate, yes. That's what schools breed in the outcasts. But evil? Is it evil to hate those who have hated you for so long, and without a reason?
You don't get over living like that. Even years later, I still hate my teenage tormentors. I just deal with it differently than they did.
I was not popular in school. Most of my teachers didn't care if I was harassed in class, and very few did anything about it. (Though there were 3 teachers that come to mind that Really understood me, and cared enough to take action, sometimes when I wouldn't.) I was known as the punching bag of my class, be it verbal or physical...sometimes both. My talent in technology, my love for computers, and my somewhat different physical appearence (I'm much shorter than most people) all helped establish me as an outcast in school. Time after time I'd find myself in the Asst. Principal's office for getting into a fight, or some other 'routine' issue I seemed to have. I didn't make very good grades in school, and it wasn't because I couldn't do the work, but I was lazy. Middle School and High School bored me. (Hell, even my college classes are getting old.) I think the main reason I did so poorly in school, was the fact that I didn't want to be there, for whatever reason, be it academic or socially. There were days I would absolutely dread going to class, because there were others in that room that felt it necessary to torment me day after day.
The stereotypical view places this type of problem exclusive to High School. However it starts long before that. My estimate, based in on my own experience, is that it starts somewhere around late 4th grade. The adults of my time would say "Kids can be cruel." The fact is, as time passes, the kids in school are getting much worse. Days would go by where I'd come home from school literally in tears, because from the bus trip to school, during the day, and the bus ride home, I was bombarded with crap from other people.
Let me state right now, that I do NOTcondone what these kids did, and for them to have taken that step, there had to be some mental issues at work. However, because of my own experiences in school, I can understand what kind of a view these kids took toward school. As an example, I was passing by my old Middle School while walking one day, and there was a group of PE kids playing basketball. One of the kids got hit with the ball, and quite clearly, shouted "YOU MOTHER F**KING SON OF A BITCH!" Not being deaf to this language, I was still shocked to be hearing this from a Middle-Schooler.
Stop blaming the Internet, Stop blaming Games like Quake, or Doom, and Stop blaming the entertainment industry. These are not the factors that are shaping kids into killers. For one, it is obviously a sort of mental problem that these kids had. Thankfully, the majority of people like me are able to deal with these kinds of things without totally going over the edge like this, but there are some people that aren't equipped to deal with it. These are the types of people that need to be helped. This is not accomplished by rounding up all the 'unpopular' people and getting rid of them, either. And as I said earlier, kids in schools are getting worse every year.
Another factor seems to be the parents of these kids. A bomb on the dresser for God's Sake!! WAKE UP PEOPLE! Take more responsibility for what your kids are doing, and stop looking for a scapegoat when something goes wrong.
Damn, that was a long-ass rant.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
This is especially damning when you realise that these were kids who had a history of problems with the law. When you have a kid like that, it's very important to keep an eye on what they're doing, because YOU THE PARENT ARE RESPONSIBLE UNTIL THEY TURN 18.
An older friend of mine went through this with her eldest son, who was constantly getting into trouble, including drug dealing and gun theft. She had to watch him like a hawk, and go through his room, the whole nine yards, because if she gave him an inch, he'd abuse the situation and get himself into trouble again. The police and the legal system weren't much help. But, it was ultimately her responsibility, and she did what she had to to keep his nose clean until he was legally an adult.
There is no effing way the parents of these kids were minding their responsibilities. Not when you had apparently a CARLOAD of bombs sitting around waiting for the day.
The police also had warnings they didn't follow up on.
I certainly hope that there's a real crackdown where the blame actually lies.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Oh for $DEITY's sake, get real! While many postings on Slashdot were more than suitable to reinforce many prejudices "we" Europeans use to have about "the" Americans, it's not as if Europe was paradise. Yes, we *do* have groups and cliques and suchlike in our schools and yes, we *do* have clueless teachers and lecturers and whatnot and yes, we most certainly *do* have outsiders in our schools (I should know for one) which don't get help from said teachers (if it hadn't been for my parents... ...but let's not got there.). We might be lucky insofar as the whole problem mightn't have reached the American extent - YET. But by denying that we *do* have those problems, we'll impair our view when trying to solve and prevent them! So, don't go fooling yourself, just because you happened to be lucky.
Thomas
P.S.: I'm talking about German schools and universities - can't judge schools in other European countries.
Why is it that the jocks get the preferred treatment? This sucks. Colleges are in it for
the MONEY!! HELLO!!! They don't give a "darn"
what you do. I taught myself. I make more money than college grads with Master's degrees. Why?
Because I hack day and night. Bah! You can have
school. It sucks. They try to make a round peg fit into the square hole. Not gonna happen. DUH!
Hackers rule!
Doesnt it strike you as odd that the parents of the children quoted in Katz article havent called heir lawyers?
If that kind of crap was ever pulled on me, my parents would be screaming mad and be fighting for my rights.
If that protest didn't work then are there not laws governing the rights of children?
I thought what happened in Colorado was sick, but now I see that the killings were just a sad fact of a sick society.
I feel sorry for the people in the US, as they blindly scream out "Freedom!" and "2nd amendment" their true freedom has already been taken away.
Complexity Happens
I'm a government school product. I know of dozens of homeschooled kids, and know over a dozen very well. Without exception, they are far better socialized than their government-educated peers. The reason ought to be obvious: they are not plunged into the pit of peer-pressure hell. Instead, they interact both with other children (of all ages) and with adults (note: not just their parents; homeschoolers frequently collaborate).
One pair of kids I know was government-educated through 5th or 6th grade. They wouldn't even look you in they eye when they talked with an adult, and they avoided that at all costs. Within 6 months of being homeschooled, they not only would look me in they eye, they would strike up conversations with me!
If you have bible-thumping fundamentalist parents who teach you that evolution is a sinister conspiracy of godless atheist scientists, you're going to be laughed out of college.
Ha ha ha! That was cute -- no, really. I know one homeschooled girl who scored 1400 on her SAT and was an A student in college. She rejects evolution as so much garbage (and rightly so). It obviously didn't hurt her education, and it surely wouldn't, either. But hey, I suppose you had to get in your digs at Christians somehow. Feel better?
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
And this is exactly what the misconception is: in by far the majority of cases homeschooling parents cooperate with others. Too many critics want to identify (if they can) an isolated case where parents weren't doing the job right and from that argue that homeschooling is unfair to children. This is an illegitimate debating tactic and it is unfair to those millions of parents who are doing right by their children with respect to nurturing their social lives. I'm not saying that you asserted this; it is however a tactic frequently used by garden variety anti-homeschoolers.
I have no problems with Christians. Many of my friends are Christians, and my parents are Christians. I find fundamentalist Christians a bit odd, but I'm acquainted with some of them, and they're not entirely unpleasant to be around. What I do have a problem with is them trying to impose their beliefs on others. If you want to believe that the scientific method and all current scientific theories are fundamentally wrong, that's your choice, and I'm perfectly fine with that. However, imposing that choice on others, such as your children, is not ok.
"Imposing beliefs" is exactly what the government schools are all about. They impose their views about evolution on students, and they bitterly rail against those parents who object.
Another fallacy here is that children are capable of making informed choices about subjects like evolution. Not even the average high school student is so equipped. First, they are not provided with all the facts from both sides. They are presented with the evolutionistic position and nothing else. How exactly does this foster making an informed judgment? It doesn't.
Education is about teaching children what they should know and what they should believe and how to think. It is ludicrous to assume that a fifteen year old boy is capable of making competent judgments about origins. They must be taught what to believe, and taught why they ought to believe it, and taught why "the other guy" is wrong.
Lastly, the scientific method seems to be frequently used as a defense by evolutionists, but it is of no help to them. The scientific method is founded upon replicating results. This cannot be done with respect to the origins of the universe. They are asking the scientific method to do the work of a priest, not the work of science, when they bandy it about as "proving" that evolution occurred and that the earth's existence is a product of the "Big Bang."
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
The Columbine murders have forced those of us who were geeks in high school to relive our pain and our rage. As others are looking for a scapegoat on which to lay the burden of these atrocities, so too are we looking to pin a group or a lifestyle with the "atrocities" performed against us. However, we need to understand that adolesence is dominated by our struggle with self identity... a big part of which is in figuring out which "tribe" we best fit in with.
What we were going through in those painful high school years is what every group was going through... trying to fit in while standing out. Trying to make sense of the "social structure" and how to move up in it. How to emotionally protect our own tribe... usually at the expense of others. Did you make fun of the jocks? Did you spurn the prom? Just as they made fun of you and spurned your Dungeons and Dragons?
Rather than looking back with bitterness and anger, look back and see it as a learning experience first, then assess your emotions.
Having said that, we must also be vigilant against the persecution of any group by administrators and other "concerned adults." These warning signs we are seeing in the media mean nothing... how about the warning sign of having a huge arsenal of weapons? We all feel the need to keep this sort of thing from happening again... this is a normal psychological response to great tragedy. But we must also understand that this was a random event. Any high school student could have perpetrated this... if they were sick enough. We hear many tales of supposedly popular high schoolers taking their own life, succumbing to the pressure. These kids snapped, and because they felt abused and picked upon by the other tribes, decided to take them out as well as themselves.
The take home message is that we need to all take a moment and ask what are our emotions? How legitimate are the responses evoked by those emotions, and what is the appropriate, logical response to what happened in Littlton.
Has anyone looked at all of this rush to censor what kids see and thought 'security through obscurity', or have I been geeking out too much? It smells very much like the idea that by covering something up, it or you are secure and safe. It's not a perfect analogy, but I think the same flawed reasoning and fear drive the two. It's like blaming the mirror for being overweight or something.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
--Aristotle
I may be in a uniquely qualified position to comment on this issue, as I moved from Canada to the U.S. halfway through high school. This was in the mid-80s, and I don't think American high schools were as bad then as they are now, but the difference was obvious.
In elementary school (in Canada), I was picked on by the other kids pretty badly. But when I got to high school, I didn't have any real problems, even though I was high-IQ, low-brawn, into computers, etc. The high school I went to in Canada had less restrictive policies than some American universities. You were expected to go to class, and if you failed to show up for a scheduled class more than once or twice, the school would call your parents and get you in trouble. But at lunch time, or before and after school, or during a period when you hadn't scheduled a class (what American students call a "study hall" - we called it a "spare"), you pretty much did whatever you wanted: Go sit in the cafeteria or the library, walk across the street to the nearby shopping center (which had a video arcade and a food court), what have you.
After a couple years of this, I moved to the U.S. and was thrown into an American high school. I showed up the first day with a walkman, like I'd worn to school every day for the last two years; it was immediately confiscated. We were not allowed to be in the halls during class without a signed note from a teacher; we were absolutely not permitted to leave school grounds during the day (except for seniors who, only if they had their own car, were conditionally permitted to go out to lunch, no more than two days a week). If we didn't schedule a class during a period, we had to go sit at a desk in a classroom, with a teacher sitting up front but not teaching anything--and we weren't allowed to _go to the bathroom_ without asking permission first.
After about a week in this environment, I realized, not without some horror, that these people were children and that I would have to spend the next two years being treated like one of them. The coursework was almost without exception pure memorization and repetition--in my case, it involved a heavy diet of American propaganda indoctrination ("civics") because this was the only graduation requirement that I hadn't already satisfied. Happily, the school I went to had a "gifted & talented" program and I managed to find a couple courses that were actually interesting--AP physics and calculus.
I also met my first geek when I went to the computer club. Now, there are undoubtedly geeks in Canada; I'm not trying to say there aren't. But these people bought into every negative stereotype about themselves. They didn't just like playing with computers; they defined themselves by _hating_ the good-looking kids. I didn't get this at first, and almost wound up ostracized by every group at the school including the geeks. But as it turned out I was a lot better at the computer stuff than all but a couple of them, which earned me some respect.
Then there was the racial tension. In gym class, the black kids and the white kids actually played on opposite sides of the gym. This was so far beyond my comprehension that I didn't even notice, and went and played on the wrong side. They whipped me into line pretty quick--and it wasn't just the students; the gym teacher took me aside and told me what the deal was--as if it had official approval!
In short--I've never been in a more hateful, useless, divisive, nasty place than an American high school, and I can state from experience that there's no inherent reason why it has to be that way. It may sound like I'm painting Canada as some land of milk and honey--but believe me, that's not what I think at all (otherwise why would I still live in the U.S.)--and I have no way of knowing what's happened to Canadian high schools in the last 15 years. But if Canadians rarely kill each other in their schools, maybe there are good reasons why.
I think that the heart of this problem is the notion of discipline in schools. As much as Americans talk about freedom and liberty, they sure aren't comfortable with it in practice. America can be (and is) one of the most oppressive nations in the developed world. Hell, any politician who doesn't have quite as many votes as he would like can run a "get tough on crime" campaign and win an election. And what's the effective difference between "get tough on crime" laws in America, and oppressive social policy in places like China and Saudi Arabia?
The typical American on the street is strongly in favor of, to name a few, state-sponsored execution; state-sponsored political assassination (of foreigners, never of Americans--but no qualms about foreign heads of state, Geneva conventions be damned); immediate death penalties for anyone even suspected of, say, selling drugs to children; economic "starvation warfare" against civilian populations; the sale of heavy arms to essentially crazy people (ie state militias); and God knows what else--I can't even go on.
And they want to blame violence in the schools on Quake and Doom? Please.
The penchant for extreme violence and extreme social oppression is built into the American psyche. You can't get away from it. The use of language, the mass entertainment, the political scene, the reality of many neighborhoods--you can't turn around twice without being confronted by violence. Hell, America was founded on violence; up to maybe four generations ago, a fairly typical way to get land to live on was to go drive off or kill the native people who lived there. There's the old joke about an American and a Canadian talking about guns: "Guns are necessary," says the American, "because without guns we couldn't have won the West from the Indians." Replies the Canadian: "Did you ever think of making friends with them?"
But even with all the violent tendencies in the world, it's very difficult to act on them if you don't have a gun. Guns are the basic problem. Gun advocates will quote the Constitution as if it were holy writ: I say, the Constitution be damned; the provision for well-armed militias was written when the worst thing you could carry was a wheel lock musket. Stop hiding behind the Constitution and tell us exactly how free access to guns helps build communities in our cities. A note to the clue-challenged: You can't. They don't. Wake up.
-Graham
Of course I can't speak for the whole country, but where I went the situation was very different. I was bullied in school at first (I guess I was pretty odd when I was a kid), but the higher I got, the better the situation got. The first 6 years were pretty bad (7-12 years old), the following three was not good (13-15), but then I began highschool, and it was a WORLD of difference. I had become something of a geek who preferred to stay home with his computer when groving up, perhaps as a reaction against being bullied. But when "gymnasiet" (high school) began lots of people made an effort to make me feel at home in the class. There were maybe five guys who were really into sports, but they were really nice too. The concept of jocks doesn't really exist in Sweden. People don't take their "identities" as seriously it seems, they understand that they are more than the hobbies they do or the music they listen to. People don't split up into different cliques (sp?) as clearly. Consequently the whole class did things together and "punk boy" or had no problem talking to or partying with me, or the sporty guys, or the American exchange student. Of course, after a while you became better friends with some people who you spoke most too and the class organised in smaller friendship groups, but we still liked each other and did things together.
Most importantly I think is that there really was no popularity contest. There was clear division between "elite" and no "losers" as it seems to be in American schools. One girl was a European champion in, I think, Judo. There were a few articles about her in the local newspaper, but none of the same hero worship I see of a US football team and mostly she was treated the same as everone else. People who are successful here tend to play it down a bit and be a bit more humble. Those on the outside are usually helped. Of course, this is not always the case, there have been serious cases of bullying here too.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
I know exactly what all you guys are talking about. My story is just a little different because I'm African American. This makes it worse in many ways because I felt excluded from even some of the geek groups. I'd hear some guys talking about Linux, or Programming, and I'd almost run to see who it was. if I tried to get in on the conversation, I'd always get a look like "who the fsck is this kid?" My main problem is that I felt alone in the crowd. I've always loved baseball and was good enough to play, but The baseball team wasn't necissarily my crowd. Yeah we'd talk and hang out, but I never felt as though we really related on a base level. It was like I couldn't say anything too intelligent or they would scoff. I felt slighted by many of the other black students too. They thought that I was trying to be white by doing well in school and by knowing how to speak proper english (I use my share of slang, but not in class) This has caused a very clear divergence in my personality.
In the classroom was the Real hell. Teachers would automatically assume that I didn't know shit sometimes just because of the way I Look (big omnious-looking angry black male) and would treat me accordingly. When I would verbally rip them a new asshole, I'd get sent to the office (never had to curse at them, only had to make them look stupid) My only saving grace was the IB Program. Even though I didn't graduate IB (Had a nervous breakdown my Sr. year because of home and school pressures) These kids were basically set apart from the rest of the school population. We talked and had a good ol' time, but I still didn't really feel a part of that group all the time either. I hated feeling Isolated from every group, even when I was kinda a member of the group. One thing that I did pride myself on though was that I made it a point not to exclude. I'd talk to the Witches, the Conformists, the Thugs, all people. I knew that todays outkast would be tomorrow's inovator.
to all of you non-conformists out there all I can say is BE YOURSELF. Don't change for anyone, and don't worry about the Highschool Bullshit. Highschool Values are almost the inverse of what's really important. Maintain a strong spirit.
the Dragoon Speaks
like a man without arms, you can't hang......
I had (and still have) some opinions that certainly didn't make me any friends back then, and probably won't make me too many friends in this forum either, but at least back then (early 90's) everyone was kind enough to pay lip service to "respecting my opinions". A few of those opinions, which I had no qualms about expressing in class, no doubt caught some administrators attentions; I'm not sure what kept them from acting, perhaps just because mind-control wasn't quite so widely accepted in public education six years ago, perhaps because they knew I wouldn't ever "keep quiet" if they pulled any of the crap some of these kids wrote about, perhaps because they also knew that if they sent such a letter to my folks some (figurative) heads would roll for it. (One advantage of having free-thinkers for parents...)
I thought this should be made available for reference here. I don't believe it has received wide circulation.
Text of Apparent Suicide NoteBy now it's over. If you are reading this my mission is complete. I have finished revolutionizing the neoeuphoric infliction of my internal terror. Your children who have ridaculed (sic) me, who have chosen not to accept me, who have treated me like I am not worth their time are dead. THEY ARE [FUCKING] DEAD. Surely you will try to blame it on the clothes I wear, the music I listen to, or the way I choose to present myself -- but no. Do not hide behind my choices. You need to face the fact that this comes as a result of YOUR CHOICES. Parents and Teachers, YOU [FUCKED] UP. You have taught these kids to be gears and sheep. To think and act like those who came before them, to not accept what is different. YOU ARE IN THE WRONG. I may have taken their lives and my own -- but it was your doing. Teachers, Parents, LET THIS MASSACRE BE ON YOUR SHOULDERS UNTIL THE DAY YOU DIE. Am I insane? Maybe. Is it my fault? No. I did not choose this life, but I have indeed chosen to exit it. You may think the horror ends with the bullet in my head -- but you wouldn't be so lucky. All that I can leave you with to decipher what more extensive death is to come is "12Skizto." You have until April 26th. Goodbye.
Eric Harris, April 19th.
Checking the link I posted in my original article - which I dug up for the purposes of this slashdot posting - it has been edited since I last read it. The authorities do not believe this is an Eric Harris post.
Thank God. The sentence about revolutionizing the neoeuphoric bullshit really made me shiver.
Good greif I've thought this for years. Here's a real potential use for genetic engineering. A virus which makes stupid people sterile.
Why do double quotation marks in any of JonKatz's articles turn into question marks on my screen? I use netscape 4.0 for Linux, what does Katz write with?
0 1 - just my two bits
American social repair algorithm:
1) Find a scapegoat
2) Identify all collaborators with scapegoat
3) Institute "rehabilitation" on transgressors
4) if ( NEXT_INCIDENT )
quote the slashdot:
"...and Ayn Rand can blow me"
(do the search, we've covered her here before)
Seriously, be realistic. The world will not magically become this ideal ( although a whack ideal ) society. We cannot change the fundametals of human nature and social structure. What we can do is promote, in our homes and in our lives, the value of communication and friendship. We can decide to share the kind of miseries that have befallen these kind of students and let them know that they will always be surrounded by their families and friends, ready to catch their fall on a moment's notice.
That's the point,right there. These students had nothing to catch them when the fell of the ledge, and their descent into oblivion, obvious yet unnoticed by all, went unchecked, with nothing or no one to break their fall.
Promoting social change is a good thing, but not on the basis of Rand's greed-based egotism. There are much more constructive, and applicable, means of curing our society's cancer.
P.S. - Put the high school philosophy book down and look at the world around you. You ever noticed that you only hear of philosophers in books? It because the real world-day to day decisions-are so much more simpler.
I graduated high school 10 years ago, the child of white middle class parents in a rural area (hmmm... so far so bad). Geek I was, geek I am. While I didn't and don't go to extremes in dress (I tend to prefer earth tones), I often found myself on the short end of many sticks. I remember well the deep pool of anger that formed then (and hangs around sometimes) and became a source I could draw upon. And, being a rural child, I owned guns (I was a hunter). So, arrest me now.
:-)
But, I got lucky. My school was blessed with a Navy JROTC program. And while the program itself wasn't the best in the world (nor the worst), it was staffed with an Assistant Naval Science Instructor named Kit Carson Campbell. He made the difference in many lives, by actually listening to our problems, sympathizing and providing support as well as reminders that high school ends and the glory days of the popular crowd will come to an end. He was open to students both in the program and not. I, and others, owe him many thanks.
Kit, if you're out there, the world needs ya, ya hairy deck ape.
For others that are out there who are young and feeling the dark days close about them, I leave only advice based on my own experience: stand tall and don't give up who you are. It will end, and in the real world you can triumph.
Dump the IRS - http://www.fairtax.org
This whole business baffles me in a number of ways. First, these shootings have occurred several times in the last 3 years or so. The shooters have almost all been high school kids who felt themselved to be oppressed and reviled. So when will it finally occur to the oppressors that taunting and abusing their fellow students can in fact have dire consequences? I don't in any way agree with the shooters, but Jesus, when will the rest figure this out?
Next, is it really true that there is such sharp divisiveness among high school students? Are there no nerd jocks? No video-junkie cheerleaders? No gothic honor students? My high school days are twenty years gone, and the internet was something restricted to universities and R&D houses. Video games were not much better than Pong. And my high school was pretty white bread; there were very few fights. I was a swimmer that had some friends that were Nerds, some friends were Jocks, and some were Popular. I myself was mostly Nerd/Jock. Maybe my high school days were much more idyllic than what most kids face today.
At times in my life I have wanted to become a teacher. It seems like being a teacher is becoming a fairly dangerous occupation. So what do you all think is the root cause here? Is it that parents no longer care to monitor the activities of their kids? (No, I don't mean spy, just actually talk to them) Or is it that school officials are becoming more like police and less like teachers? As a recent parent, I can understand the drive for school dress codes to eliminate those visible differences, but I realize those will be the only ones affected. Probably the issue here is that the crusade for good behavior in classrooms, being composed of mainly dress codes or even school uniforms, has instead taught the students intolerance for anyone different from themselves. It's also valuable to note that the response to intolerance has been intolerance in turn.
I have to say the student comments have been almost uniformly intelligent and articulate. Most of these people have legitimate problems with others. Teachers and administration would be well served to listen to these people, instead of trying to counsel them. Communication is a two-way process, and cannot take place if the troubled parties keep getting sent to a shrink when their problem is with other students.
(Note that kids don't always have the experience necessary to figure things out on their own. Heck, a lot of "adults" don't either.)
That the torment was not valid justification for the killing does not mean that the torment doesn't happen, or that it is not a problem. It does and it is. It needs to be addressed.
Teachers, as hard as they may try, are often faced with uncooperative -- or even hostile -- administrators, politicians, and parents. Further, being grossly underpaid (would you quit your $100K/year job to work 14 hours a day taking care of 30 kids for $30K?) means that teachers are either really dedicated or really bad. There are far too few of the former.
Still, it's not the job of a teacher to tell kids that violence is not a good solution, or that one should accept others, regardless of their differences. Values/Morals/Etc. like that are the providence of the parent. (Would you want me to teach your kids right and wrong?) Unfortunately, not only do many parents ignore their duties as co-educators, quite a few do teach violence and hatred to their children.
Also, people need to realize that if they want to have a child (or children) it means 18+ years of hard work and self-sacrifice. You can't just quit when it gets boring or unpleasant.
As to my own High School experiences... I attended my 10 year anniversary a while back. I was amazed when one guy came up to me and very sheepishly apologized for having beaten me up all the time. I honestly didn't remember him. So we chatted a bit. He's a CHP, I make $100K. I don't worry about it. 8^)
In 6th grade, I used to get beaten up regularly by a couple of girls. (Yeah, it's true.) Later on, I ran into one of them again. She was in the swim class I was teaching. She was petrified of the water. I resisted the urge to hold her underwater. But I thought about it! 8^)
Yeah, I never had a real girlfriend in HS. Now, however, I could buy a fancy car and schmoozie clothes, and still have money to buy a bimbo(s) a fancy dinner. Instead, I buy old computers, own (most of) a house in San Francisco and am getting married next month.
So, as has been said before, Go with the flow. You'll get through it, and then the good times will begin. Eventually, the jerks that beat you up now will be polishing your car for you. Beauty and strength are fleeting; intelligence counts.
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
And then there is home education, which I enjoyed 9 years of during my elementary through highschool years. I obviously had no problems with the alienation, peer grouping etc. that always develops in age-segregated settings such as typical schools today have. Couldnt agree more about scrapping the pub. ed. system, why the hell should my money be spent on teaching your kids anyway? And even by a gov. that constitutionally shouldn't be able to do so anyway... sheesh. but i stray from the point...
Gawd, the whole thing almost sounds like Heathers or the Toxic Avenger or something.
I must have gotten lucky to survive Hellmouth High by signing up for 'vocational', which meant spending half the day away from the main school engrossed in Electronics, which I really enjoyed, no matter what anyone thought. But that was mid 70's.
Chuck
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
What you've written could have been my life, save one addition: I was fat. Huge, actually. Anyone who claims being taunted in high school is healthy has never been chased down the hall, pursuer yelling deeply hurtful obscenities, while everyone including the teachers laugh.
Indeed, I will probably never get over the conflicting emotions of envy and hatred as the jock walked down the hall, the girl I had a crush on, there, on his arm.
I get up every morning to go to my over-paying job GLAD that I made it through without killing myself. Eveyone I know who is happy as an adult HATED high school.
Absolutely. I despised highschool. Every goddamned second of it. I did the "goth" thing. I did the "geek" thing. I did the "gamer" thing. I wore a black trenchcoat.
I cannot and will not condone the actions of the TCM. I do not sympathize with them, nor can I even begin to comprehend them. What they did was Absolutely WRONG and sick and twisted and just...incomprehensible.
I would, however, like to add my voice to the chorus of high-school-survivors in cheering on those of you who are still stuck in those unrelenting hellholes. Don't give up. Don't give in. Don't let them break you. The second you finish with highschool, life starts to get a lot better.
I survived highschool, and going back through my journals (I've been keeping a daily journal since I was 15) I realize what a miracle it is that I managed to survive. It was awful. My god. I was so full of hate and rage and self-loathing that I can barely recognize the person I was. It's actually frightening to go back and read the words I wrote in those days. The rage was overwhelming.
Now, however, I am a happy, healthy, well-paid geek who still does a lot of gaming and is generally enjoying life a lot. I know how hard it is to believe, but things do get better. Life does get better. I never believed it would, but I refused to let them break me, and in surviving I have discovered that highschool is not real life.
Not even close.
Don't let them break you. Things will get better.
Honest.
- dria
The statement "hard to find jocks and other popular types in the library", at least at the high school I graduated from a year ago, is very innacurate. Due to the phasing out of an open campus, juniors and seniors were not given assigned study hall, but could not go anywhere besides the library. Since they tended to have less classes than geeks (such as myself), it would have been more likely to find them in the library, than the geeks. My impression from talking to people who attend other schools is that similar situations are not uncommon. Libraries are commonly used as places to send students who dont have anywhere better to be, since they have a staff of several people, and are often fairly large. My mother works in my former high school's library; she complains quite often about the number of extremely immature jock type people she has to deal with.
You may be right that they decided to do something to get attention. But what they chose to do was based on the pressures society had exerted on them most likely from the first time they started interacting outside their families. And the backlash against the internet and other issues just shows this to a higher degree; these things are different. Society does not like different.
Perhaps you are using a different definition of the word superlative than the one in my dictionary. What these people did, and what Hitler did, are certainly not what I would call "Of the highest quality or degree."
Kyle
Administrators at every level between guidance counselor to President Clinton are asking "what can be done?" Yet they fail to understand that they are as much to blame as the TCM's parents. They fostered the environment where anyone who is not a superficial stuck-up bimbo or a dumb masochistic macho jock is an outcast, and ridiculed.
What can be done? Provide some socially acceptable environment other than battle.net for exceptional teens. Don't penalize them for being bored by the least common denominator curriculum you dole out in uniform, non-challenging parcels. Give them some advanced curriculum that interests them. Just pay attention to them fer christsake, instead of ignoring and berating them... instead of joining along with the kids you're supposed to be leading.
These are the people we need to drag this sorry ass culture from the depths of fossil fuel addiction. These are the future researchers who will find cures for aids and cancer. These are the future entrepreneurs who will raise this economy from of the ashes of depression when our paper tiger economy burns up. Wouldn't it be wise to nurture them instead of the future Anchor Bimbos, Housewives, Lumberworkers, and Linesmen?
Maybe it would be a start if we began to place a little more value on the teachers and administrators themselves. We don't exactly attract the best people to these jobs - I can count on one hand the number of teachers that actually taught me something. I acquired an education in spite of the rest. And the administrators... well, I won't repeat cliched jokes.
But consider - when your principal and dean were in high school, which group did they belong to? It's a self-perpetuating system...
I can see the fnords!
American Civil Liberties Union After this excellent article, I may have to change my .sig
--Ivan, weenie NT4 user, Jon Katz hater: bite me!
--weenie NT4 user: bite me!
"Computers are nothing but a perfect illusion of order" -- Iggy Pop
These violations should not go unnoticed. Some of the e-mails that Katz provided are clear infrangements on our rights. Please, this should not be tolerated! Not only is discrimination from our peers harmful, but coming from our higher authorities is worse!
American Civil Liberties Union
After this excellent article, I may have to change my .sig
--Ivan, weenie NT4 user, Jon Katz hater: bite me!
--weenie NT4 user: bite me!
"Computers are nothing but a perfect illusion of order" -- Iggy Pop
The parents aren't able to devote enough time?
What kind of bullshit is that? Unless they told their kid not to use the computer through a note on the fridge, I'm sure they had the TIME to do it.
They just didn't have the WILL.
These are bad parents who don't want to put the effort into an open, deep relationship with their kid. Taking away the computer is a cop-out.
What do you mean they don't have time to supervise everything the kid does on his computer? Of COURSE they can't watch their kid 24 hours a day! But if they only COMMUNICATED with their kid, they would be able to rest assured their kid had a decent sense of morals and wouldn't do anything awful.
That attitude can only make things worse - it's like saying to kids "hey your little problems at school are unimportant and meaningless, and you'll agree once you get into the real world".
No, actually I was encouraged by it. I am in high school right now. I'm a senior and thanking god that I am almost ready to get out.
It's been nothing but a load of crap. People telling you that you need to get involved in sports and have school spirit or something is wrong with you. I have a social life. I go out with my friends on the weekends. I just find sports boring.
I was getting tired of hearing stuff like that all the time and thinking of how stupid everyone is for putting emphasis on things that have no relevance to anything.
That message did not "make things worse" but helped assure my hopes that it does get better in (yes) *the Real World*.
How is a kid supposed to feel when you tell him his ENTIRE WORLD is some little meaningless thing that he will forget about?
Well, I don't know about other people, but I was *glad* to hear it.
Is he supposed to feel better that every day of his life for the next five or ten years is going to a fiendish hell filled with torture, physical assault, anguish and hatred?
I wish I would have known that coming in to high school as I'm sure it would have helped me be more prepared for it.
And also more encouraged by knowing that the rest of my life would not be like what I was experiencing in high school.
Hi,
with apologies to Matt Groenig, but High school is Hell. Mine sure was!
To make matters worse I was going from French school to English school, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and even as a puny, four-foot tall kid, I got into way too many fights, until some kind soul took me aside and taught me how to swear properly in English. (Oh, and I grew a foot, put on sixty pounds of muscle and stopped pulling my punches...)
Kids are cruel, conformist, slaves-to-fashion and God help anyone who doesn't fit the mold. And you're never told what the mold-of-the-week is either. High school was a hemorhoid and I often dreamed of making the evening news: ANGRY YOUTH SLAYS 330+ NO SURVIVORS!
The diference is that in Canada, guns are a real pain-in-the-ass to get a hold of so I'm not currently doing a whole bunch of consecutive life terms. (Legalized murder, sorry capital punishment, not being de rigeur there either.)
Too many guns, too many hormones, to many stupid students who fake being too bright and you end up with shools with too many dead students.
Its sad, its sick and the Weapons Manufacturers clearly share in the blame. Weapons without concience have caused multiple tens of millions of deaths in this century. Until we learn how to make them not to act without cause, we'll keep the worms fed.
-Charles-A.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The girls here actually want a smart guy.
Where do you go to school? (I'm comming there :) The girls at my college are still act like the girls we all new and disliked in highschool.
This sig is false.
Mississippi State University.
*curses himself for getting stuck in the worlds most backwards state*
This sig is false.
There is little a parent can do about it. (Since I am guessing that the options you listed are not serious.)
:)
The question is how to protect kids from other kids? Not from kids with guns, but from kids who alienate other kids.
The parents must have some of the blame tho. I suspect that if their parents had a real relationship with them, they probably would not have gone on a killing spree. More than likely they would have just suffered through it, or at worst, taken their own lives without spraying uzi's.
But parents can't get at the root of the problem: the fact that children are cruel and hateful and the school administration encourages it.
I truly feel for you and your child. Good luck in getting through things. I was very lucky in that my parents took the time to care what was going on in my life. That is not to say that I didn't have rought times with them. Times got real rough between us. But as soon as I left for college, it all cleared up and I have a better relationship with them than I have had since I was 5 years old.
Again, good luck.
This sig is false.
Too bad I have yet to meet a female CS major at state. Where are they??? hehehe.
;)
(MSU CS majors rule! physics majors suck!
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Small towns are always hard on nerds.
Problem is, *every* town in Mississippi is small.
:/
This sig is false.
The social hierarchy that exists in today's public education system determines an individual's status based on the wrong set of criteria. Rather than rewarding intelligence and free-thought, people are segregated by "popularity"--and popularity is a balance of good looks, money, and lack of thought.
Now, I'm not saying that the members of the TCM didn't have serious problems. I certainly think the whole "Hitler's birthday" thing was very odd. But I do sympathize with the reasons they feel the way they do (just not with the way they choose to express it).
On one hand, I think that the increased exposure of this problem may help. On the other, I hope that this backlash against free-thinkers in school doesn't make things worse. It is disgusting how school administration seems to beat down anyone who feels like the TCM did. They might as well call in the thought police and eliminate crimethinkers. Sheesh.
I am surprised that I didn't explode and spray automatic fire all over the schools I went to. (Everyone expected me to.) The reason I didn't was because I was brought up by good parents who took interest in what I was doing, rather then letting me make bombs in the garage. Take away good parenting and you will have a lot more kids who kill.
But that is just me.
This sig is false.
We've all been through it to some degree or another.
School years are the by far the worst, no power, no say, bossed around by people with no idea and often with lower IQ's.
Then one day you wake up and life has reversed.
Those people who made life difficult for you when you were younger now have dull, 9-5 lives, wishing always for the weekend. They are living in purgatory.
And you? You're pulling in 4x + more money than the oldest of them, doing a job you love, looking forward to monday mornings.
That's more than most people can say.
Just hold on...it's worth it.
http://www.visi.com/~epowell/concerned. html
It doesn't matter if you don't have any kids. It is in every taxpaying citizens best interest to keep tabs on what is going on in our schools. We need to make sure that they are producing viable new citizens... not drones or hoodlums.
You'll need to find out your local school board address, though... or provide me with a link with a list of them, and I'll post it on the website.
This is the best JK article I've seen yet.
My oldest son is at least as 'different' as I am, and I feel strongly that he does not belong in any school system. My wife and I are strongly commited to home-schooling him, he is six now and will not be starting first grade in the fall. He is already well ahead of what the the curriculum would have him doing now.
I hope I can spare my son the pain I endured.
This is the kind of $hit that happens when you raise a generation to do only what there Feelings Tell them to do. I have this strange feeling, that most people here, were raised with the Diffrence of Right Vs. Wrong, without a grey middle area, where scum hide out. Yet, like my peers, I have been, and continue to be tormented by jocks in school, it is not fun, it almost drives you nuts, they treaten you, and then they spread lies about you.
Personaly, Since everything that went down in CO, i havent gotten a ounce of $hit from anybody at my school, exept from freshman.
Another thing, Disiplin is another thing lacking from the schools, if the paddle was still in schools, you wouldnt have problems, but I have now noticed, that kids who have never gotten paddled in school, are so bad, and are so hard to deal with, because they dont know how to quit. They never shutup, and maybe, if there was disiplin, this never would have happened.
Yet, there are so many things to blame everything that happened on. We could blame it all on what the libral media, and yellow journalism want us to blame it on, or we can blame it on what was the true problem. Kids taking out there anger on other teens who tormented them for years, due to a lack of disiplin on the part of the tormentors, and bad parents, who did not keep a eye on there kids. you cant go blame this stuff on games like doom, quake, and duke nukem (my fav), or tv, or the internet. But you must blame it on the true causes, not what the media tell you to blame it on.
I don't agree. This is clearly a knee-jerk reaction. Did they have *any* evidence that this kid was doing anything more than visiting the Disney web site? Come on!
I know it's been beaten to death, but there is NO evidence ANY OF THIS had any more to do with the Internet than any other good or bad thing that goes on in society. It's no more logical than taking away a kid's chemistry set after the Oklahoma City bombing.
If that's how this kid's parents are going to react, they better make sure that they (the kid) never have a puppy or a cat, or a bicycle, or a chemistry set. What a bleak existence. I can't imagine how he/she must feel right now.
I'm sorry, but the last letter in Katz' article just broke my heart, both for the young boy or girl who had their computer confiscated, and for the parents, who obviously don't have an active relationship with them. And that, I think, is the heart of the problem. :-(.
I am a junior who attends ThunderRidge High School in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. My school is located approximately 10 minutes away from Columbine High School geographically, and it is emotionally on our doorstep, as I am sure it is on yours. Fifteen people died on April 20th, and it seems that as fast as the gunfire started the victims have been made secondary in this event.
I am a geek. I do not exist in the upper-most echelon of the social circle at my school, nor do I desire to. I have had my share of being made fun of and bullied, and my share of giving some of that back. For me, high school is a pain that I must endure every day, withstanding mind-numbing lectures and the sin of being forced to endure a waste of my valuable time on this planet. I enjoy playing "violent" video games, I enjoyed watching The Matrix, even left the theatre with a little adrenaline rush. Like many others, of course, I could never fathom killing a human being for teasing and taunting me, no matter how relentless. The fact is simply this: sane people do not kill. The human mind has an unbelievably strong aversion to eliminating any other of its own species. The media is no more guilty, John Katz, of placing the blame with Doom and Quake then you are for placing the blame on the aggressors in the admittedly vicious high school environment.
High school, for many of the intelligent, individualistic, and free-thinking kids is indeed a nightmare. However, as many of the respondents to your article testified, they never killed anyone. Looking back, John Katz and many of you have twenty-twenty hindsight. "Sure high school was awful, but I wasn't crazy, I never killed anyone." Exactly. These kids were insane. No one pushed them over the edge. They were adolescents with mental disabilities and a fascination with Adolf Hitler, one of the most insane beings in human history. They were insane.
Fifteen people died as a result of their madness. The focus cannot be shifted from the deaths of the innocent youth and the brave teacher to the pain that outcasts face in high school every day. I know that the pain of losing a loved one, a son, daughter, or father, is far greater than any grief suffered in any high school by any social misfit anywhere.
Postscript - I normally do not disagree with Jon Katz. I regard him as one of my favorite writers, and I tend to agree with a lot of things he says. The thesis for his "Kids who Kill" article, that violence in the media is not the reason for these massacres is correct. I can't help but agree that "for some of the best, brightest and most interesting kids, high school is a nightmare of exclusion, cruelty, warped values and anger." The point where our paths diverge on this issue is Katz' relentless pursual of blaming the tragedy on seemingly bellegerint social conditions at high school.
*****chris lindsay ICQ # 6628472 Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Alb
It has since been discovered that this note was a fraud, a fake, a forgery, posted by some jackass on Eric Harris' web site a day after the tragedy, but made to look like it was posted on the 19th.
*****chris lindsay ICQ # 6628472 Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Alb
It's obvious to me that the parents that are taking their kid's computer away, making them stop gaming, and chastizing them directly after the Littleton incident DON'T KNOW THEIR CHILDREN. If these parents would take the time to actually know who their kids are, they wouldn't have to parent in a paranoid frame of mind. When something this tragic pops up, they suddenly realize that they don't know what their kid is doing, and overcompensate. They'd probably be amazed to find out how intelligent and interesting their kids really are. ----- Nate
Let me preface this by saying that I do not consider myself part of the 'popular crowd. I have been an athlete, but never a good or recognized one. I am an intellectual, in the top 5% of my class. I spend several hours a day on my computer. I have longer hair than any other male student or teacher at school. Yet I am not harassed, and in fact most people at school like me. Many of them would never consider being freinds with me, just as I do not desire their friendship. However, those who make a concoious attempt to be differnt must reconize that being seen as alien is sucess, and not harassment. In addition, if people such as those who hae written before me consider 'jock' and other 'popular' people as far below them as they seem to, they need not look far for at least one of the causes of the lack of friendship. /.ers seem to feel they were fighting against. /. show gross over-reaction to incidents in schools, anyone expressing sympathy for murdering bigots, or wearing clothing that they must know is identified with killers displays a lack of concern for human life and human emotion that would give an school administrator pause, if not liscence to expel.
However, the most important point is that those people who killed 13 human beings in cold blood deserve far less sympathy than they are being given. This is for several reasons:
1 - their motivations were concerned not just with ostracism, but with racism. Both the TCM's words and deeds expressed hatred for blacks, hispanics and jews. Anyone wishing to express sympathy for them must first consider that they intentionally acted on the birthday of Adolf Hitler.
2 - they had a significant group of friends. The TCM supposedly ontained up to 30 members. This is more freinds than anyone whould have is they were truly ostracized. These students even went to the prom, identifying themselves with the values that
3 - they intended to kill people far beyond their high school. They even planned to crash an airplane into New York City. Anyone who would contemplate the slaughter of innocent civilians does not deserve our sympathy.
Finally, while the stories posted on
I am certain that no one who has posted here intended to show sympathy for the opinons that these two men held. However, before expressing our sympathy, we must realize what these men stood for, and what identifying with them means for both ourselves and others. While I would never condone the punishment of students for wearing a trenchcoat of for expressing sympathy, students should realize that the rest of society quite rightly considers these actions to be in very poor taste.
I appreciate any commments, or even flames.
Sam
Sam TH
AbiWord Developer
I see it was a forlorn hope that school administrators and teachers had gotten any brighter since I was in high school. Let's see... mindless repression and abuse create monsters, the response to which is... more mindless repression and abuse. Makes sense...
Hey kids - if your teachers are this dumb, tell them to check out who the Donner party, Al Fish, Ed Gein and Charles Starkweather were. Nobody has thought up anything more grotesque or senseless since, and they were around a long time before anybody thought up the internet.
- Keep your head down
- Try not to allow bitterness or self-hatred consume you
- Seek out your peers; they are out there, in the same schools
- do what you have to to survive
- remember that things can only get better
- you are not alone
- educate *yourself*
five years seems like an eternity to a teenager. I'm old enough to be these kids' father, and I'm in the UK, but this all sounds exactly like my schooldays. Folks: it can, and does, get better. -- Cally"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
> What about other countries, why here? (Score:2)
> by D3 (dhenning@www.usda.gov) on Mon April 26, 01:05 PM EDT
>
> Why are we so narrow minded to think that only kids
> in the US have problems in late grade school
> and through high school? There are pleanty of non-conformist
> kids in schools in England, Canada, Australia, and (insert
> any non US country you like here) Yes, certainly, in the countries you name; but that's an interesting choice of non-US countries, no ? (I'm UK-ish.) There's a deeper issue here which ties in with this this post; pardon me quoting 2 in 1
> The torture of high school (Score:3)
> by maynard (maynard@jmg.com) on Mon April 26, 01:17 PM EDT
>
> Getting teased regularly is one thing, but these kids assaulted me
> in large groups. I didn't stand a chance [...]
> This is a human rights issue. I know many who had to drop out
> of high school because it was just
> too dangerous to continue in school
> [...]
> Because of my experience I will never place my children (when I
> do have children) in public schools. I would rather homeschool or
> find a good private school than potentially subject my children
> to that environment.
the thing is : Culture ...
A friend who went to a reasonable public (ie., fee paying, prestigious) school in the UK, describes an experience a world away from mine; intelligence, academic achievement and so on were actively rewarded and encouraged, and this was so embedded in the culture that (he claims) people would actually compete to answer questions in class. My experience, a few hundred miles away in the state system, was the opposite -- recognisably what the 'merkins here say of High Schools.
Any one qualified to talk about anthropological / sociological implications of this ? Are there national differences as well as class differences ? How uniform is the culture of educational oppression ? Will state-funded education always tend to the culture of conformity and oppression ? etc. :)
I really don't know what to think; I'm copping out by not breeding
-- Cally
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
I was a complete oddball in highschool, not fitting in anywhere. I wasn't in the geek crowd, I wasn't really in the "in" crowd. By my junior year I ate my lunch alone and I enjoyed it that way.
I wasn't bad looking really, I had several girlfriends through highschool, but that never really helped much.
I was in band in highschool, and I figured that the best way for me to avoid having to play my sax in all those annoying basketball and football games as to be involved in other sports. Strange that I played sports for a specific reason, and not necissarily because I loved the game like so many other idiots.
In the evenings I'd spend time exploring computers, almost anytime night or day that I could get away, I'd get on my computer and see what I could learn.
By the time I was 16 I'd been around telenet for 3 years. Hanging in the message boards that were created there by others like myself and always in search of a PAD closer to home. I'd begun defrauding the phone company as a way to spend more time dialed up longdistance to the nearest PAD. One time the phone company even figured it out and backbilled for 3 months worth of useage. That $1500.00+ phone bill is etched in my mind.. it took all the savings I had up to that point.. and then some to pay.
I got on the internet when I was 14 and began exploring there, I can well remember the days when a good find was some obscure research paper on an ftp server that gave the name of one or two more systems to go through.
I learned my first unix command by getting pissed off and typing "man this sucks!!!!!!!!!".
And for the length of my exceeding on the net, I struggled in school. You can count the amount of days I did homework on 2 hands. I only made it through school and graduated because of high test scores. If school had've ever been about what you know instead of how much can you conform and how much homework can you do, I'd have gotten straight A's. I can remember having one class that I enjoyed because the teacher valued that I don't think mainstream. Perhaps I think more clearly?
So now I'm out of school, I had to drop out of college because of cancer and chemotherapy, had to take up working full time as a way to make money just to live.
Strangely, it was what I was what I enjoyed doing in highschool that I now get paid for today. I make far more money than anyone else in my highschool class that I'm aware of. The people in the "in" crowd are aware of how well I've done and I've seen them just shake their heads and wonder if their college was worth it. I've had one tell me that their college wasn't worth what they're getting paid now.
It's not surprising, 80% of millionaires never graduated from college and something like 70% of those never made it through highschool.
So you see.. it's true.. the Geek shall inherit the earth.
WH
This incident, and past incidents, I hope teaches everyone in high school now an important lesson. Right now, it will be a horrific experience in those at the school to remember, and a sad day remembered by other students. Hopefully this will at least teach important things to the future parents of the country that people who are different not by color, or race, but interests are still ok.
At this point in time, we are mostly beyond racisism, but unfortunatley there is still the big untold issue of public school hell. And the harser the mental hell becomes, the more incidents of the violent hell in schools will happen. Thats why everyone needs to keep this in mind, and remember that being picked on for being different is not part of growing up, and picking on others for being different is not ok.
And for the media, stop looking for the interesting story and start covering the real issues behind these events. Interview students, don't edit them for what they say, and show it. Stop using your hour of news time to scare parents about the dangers of the internet, and start scaring them about the behaviors that parents may see as acceptable.
In almost every way, I sympathize with everyone out there who went through HS as an outsider. A decade ago, I was one too. Luckily for me, I had several things in my favor though.
First of all, I'm 6'3", and in HS I was amongst the biggest people in the school. The bullies would try to start fights, after a while I got tired of the little jibes, and I would finish the fight. I never had to fight the same person twice.
I also lucked out by joining Stage Crew. It was run by a teacher who appreciated everyone for what they could contribute, not how well they fit in the mainstream. I put enough time in that I ended up practically running the stage. Even the most popular kids in school learned to stay on my good side or risk some kind of minor 'mishap' the next time they were onstage to receive another popularity-type award.
I was also good enough at sports that they couldn't get me there either. They wanted me for their teams, but I had no desire whatsoever to spend more time with the SOB's than I had to in class. (Amazingly enough, we actually had a couple of jocks in the honors classes. Who'da thunk it?)
Anyway, I can remember the pure hatred that I used to feel for so many people at school. I can remember thinking on a couple of occasions that if I ever had the chance, I'd get even.
Luckily, I never got the chance while I was still angry. I had the knowledge, & the will to do something like what happened last week. The only thing that saved me was a lack of opportunity.
Its amazing just how close my HS of over 2k people came to being reduced by a rather large number.
How many kids are out there that are still trapped in school? How many more tragedies are just waiting for their opportunities to happen?
How many?
This message was sent using 100% recycled electrons.
Note that the "international" title of "Fucking Åmål" will be mollified to "Show Me Love".
:-)
They're chickens, chickens I say.
Actually, reports indicate things aren't as rosy elsewhere either: For instance, in Japan young schoolgirls sell sex in order to purchase "in" clothes. And carreer pressure leads to a very high suicide rate among both sexes.
:-)
Oh, and did nobody tell you about British boarding schools?
would be interested to hear from any UK posters whether this atmosphere has developed in schools there
- it certainly didn't exist when I left school (12 years ago).
From what my sister tells me (she's a Year 9 student), and from my own experience of pre-Sixth Form school, I'd say that this type of atmosphere is thriving in the UK.
I wish I could answer your questions, but I have no answers. I too have posed the same questions over the past few days, and most have completely ignored them. From my understanding - life is completely different outside the US. Whether friendlier, or less focused on pop culture, the atmosphere is completely different.
I'm sorry, but this is not just a problem in the USA, although it might be more visible. This mental torture certainly happens in the UK. It happened to me, it happened to my sister, and it happened to my friends. It's not a uniquely American phenomenon.
He didn't mention NATO's "relief efforts" in Kosovo as one of those harmful influences
I don't see Nato's attempts to take away Milosevic's toys as a good example of violence. After all they've hardly gone in all guns blazing, have they? They've had to step up the assualt continually because the Serbs refused to take a hint.
A much better example of aggressive violence - and persecution of the different, the weak and the relatively defenceless - would be the Serbs' use of the army and paramilitary (read: dangerous ex-convicts) to exterminate the Kosovars in order to secure liebensraum from themselves.
Milosevic must be stopped. If we don't we send a signal to all the bullies of the world that this sort of behaviour is acceptable. And maybe you're next in line for 'ethnic cleansing'.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
In the UK it's not nearly so bad, maybe because we're not so hung up on sports.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen to any degree, of course. There are Nerdish kids (like I was) who tend to be ostracised by the more extreme bullies. But that's just life. There will always be a minority of criminals preying on the weak. The actions of these bullies are rarely condoned or overlooked by the school authorities, even if the school's method of dealing with it may be less effective than desired.
Meanwhile the all-rounders who can manage their classes while doing well at sports are the most popular. But that's just life. Some people are more capable than others and to refuse to admire them is churlish. Better look up to them and try to emulate them, even compete with them (eh? Wait up - see below).
However in UK schools you can't substitute sports for a brain. 'Jocks' don't really exist here at all in the sense that Americans understand - there is no 'Jock' culture. Sporty kids with no brains are not particularly admired by anybody but themselves and slack-faced tarts with a strong urge to get pregnant before leaving school. They don't have any particular social power.
In that sense there is some kind of balance of power between 'Jocks' and 'Nerds'. Neither is really elevated at the expense of the other although in the final years of high school, clever students tend to get more respect from the teaching staff.
Of course if a student is bright but also rebellious and nonconformist to the point of being a disruptive influence then they won't win this respect and will probably get into trouble with the head. But under the circumstances prevailing here, it's difficult to see how such a student could be helped as they are not likely to be rebelling against anything reasonable (like Brando: "Whaddya got?").
The thing is, in the UK the pressures to conform to some sort of twisted ideal are somewhat less, so the Nerds don't generally flip out like we've seen reported here by US correspondents.
*So here's my theory regarding why US and UK high schools differ so much.
The US culture idolizes winners and scoffs at losers. The pressures in US schools to conform to that twisted ideal must therefore be immense. It explains why 'Jocks', dedicated to winning in competition, are so highly regarded, and unsporty 'Geeks' and 'Nerds' are ostracized for either doing badly at sports or just refusing to take part.
But In my school we were taught to compete against ourselves. "Winning isn't the point, it's taking part and doing your best that counts". This philosophy, promoted by the most enlightened teachers (in my opinion), allowed me to step outside of the stereotype I'd built for myself and become a more well-rounded person. It was OK for me not to win, so it was OK for me to play. As long as I was always pitted against sporting opponents who weren't ridiculously superior in ability, there was a point to it and I could have fun. Even maybe achieve something, by surpassing my own previous performance. If I lost: what the hell? I wasn't laughed at or if I was, it was me doing the laughing.
The sad thing is if this is what ails the American school system I don't think it is easily curable - this 'winning is everything' mentality is too deeply ingrained in the American culture of success.
Neither will it be helped by left-wing liberals who - even here in the UK - would rather destroy all incentive to win by eliminating all competitive sports from the curriculum entirely,
Such extremism would likely alienate the US mainstream from this whole strand of thinking.
P.S. Get rid of the guns. An obsession with guns is not healthy; many people are just not suited to have guns; and tha availability of guns make unhappy people into dangerous people. I'm sorry if this sounds harsh but anyone who doesn't understand these simple truisms is obviously just too ignorant or stupid to be credible.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
I have to disagree with you, not in principle, but in methodology. First of all, legislation is rarely if ever a useful tool for stopping this sort of random, chaotic problem, with more contributing factors and root causes than can easily be counted.
Secondly, gun control wouldn't have stopped this tragedy from happening. Guns were only a tool used by the perpetrators, not a root cause. If guns were not available, they wouldn't have decided against this massacre. They probably just would have built a few more pipe bombs. (BTW, the answer is not stricter pipe control either)
The solution is complex and difficult. People in high school need to be nicer to each other. Parents need to be more involved in their children's lives (no, this does not mean that they need to be better wardens of the penitentiary called Home). Teachers and administrators need to be more sensitive and learn to communicate better with students (even those who are difficult to understand).
As you have probably noticed, none of the above solutions is feasibly legislatable. None of them are easy to implement. They won't head off every case of random violence, but they will help a lot. They'll also work a lot better than simply banning/controlling/cracking down on guns/pipes/Quake/Marilyn Manson/trenchcoats/geeks/insert your favorite bit of counterculture here.
Just my thoughts on the issue. I would be happy to respond to questions via email, as well as in this forum (if I get the time to check it).
Peace,
Nick
Stronger than ever, than ever before /
KMFDM is a drug against war -- KMFDM (ironic, ain't it?)
It's obvious that guns weren't the issue, pipes were the issue. If these kids didn't have pipes, they wouldn't have been able to make pipe bombs. And let's not forget propane tanks. We need to better control them as well.
What you are failing to see is that guns in this case are on the same level as Marilyn Manson/black trenchcoats/Doom/Quake/etc. The root of the problem is two screwed up kids that decided to get even with the poeple that tormented them. The methods don't matter, and attacking the symptoms won't help a damn thing.
Peace,
Nick
Stronger than ever, than ever before /
KMFDM is a drug against war -- KMFDM (ironic, isn't it?)
The problem here was that two kids snapped and decided that they wanted to kill a bunch of people. The fact that they did it with guns has no more importace than that they did it while wearing trenchcoats.
As an example, in Japan, a country with very heavy gun control laws, a group of terrorists took over one of the government agencies by force using swords. (i don't remember the specifics, though I think it was sometime in the 70s) It just goes to show that people intent on committing acts of violence will do so with whatever tools available, and that controlling the tools will not solve the problem, i.e. one can't stop people from eating by outlawing forks.
Peace,
Nick
Stronger than ever, than ever before /
KMFDM is a drug against war -- KMFDM
(ironic, isn't it?)
Yeah, it may sound strange but I wish that right now I was still in high school. That way I could effectively fuck with the administrators minds.
I was the "popular loner" in high school, a term that it took me years to create, but none to recognize. I was in all the "nerd classes" and I loved them, but even more importantly so were many of the "preps, jocks (shocking, huh?), and other popular people." I got lucky, as I was held with esteem by classmates for my intelligence. But then again, I didn't have a real girlfriend until I left high school. It is a stark dichotomy, and I imagine had I written my first poem this month rather than in '92, my english teacher would have sent me for counseling.
What hasn't been written is the other "escape plans" that students have available to them. My sophomore year, I was selected to attend the "Texas Governor's Honors Program" (btw if you're a TGHPer from '93 or later, send me a line at this email) and it was a pure joy that changed my life forever. A year later, I left for college before graduation at a program held at the same school as TGHP called the Texas Academy for Leadership in the Humanities. (That link goes to our reunion planning page for those of you academy kids who run across it.)
Texas has two such programs, TAMS @ UNT and the Academy @ Lamar-Beaumont. It let me leave an atmosphere that was stifling to go to a program where I was not alone in my desire for REAL EDUCATION! Unfortunately, public schools don't promote these opportunities because they would lose federal aid if they did. The government gives money for attendance, that's why these programs are hard to find. They exist, probably in abundance, but they are hush-hush.
I urge anyone who is a high school student who is a geek, nerd, dork, or "popular loner" to investigate these types of programs. Invest in your future and your pleasure. And for those older geeks with kids, help them if they don't fit in. I know I'm preaching to the choir because I imagine that parents who love learning support their children, I know mine do.
Please for the sake of everyone, do the Right Thing and give these kids what they really need, and that is not counseling, it's respect.
Mike Ford
ALL HAIL BRAK!!!
The emails that Katz posted are written by whiners who believe that they are products of their environment. They choose to be different. Its that choice that leads them into trouble. I'm a geek, and I receive some ridicule for it, but no more than the next person, who happens to be the JV quarterback. I choose not to stand out in excess, not for fear of retalliation, but because, I like to. The people that do choose to look different don't deserve worse treatment, but if you don't like the way your treated, don't flaunt it. Further more, people are made fun of because of where they are: high school. Everyone gets made fun of in high school, no matter what. I'm a geek, and experience nothing different than the next high schooler, because I choose to. These people need to realize that.
.02
my
Kent
Poopdick.
I wish I would have had this forum 14 years ago.
I was lucky, though, I went to a small high school (~100 students). You couldn't be an outsider for long; sooner or later someone would befriend you.
I really pity the "geeks" in the big schools. The cliques are just too exclusive; in a small school you're forced to get to know others, and they're forced to get to know you. Also, these days families are so spread out that your extended family can be across the country. That was something that helped me: having cousins to talk to and have a bond with got me through some tough times.
Anyone who lays blame on the parents of these kids is comepletely out of touch (my wife is a psychiatrist and she says so!). My parents were good and loving, but a human needs more than parental love (& discipline!) to thrive. You need the love of a *community*. I know that sounds trite but the more I think about it the more I see the logic in it. There's truth in the saying "It takes a village to raise a child". We are social animals, and the ostracizing of these non-conformists deprives them of the love they need.
It's like caging a dog, and poking it with a stick, torturing it day after day. Sooner or later it'll bite you. This is what happened in Littleton. Not that it's right; I'm just calling it as I see it. Those kids were sick, therefore something made them sick.
Hang in there you guys; when you get out you'll be free!
They they would have caught the only line every uttered in the whole existence of the show that was worth hearing:
"Be kind to geeks and nerds, because in 10 years, they'll be the ones with all the money."
-Screech
I wonder if Bill Gates ever got picked on/beat up in Junior High/High School....
> I have zero sympathy for the TCM.
You are missing the point here. As other people have said, the media has totally latched on to the wrong thing. This wasn't the actions of the whole little group, this was the actions of a couple (maybe few) totally messed up individuals.
If a Slashdot poster goes out tomorrow and guns down 10 people and the media gets a hold of the knowledge that he's a member of slashdot, what will happen? You better believe that everyone here would be shunned by the media. Not because we are all bad, but because we had one bad apple. The media would do the whole Slashdot = EVIL, geek = dangerous, smart people= bad people. Just like they have in CO. Look at some of the discussions here! Insults abound. Some people hate Katz, some people hate Star Wars, we generally say what we feel (and sometimes it isn't very pretty at all).
In the article above, people are being shunned and mentally evaluated for saying things like we say here every day. Now that is sick. And people here with no clue just say the whole group is bad, i don't feel sorry for them... You should. Because once people start losing freedoms for wearing a trench coat or listening to MManson or playing Doom or Quake, we've started on a long slippery road.
When you stop defending other people's freedoms, where are you going to be when they start restricting yours?
You're going to be up a certained un-named creek, because there are no free people left that want to defend your freedoms.
I may regret posting this, but oh well.
What is with all these people posting about how geekiness has/will made them a lot of money from a good job?
I am into linux and programming, but I'm awful at it. I'm also a college drop-out because I failed most every class no matter how hard I studied. I guess this disqualifies me from being a geek... so I'm just a lowly idiot. I don't think I'll ever make very much money or do anything worthwhile.
Not only was I an outcast in high school, but I was also very weak and not very smart. I didn't even feel like I fit in with the goths.
For a while now I've had some interest in Nazi Germany. Even trying to learn to speak German and find Nazi paraphernalia.
And then this thing happens and I see all these parallels between those boys and myself.
I attempted suicide a couple times, but maybe I should have just taken more interest in guns.
We can't, I think. IMO the best we can do is actively punish the ones that we catch being actively disrespectful/bullying, so as to limit the harm that they do. However, jerks exist, and it will always be an ego boost to tease the outcasts who are so teasable.
However, damage control is IMO better than nothing. The only problem is that that requires most teachers and administrators to be competent and seriously interested in smoothing out the social dynamics in high school. Some schools have many such teachers. Many schools don't. I don't know how this problem can be solved.
Well, I think that the best way to do this is for parents to raise their kids that way. Parents set the most prominent examples for their kids in their early years, and a good model will go a long way toward keeping the jocks and popular kids from picking on the geeks and outcasts.
Having good parental models will help somewhat, but there will still be many kids who are jerks (or worse) because it feels good, regardless of what their parents try to do. IMO the best approach is to attack the problem from many fronts, with this being just one of them (albeit a useful one).
On a related note, crazy and/or intrinsically violent people will always exist, no matter how well parents raise their children. However, competent parents can recognize when their kids are on the road to a gun rampage and turn them over to the authorities. The catch is that this takes competent, benevolent parents. Some parents are like this. Others aren't. Parents are a lot harder to impose quality control on than teachers, too, in a free society.
But what about kids today? Is there any way to drive the culture out of the kids who are in school today? You can't allow the culture to fester, because the older kids just indoctrinate the younger ones by example. I'm not sure there's a good answer to this.
The best approach that I can think of is a crackdown on _bullying_, but this requires a lot of effort by a lot of capable teachers, as mentioned above. It's an imperfect solution, but would probably help somewhat.
How about each other?
Instructors and parents most certainly aren't blameless, but the primary social influence for students is other students. This is a very nice feedback loop. My comments on the problem in general are posted elsewhere in this thread, so I won't spam you with them here.
Violence happens up here all right; it's just knifings more often than shootings, as we have a scarcity of guns (thank goodness, IMO).
I survived elementary school and high school by making friends with the teachers. Most of them were nice people. I avoided elementary school recess by going to the office and helping with filing/checking purchase orders/etc. (which I find enjoyable and relaxing, twisted soul that I am O:)).
"I rahter be happy now than in 25 years"
- Fucking Åmål
Now Fucking Åmål is a Swedish move about some
teens in a Swedish school. In the end the two
lovers get each others. Well the thing is they are booth girls. The system, in whatever country wants
us to think like this. I don't know why. The is no reason that, atleast, I can see.
It's called new wave but it's just the same.
I just kept my head down, and turned the Smiths up.
A few years ago, one of my biggest bulliers (if that's a word) was killed in a motorbike accident. Amazing how liberating that was. Sure I wanted these people gone, I had knives held against my throat, (and this is 80's UK I'm talking about) been chased through town, all manner of things.
Another one of the people came in to where I was working a few years ago to apologise. He said he felt terrible about what he had done. Good man! Whilst I don't drink with him or anything, we can now exchange hellos as we pass in the street, and I think it's brought him a little peace knowing that I don't hold any ill feelings toward him.
I don't think I'm a nerd/geek/jock or whatever I was crap at the normal sports (Soccer/Rugby etc) because I'm 5'8" but I was on my school's team in fencing. I was crap at English/Math but did well in the Sciences and Computing (what little there was in the UK in the 80's). I can remember a teacher telling me that D&D was "Tantamount to Satanism" (his words) I just thought it was an interesting game that involved using your imagination.
[EOF]
Andy Bowd
yes, www.dotcomforwardslash.com is my real URL.
Not school itself, rather the social contexts. I felt like the system was setup to favor those that looked and participated in a particular way. I had a few good freinds, but like 90% of those in high school, I wasn't popular and it was hard to deal with. I say "Get Over It"(TM) - it made me a better person. I can look now and see that almost all of those that were popular in high school have gone nowhere - they partied their life away. Likewise, surfing the net or playing games all day is not a good thing and will also take you nowhere (in moderation Ok, but not all the time, as some of us like to joke about). I don't see the value of gaming/surfing 24x7 (the exception would be communication skills learned via chat rooms, email, etc). You would be better off reading a book or holding down a part-time job (a good work ethic is so valuable in college and in the workplace). So in this sence, I agree with the parents out their that are trying to limit the amount of time spent on the net or gaming. These parents are helping the situation not because the net or games (or music, etc) corupt kids, but because they are getting involved in their kids lives.
\forall code \in C, \frac{\Delta readability(code)}{\Delta t} < 0
this is the classic case of converse error - aka guilt by association. Just as not all geeks kill class mates, not all guns are used to kill people. If these parents took any interest in their kids lives they could have easily prevented this. You can pass law after law but anyone intent on killing will - you cannot stop it. Before there were guns, people poisoned other poeple, or they used a bow and arrow, or a club or, ...you get the point. For crying out loud, these kids were making pipe bombs that they probably learned how to make on the net - should we outlaw the net? Of course not, who in their right mind wants more of the gov in their life?
\forall code \in C, \frac{\Delta readability(code)}{\Delta t} < 0
From Andrew in Alaska: ..."
...).
"To be honest, I sympathized much more with the shooters than the shootees. I am them. They are me. This is not to say I will end the lives of my classmates in a hail of bullets, but that their former situation bears a striking resemblance to my own.
Andrew,
I understand what you're saying, and in a way, I know what you're feeling. But I can not fathom how can someone "sympathize" with these monsters !!! This is like saying you sympathize with Adolph Hitler, who knows, maybe he too was mocked as a child (it seems he did suffer from rejection
Try to sympathize with the people killed or injured, or maybe even try to sympathize with one of the "geeks" killed in the library. It makes you wonder if they hated jocks like this, why didn't they do this at a football game or gym ? I think theres more than people just making fun of them here, there was some real hate, evil and problems we might never understand in the minds of these killers.
Please people, let's get some perspective here.
- sigs are for wimps.
While I find it nice and productive to talk about geek opression, I find it repulsive that some people are using the word "sympathize" wrt some of the killers.
These guys were not your typical "geeks", if they were "geeks" at all.
- sigs are for wimps.
... in a positive way. Make sure your teachers+principal+parents know about this. If the jerk doesn't get a punishment from the school, you and your parents have a good lawsuit waiting for assault.
Hey, I know it's bad now, but it'll get better later. Wait until you get to college, you'll have lots of fun.
But for now, don't keep quiet, this kind of abuse should not be tolerated.
- sigs are for wimps.
The student in question was also a popular athlete.
...
....
Last I'd heard, the kid's father was blaming race, but there was no other evidence.
o Let's see, before they killed him the said, "there's the little _N_WORD"
o These "geeks" workshiped Hitler, hardly a model for racial tolerance.
Also, several of the kids killed and or injured happend to be in a christian youth group. And we all know one of the was asked if she believed in God, and was shot for it !
Somehow, I doubt that particular girl was making fun of them
The reality here is that these kids had ***way*** more problems than people teasing them
- sigs are for wimps.
The police have confirmed that the diary indicates the date was chosen because of Hitlers birthdate, plus the police have also mentioned there were "Nazi" materials (posters, book ? don'tknow) in the room (of both?).
- sigs are for wimps.
If having an admiration and devotion to Hitler (in this day an age) does not make one a racists, I don't know what else would.
...
And when people use that word, that usually is meant to disrespect your race. If you were to call me a "spik" , I would certainly accuse you of being racists.
Please
BTW - I'm not saying racism caused this tragedy. The cause was madness, I was just addressing another point (long lost in this thread)
- sigs are for wimps.
I was in high school , 7 years ago , I doubt it's changed that much. If you just walk away and do nothing, they'll keep spitting on him and trying to CHOKE HIM !!!!
Sorry but running away is not the way to go. Ignoring the problem is not the solution, if the school officials don't do anything then they're not doing their job. The colorado thing could have been prevented, if officials followed up on the report of PIPE BOMBS.
When I came to this country, a kid tried to intimidate me. I was lucky that most high school kids in the US are pretty ignorant about the rest of the world. I told him I was from Panama (true) and like everybody in Central America I was a guerrilla fighter (false). He stopped bothering me.
- sigs are for wimps.
I'd forgotten how much of my youth (not that long ago) I have completely blocked out of my mind. The months that friends and I went through parent-teacher conferences, and meetings because D&D was "satanic"; the arguments I got in when peers would insist that people who break the law were some how genetically inferior (i'm not even kidding--it was ridiculous); the binge-drinking and peer pressure to do things that were just obscene in their content and value and form.
I haven't watched tv in like three weeks--except a few shows here and there, because this media-blitz is so full of crap it's sickening. Where did these "adults" grow up? Are they literate? The only warning sign for a potential killer I don't fall under is that I don't have a gun collection.
But I sure collected enough pained memories of ridicule and loneliness and bitter solemn depression that if I didn't have this underlying mindset that doing such a thing would _destroy_ the people around me (the few _friends_ I had and my family), it was more tempting than all the apples in eden.
It's unfortunate that there are so many people out there who are exposed to the media, and have never befriended one of us friendless folk--they see the media coverage and can't but hate us all because we're misguided and evil.
I'm 23. And I feel soooo old and weary sometimes.
/will
One thing I've noticed in every one of these cases of highschool violence is that the kids used their fingers. This is not to say that the violence couldn't have been perpetrated without fingers but I think it would have been much less likely and much less severe. I think we should immediately remove the fingers of all children under the age of 18 so that we can stop this sort of suffering.
Sarcasm, especially written, is a little insensitive but I think in this case that it's a appropriate.
What the TCM did was for no other reason than that they were a couple of loonies. Reasons and motiviations aside, what separates us from the animals is our self control. Throw enough random factors together and with a large enough sampling you will eventually find someone that is both crazy enough to do something like this and angst enough to try it.
I actually still remember highschool somewhat fondly. After a traumatic elementary/junior high/highschool experience I still look back highschool with a smile. I realized somewhere during my sophomore or junior year how pointless everything was. About the time I caught myself picking on someone else instead of being picked on, I had a sort of epiphany. The pattern was never clearer. More in a moment.
My advice to current highschool prisoners is this: project yourself into the future. Seriously, really imagine that you are an adult with a daily job that occupies most of your time. Your primary concerns are paying your bills, keeping your S.O. happy, and generally doing things you like. Now, if your intelligent and an optimist then you've probably imagined things a little bit better than they are really going to be, but that's ok; They're still going to be pretty good.
Why? Because you're doing something you like to do? No. Because you own your own house now? No. Because you are generally more respected? No. It's because you have a choice on where you are and what you are doing. If you're smart and enlightened then you get to take advantage of these choices. You'll be respected because you put yourself in positions where people like you are respected... or maybe you won't be respected because you chose other things that are more important to you. Choice is the key. If you really looked you could find those same highschool feelings even when you're thirty. Most people learn how to avoid them.
When you've gotten a clear picture of where you think you'll be... look back on yourself today as if reviewing history. Are any of the people around you important to you? Which ones? Why? Are any of these people the ones that are making life hard for you? If so, why are they important to you? It's a sign of other problems and you should seek counseling.
For most of us, we realize that the people that try to ostracize us the most are the ones that matter the least. Learn to ignore these people. If it helps, they are the ones that are going to have the hardest time fitting in later in life.
Learn to avoid physical confrontations. This is the hardest one, but the most important; A jab to the jaw is a little hard to ignore. I can't offer any advice on how because it's too specific to your particular situation. It helps not to wear your different-ness on your forehead. There's a big difference between being different because you want to and walking into a classroom and shouting, "I'm different and you are all idiots." Most will be somewhere in between, try and lean towards the less confrontational side.
I'm probably not making any sense any more. Highscool became a much better place after I realized some things. The problem is that I'm not really sure what they were. I do know that I figured out that the highschool social structure is BS and by participating in it at all I'm demeaning myself. I realized adult life would be much better socially but also comes with more responsibility. So I decided to make the best of a bad situation... I took advantage of the less responsibility to genuinely have some fun. After a while I was even able to view the social system with a little bit of humor. (Kept private of course.) If you're really lucky(?) you may even get a glimpse of thing to come, but don't be surprised if it isn't as comforting as you imagine it will be.
I remember a day when our trig teacher picked a test to show to the class as an example. I don't even remember what point she was trying to make, but I do remember that it belonged to one of the more popular guys in the class and we all knew it. He was extremely embarrassed and his demeanor completely changed. At another time I might have taken some joy in seeing him suffer. The thing is, I had noticed him hard at work trying to understand the trig stuff every day that week during lunch. I could only manage to feel bad for him.
Highschool is tough and it isn't likely to get better soon. Just try to get through it alive and things will get better.
-Paul
Bah, I'm usually a little more concise but it's monday.
Edu. sig-line: Choose rhymes with lose. Chose rhymes with goes. Loose rhymes with goose.
Comparing? THEN use THAN.
I did that after my junior year. Couldn't take another year of that hell - I mean, I really couldn't stay sane. Just left and started taking classes in college part-time, then got my ged and applied full-time. Fuck high school.
-lx
What I'm feeling is that the general trend here is that a lot of you nerds are feeling hatred towards those who oppressed you. This is natural. However, it probably isn't the best mentality to take, as it only contributes to the already profuse hatred out there.
It's just like Henry Rollins said, "Don't hate someone, you're giving them too much of yourself."
Ayn Rand had a small number of very clear, simple, elegant rules which tell us how everything works, and how to fix it all. When you read Rand, you discover that the universe is actually a terribly simple place, and that human relationships are the the simplest thing of all. She explains how you can take her small number of simple rules, apply them to society and to the members of society, and make everybody happy and productive. She had a Manifesto. She had a Grand Unified Theory of Everything.
So did the Unabomber.
So did Karl Marx, Hitler, and a lot of other widely-admired historical figures, from all over the political spectrum. The one thing they had in common was some form of a Messiah complex: They had been granted the Final Truth.
Fortunately, Rand's Grand Unified Theory of Everything didn't revolve around violence[1], nor around seizing political power, so people who try to implement it don't usually do much damage[2]. So it's not like "Objectivists" are really likely to be dangerous or anything, but they are still addicted to radical oversimplification of very complicated issues. Militarily they're harmless, but intellectually they're not so hot.
the philosophy of Objectivism that puts rational thinking and thought, intellect and being an individual over top of popularity
There's a caveat there: Ayn Rand defined "rational thinking and . . . intellect" as "agreeing with Ayn Rand about everything". Rand believed that only yes-men (specifically, her yes-men) can truly think for themselves, and do it rationally. Of course, some of us might disagree with that, but then we're not yes-men, are we? So by definition, we're irrational and we can safely be ignored. Some people call this a self-reinforcing delusional system, while others call it philosophy. Hey, it's a free country.
[1] She didn't advocate violence, but she condoned it when "necessary". See Atlas Shrugged where Dagny and whatsisname kill a guard for the sake of momentary convenience.
[2] Big-time con-artists like Michael Milken are an occasional exception, but if get to choose the kind of "damage" that people will do, I'd much rather be swindled than blown up. So Rand is better than the Unabomber in that respect as well.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." --
From the newsweek article you linked to:
According to the evidence of stones and bones, long before Ellis Island opened its doors America was a veritable Rainbow Coalition of ethnic types, peopled by southern Asians, East Asians--and even, perhaps, Ice Age Europeans,
That's not as simple as the article's title seems to suggest. Depressingly, I can easily see some unprincipled yahoos latching onto this (without reading or understanding the article, much less the actual research) and claiming that it "justifies" our stealing land from the natives. Oh, well.
Furthermore, none of those people were your or my direct ancestors, unless of course you're a Native American (I'm not) -- which brings us right back to the post you replied to.
It's a neat article. Thanks for posting the link.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." --
First, who I am. I play bass, I wear funny clothes, I run linux, I am the son of deaf parents, I function best at night, I hate beer, I love wine, I have a life-sized Boba Fett cutout in my bedroom, my mp3 playlist is about a day long...I own none of the songs on cd, I listen to wierd music like Clutch, Stamford Prison Experiment, and Frank Sinatra, I have a degree in Philosophy. I am wierd. I am happy.
;P) Even if you hate sports, try one or two. I have (hockey roolz :P). (now the jocks) Have you ever asked a geek out to a movie? I have (again, yes ;P). Sit down with a couple friends and watch all three Star Wars movies in a row (I have...hehe :P)
:) I had more fun in three days of college than I had my entire four year tour in the battlegrounds of high school. The walls between "castes" matter less, age matters less, people matter more. I've seen freshman jocks hanging out with senior geeks, senior girls dating freshman guys, and stoners of any year hanging out with anyone who sits on the futon next to them. Go to college...if you hate high school utterly, set your sights on college...make it your holy grail. It is worth it.
;)
Sartre once said, in a play he wrote, "Hell is other people." What he meant by this is that everyone (you and me, too) wants everyone else to be like them, and will try (at every chance) to make people like them. Some of us have decent ways of dealing with this (like writing operating systems that are so damn good, you just really really want to use them) and some of us have icky ways of dealing with this (like insulting, deriding, and generally making people feel piss-poor about who they are). As people who are existentially true to ourselves, it is our responsibility to stop everyone else from trying to make us like them...it is our obligation to ourselves to hold fast in the face of whatever may come in order to remain true to our selves.
Being a geek is wonderful, but (I implore you) don't cheapen humanity by shutting yourself off from other people just because they are different. People fear and dislike that which they are not, some (namely jock/white-cap/j. crew disciple/etc. types) run from this by using their popularity with those like them as a spike on which to drive those who are not like them...conversely, others (namely geeks, the outcast, etc.) use their popularity with those like them as a spike to drive between themselves and the rest of humanity. (for the geeks) Have you ever asked a cheerleader/jock out to a movie? I have (she said yes
Next section, high school. I didn't exactly like high school, but it didn't suck outright (getting up early was the worst of it). Junior high, however was a fscking nightmare. Catholic/private school is generally more easy-going than public school as far as the evil caste system is concerned...there's less stratification, more chance to inter-mingle with those in different circles. In all honesty though...it's high school...it matters about as much as new bicycle tires matter to a fish.
Next, college. College rules. Absolutely and utterly
And now, Colorado. I am sickened. Ugh. The taking of human life was bad enough to have to endure, but the events that have followed have been nearly as bad. A wise man once said to me "Excuses are like assholes, everyone has one and they all stink." This has held true for me to this very day. Something inside those kids went horribly wrong to the point that the taking of a human life seemed like a good idea. This is not normal. This was not cause by the trenchcoats. This was not caused by video games. This was not caused by movies. This was not caused by the opression of the popular. This was not caused by "the system" set up by administrators and counselors and teachers. All of this is just a large pile of bullshit excuses for what really happened, these kids decided to kill. The reason why they did, I cannot say, for I am not them. I've never taken a life so I can't really say what would make a person want to, I can't even postulate on what would make _me_ want to. A friend of mine died about a week and a half ago. He was 18 and his entire life was centered around Street Fighter arcade games. He was damn good at them too. He was the nicest kid I'd ever met and has never, to my knowledge said a word in anger to anyone. He lived in Bridgeport CT, not the greatest neighborhood to live in...that was where he died, shot dead in the street for no reason whatsoever. Not a fight, not a robbery, not even a few angry words...just senseless meaningless death. I'm still trying to figure out why it happened, but unlike those speculating on the tragedy in Colorado, I don't have any easy excuses to turn to.
Last, geeks. Being a geek is great! Being human is even better. Being happy with who you are is the best, though. If I was to speculate at all, I would wager that the killers in the Colorado tragedy were, unconsciously, VERY unhappy with who they were. Maybe they heard that they weren't as cool as everyone else so many times that somewhere in their minds, they started to believe it. In the end though, it was _their_ choice to believe as they wished. Just keep it together and don't let _anyone_ (jocks, teachers, parents, geeks, Bill Gates, Linus Torvalds, ANYONE) tell you who you're supposed to be. As for high school, I suggest you heed the advice an ex-girlfriend once gave to me "Don't sweat the petty stuff, pet the sweaty stuff."
I'm not perfect, none of us are and none of us will ever be perfect in anyone's eyes. But I'm the best damn me I've ever seen.
"Let us not battle overlong with monsters, lest monsters we become...when you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss gazes into you." --Friedrich Nietzsche
-dk
Dream with the feathers of angels stuffed beneath your head.
I got here a bit late and as a result almost noone will read this, but I hafta say it anyway.
:)
It has been suggested often, and seems logical, that those kids did what they did to get attention for the situation they were in.
They seem to have gotten it. So, now that everyone is paying attention, is anyone going to do anything intelligent about it?
I doubt it. If you have proof otherwise, love to hear it.
--
Paranoid
Paranoid
Bwaahahahahaa.
You mean the problem isn't computers? It isn't guns? It's not the clothing? It's not the video games?
Seriously, you said it all in one short post. The relationships between parents and children is the problem. Parents afraid to discipline to their kids for fear of damaging their "self esteem", parents who think their kids can raise themselves and learn right and wrong on their own, this is the problem.
I was a semi-nerd in high school, I played Doom and Shadowrun with my friends. My parents didn't worry about this because I was raised to know that killing was bad and I had a good sense of right and wrong. Maybe if parents would just raise their own kids, they wouldn't have to worry about what was raising them.
i wasn't gonna get involved in all of this, but...
Mangling one's personality just to "fit in" is pointless and self-destructive. Why bother? What would be gained, anyway? What the hell would I have talked to those kids about, or they to me?
you don't need to be doing any mangling of one's personality, here. just be nice to people. if it means you have to talk about sports or some other item which you really don't have much of a clue about with some people, so be it. i think the largest problem today is that people don't know how to communicate with each other. you'd be surprised how nice people are if you just try a little to be interested in some of their life. you don't need to completely demean yourself, and degrade your interests, but if you make the first step, people will generally be interested in you - this is all to a degree, though. you're not gonna be best buds w/ these people - but making basically 'casual aquaintances' is a good thing. if everyone even talked semi-superficially amongst each other - we'd all be better off. i think it is counter-productive to go around trying to be different, that's just inviting people to mock and ridicule you. anyhow, there's a huge group of 'individual' 'intelligent' 'opressed' kids who all try so hard to be different from the 'norm.' the fact is, they just end up creating their own large group of 'outcasts.' why do we worship these kids, who's to say they're all sooo smart. they're not. just as all jocks are not dumb. c'mon, if there is a group of 'jocks' there's also a group of 'nerds' and there's also a group of 'individuals, who tend to be similar.'
there will always be assholes, and there will always be some really unfortunate kids who give up after they're harassed so much. i'm not asking to make friends w/ the assholes - and i'm not asking you to be best friends w/ anyone - just speak up a little when you see your friends bashing someone. be cool about it, but show at least mild disapproval. 95% of the time they'll at least stop right then. this is just common sense here - the world works much better when people simply respect each other. you don't need to kiss people's feet, people are different - but they're also very similar. some common courtisies have been dropped in todays youth. this is terrible. kids don't respect teachers, feel superior, and treat people miserably. this is bad, plain and simple. there needs to be some structure to life, here. i mean we do live in this wonderful thing called society. take this disrespect a step further, add a little nuttiness, some suggestive media (c'mon. you can't rationally tell me that this situation doesn't sound straight out of a movie, or a game of quake. it's not the whole problem, but is definitely a portion of it) and you have kids shooting people.
i guess i wrote a lot. hmmphh.
what can i say. talk to thy neighbor.
I would be interested to hear from any UK posters whether this atmosphere has developed in schools there - it certainly didn't exist when I left school (12 years ago)
Maybe you were just lucky? It was certainly there to some extent when I was at High School, and I left 13 years ago. I was fortunate in escaping most of the casual humiliation (never did figure out why, to be honest, but I suspect it's because that while a nerd, I didn't diverge too far from the norm in appearance) but still had a hellish time, largely due to a value system that strongly valued athletic achievement over scholastic. So, while I was a very good student (typically in the top two or three in the year right through high school) the fact that I couldn't kick a ball to save my life made me a 2nd class citizen behind those who could.
There were a number of inconsistencies in school policy that made it worse. The school streamed heavily, which generally meant that you ended up in a class with people of similar ability. Not so games class, where everyone was thrown in together in the name of "team spirit", and folk who tripped over their own feet like myself were expected to compete against people who, in some sports, played at a national level.
Needless to say this was seen as "payback time" by some ("hey, it's kick the nerd time!"), and the teachers encouraged rather than discouraged this (in most cases, I suspect, because they'd done this themselves when they were kids - sorry, but at my school the P.E. teachers did nothing to dispel the usual stereotype). Just to make it more fun, P.E. was the only subject that was compulsory right through all six years of high school - the only way I escaped this particular torment was a nervous breakdown and suicide attempt at 16 after I couldn't take the combined taunting and verbal abuse of kids and teacher. Thereafter, while my grades stayed good, life became increasingly unpleasant as I was passed over and to some extent ostracized by the school itself - the P.E. department had a lot of influence in the running of the school, and anyone the P.E. department didn't like (I heard through a teacher that the department considered me "unstable and unsuitable for positions of responsibility" because of what happened) got ignored. Cue standard teen "school razed to ground" fantasies (although I'd like to stress that while the physical structure of the school was oft reduced to rubble in my dreams, I didn't harbour similar feelings regarding my fellow students - the worst offenders tended to drop out at 16, and the teacher who'd induced my breakdown seemed to undergo a change in attitude after realizing that his little games had caused a student to try to kill himself)
This sort of thing coloured my entire experience of high school - you'd think that a "good student" would miss leaving, but on the day I left I (quite literally) jumped for joy as I passed through the gate for the final time, and I've never had anything to do with the place again, and never will. Bitter? Twisted? You bet! In fact, it was an "I'll show them" mentality that propelled me through the last two years of high school, directing my bitterness and resentment into work to make the disparity between recognition and achievement all the clearer.
To those who're going through it now, I know it's no real compensation to know that it'll end eventually when it's hell on earth right now. All I can say is to try holding on and putting up with it as long as you can, and when you make it to the end, the reward is worth it. My experience at university couldn't have been more different, and while the smarts that were so undervalued then are of use to me daily in my work, I can safely say that my inability to kick, hit or catch a ball hasn't proved relevant in real life.
Thats ok,
They can have the hot big titted blond cheerleaders, and the corvette their dad bought them, and the wasteful college education .... While their wasting away flipping hamburgers and barely making it by in the real world, nerds and geeks like me, shall be taking over the world bwahah.
... the shock on their face is priceless :).
.. well they'll be working for me :)
Ya High School sucked, but I got over it. It's nice to see classmates these days (2 years after graduation) and hand them business cards
I'll have the bucks, I'll have the girl, and they'll
--
The pathology is glaring.
I'm not talking about the illness that drove those mutants in Littleton to go on a killing spree. I'm talking about the illness that makes predominantly white, middle-class, suburban American high schools into one of the most psychologically brutal experiences outside a combat zone.
The excerpts Jon reprinted in this article reminded me of my life in high school during Ronald Reagan's first term as U.S. President. The only thing different in these stories is that my modem and my personal computer weren't signs of Devil Worship back then.
I'm 33 years old now. I'm getting married this year, and I plan to buy a house in the City and start a family sometime after next year. It kills me that the very things that helped me survive the nightmarish experience of learning civil conduct in high school-- computers, role-playing games, science-fiction, geek culture-- are the very things that will make my child fit a profile for a mass murderer.
The profile is simply wrong. And the fact that so many people seem to be rushing to apply it to their own children is further evidence to me that we, as a people, are in a collective state of denial about What Went Awry In Littleton.
Rupert Murdoch, repeat after me: Prevent the pathology, not the symptoms.
jhw
Right after the shootings I had a horrid nightmare about my 10-year reunion (which has not occured quite yet) where I felt completely left out and useless. All the shit I went through came flooding back in technicolor. It's strange that after all of these years a part of my brain has stored and calalogued the pain. I think, on some level, it still effects me.
Just to reiterate, I didn't have it nearly as bad as others. I can't imagine what children who fit in even worse had to go through.
And for all of you sympathetic readers out there who think kids should just 'ignore the jocks' or 'deal with it': these are children. Most have dealt with being ostracized for years, since they were 5 and 6 years old. A system that's been hating them since they could read, eroding their self-respect and strength until they have to apply a distinct effort to just make it through school. I've seen it happen, I still see it happen. We (meaning all of us who have escaped) must do something to help them.
...suckling from the sweet amnion of life...
All the scum floats to the top, while everyone at the bottom gets burned.
And what better place to learn the finer points of conformity, monolithic society and the stigma of individuality than High School?
The media markets to the teen demographic, pushing them hard to be an individual, to stand out, to 'express themselves'; provided they do it by wearing Tommy Hilfeger T-shirts, drinking the un-cola and listening to American Top 40.
Those brave souls who actually dare to scratch away the patina of mass marketting are ostracised as being boat-rockers, as being anti-social, and as being contrary just to be difficult. Too bad.
These brave souls are missing the point. If you do not hang out with the jocks, flirt with the cheerleaders and schmooze with the teachers, you'll never join the Country Club, play bridge with the other Stepford wives, or otherwise keep up with the Joneses. Get with the program kids! Get a haircut, a new pair of 501's and a Swatch. (sorry, I'm dating myself here)
I, for one, went to a private school. I got to wear a uniform (well, they called it a dress code, since the colors could vary a bit, and I could choose the tie).
By virtue of the school and dress, I was branded a prep by my neighborhood friends - who were more like the trenchcoats then I realized - until now.
I played some sports, but I wasn't all that good. That, and my decent grades got me branded a geek by the jocks - the worst insult to bear in highschool.
I was a pretty cerebral kid, and I was pretty shy, so the popular girls thought I was 'strange'; but since I wanted to fit in, I hardly even noticed that the smart girls actually liked me. In retrospect - I wish I had paid them more attention.
The point I'm trying to make is that I didn't fit in anywhere. I wasn't really a jock, I shunned the brainy girls out of shyness - so the smart kids thought I was just rude, I was a prep to my friends... I got used to being a loner. I didn't act out or make a point of looking different - and that's probably why I was allowed to survive highschool. I sort of went unnoticed.
I kept up the habit in college, until I made friends with people who shared my interests. The friends I made in the computer science department are some of the best I've even met.
We're all professionals now - me and my CS geek buddies. We have well paying jobs, nice cars, real lives. Hell, we're in our mid 20's, and a few of us own our own homes. We're all over the country at this point, but we keep in touch. We trust each other and we buttress eachother against the diminishing ranks of the jock/prep jerks.
I ran into the quarterback of my old HS football team the other day in the supermarket. We talked for a while, had a few laughs over what was. After he was done RINGING UP MY ORDER, I left him there and went back to my REAL LIFE.
A message to the misfits: Be a chameleon. Look the part, fit in, get transparent and bide your time. Wait for your niche.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
By changing the shape of my body, I changed how everyone saw me. I was put-down, excluded and ignored (on good days!) before I started working out.
After a year or so of lifting weights, I still liked computer role playing games, I still spent a lot of time programming and I still sat in a corner during lunch reading books.
But instead of being an outcast, I got respect. I never had to get in a fight or push anyone around. All it took was big biceps and, in other people's eyes, I stopped being a worthless geek.
The only difference was 15 lbs of muscle. I'm still a big nerd on the inside.
I've continued lifting weights on through college and now into my professional life. It helps me blow off steam and, as dumb as it sounds, people really do view you in a different light when you look like a bodybuilder.
Right. I'm a pretty hardcore libertarian, but I don't think guns should be a basic right.
Guns are tools that were designed to put holes in living things--primarily people. They have no other use.
Canada and the UK have the right idea.
And a guy who's smart and reads up on bodybuilding can put on a great deal of muscle mass quick. You won't regret it
Here here. The dumb jocks you don't eat right, don't train right and don't supplement right won't make progress as fast as the smart geeks who know the science.
Wow, have things changed! I'm glad we voted to keep "the gas-bag."
David
Actually, I voted against him as well.
This is true to a certain extent-- but still, there are many kids who get into prep schools solely because they have a lot of money or their parents went to the school. I've never been in the public school system, right now I'm at a prep school. It doesn't make things better socially, even though there may not be the same oppotunities for physical violence and such. Other students still isolate the "freaks", "geeks", and "drama fags". In a few cases, last year, the entire hall of my dorm went up against one of the other students. That kind of thing has happened to me, too. Private schools often provide better education, better teachers, but they're just as hard, if not harder, for the rejects to deal with.
"Better input" is not necessarily the case. Some students want to do better at school, but they certainly are no better than students at public schools.
For students that don't fit in the normal High School molds, it's a nightmare. But everyone's already said that. Let me say something that I haven't seen here.
I have nothing but contempt for the kids who did this. If I could, I'd personally beat the living crap out of them.... not because they killed or any such thing, being a child of generation X has made me desensetized, but because they snapped.
I had a hellish high school experience, it was one of those all-boys catholic hipocracys. Did I go insane and shoot people? Nope. Did I ever think about it? Sure I did.
I think the REAL problem with americas youth is that they are so spoiled, that they can't seem to grasp this idea of "consequences" that follow their actions. I'm out of high school now, but everyone I know back in highschool is so impulsive.. heck, a lot of the freshman I know in college are that way too.
Doom, Quake and other such games aren't the cause. Neither is TV or movies. Why is everyone so quick to latch onto these things? Because that last thing any parent wants to admit is that they didn't teach their children those critical moral values everyone is expected to at least follow in letter, if not believe in.
My sympathy goes out to everyone in high school right now. It gets better, I swear. Of course everyone has said that too.
Actually, I won't lie. It dosen't get that much better at first. It takes time for high-school to wear off. As time goes on, it does.
As for these stories I read of kids being harassed? You have to stand up to this crap. You can't just meekly agree to not make waves, make the damned waves. If someone dosen't like your trenchcoat? Too bad. It's one of the founding tenants of america.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
The Littleton massacre was a tragedy, certainly. Thirteen people lost their lives unnecessarily. But two more lost their lives unnecessarily as well. They crossed a terrible line, and nobody's suggesting they were not responsible for that. But we can demonize them, and deal with school shootings after the fact ... or we can start looking at the root causes.
.... the other 999,998 geeks in our high schools. None of them is guilty of murder, but they, too, are victims of harrassment, ostracism, and stereotyping.
Nobody taught these kids how to handle the rejection and harrassment that was dealt them. (I read the "Power Slave" page by a Columbine student, documenting cases of gratuitous harrassment of the killers.) Even if you can't find an ounce of sympathy for these guilty parties, think hard about the subjects of the Katz article
Katz is warning against turning the geek "profile" into a prescription for further alienation and ultimately, more tragedies.
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
First, I'm touched by much of this article. I recognize all these adolescent voices in myself 20 years ago ...
... of which, in each generation, there are many.
... if you don't fit in ... it's your fault. You're different. Perhaps you're disturbed. You've got a problem, and we can solve it by making you conform.
... but there's always next year's class, and this will be forgotten. Rejection and social pressure are normal parts of adolescence; dealing with it is something we don't often teach kids. And individual misfits often bear the brunt of several insecure, mainstream teenagers' harassment.
Second, I'm appalled to hear that this tragic incident in Colorado has, apparently, led to more, not less, marginalizing and ostracizing of today's misfits
The bad news is that this tragedy has got the talking heads jumping on all the wrong "solutions" in the hope of appearing concerned and serious (rather than merely exploitative). Ban guns. No, make teachers wear them. Ban trench coats. Ban Quake. Run Net Nanny. Throw the misfits into counseling. Throw the misfits out of school. Throw the misfits in jail, just in case. See, if you're a misfit
The good news -- as Bill Maher pointed out the other night -- is that high school is not the map of adult life that many believe it to be. The jocks will end up selling cars, and the geeks will end up building the systems that run the robots that make the cars. Bill Gates. Linus Torvalds. John Carmack. Thresh. There's life out there, kids.
If only all geeks, nerds, and misfits knew this simple truth: for too many people, high school is the high point of their entire lives. How sad!
Conformity is not the answer. Why join the masses in their hagiographic awe of the vapid period that is high school? But we need to work on treating depression and isolation in our young people. It would be neat if this incident led to all the halfwit jerks in high schools across our great land realizing what their harassment has done and stopping it
If only I'd known that life would get better! If only I'd known how insecure my tormentors were! If only I'd known how to build my own self-esteem through personal challenge and risk-taking! Instead, I struggled with inner pain for another twenty years. I can never get back those lost days. But maybe, maybe we can keep some other kids from ending their lives, or from becoming killers.
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
I don't think that anyone where I went to high school could understand me and that was the way I wanted it. I was on the football team and a weight lifter, but I spent all my spare time on computers. I showed up to school everyday in my black trenchcoat with a bible tucked under one arm. I was not part of any crowd and never really fit in anywhere and that was the way I preferred it.
I remember reading the Anarchists cookbook and the poor man's James Bond and thinking wow that's pretty neat. I made tennis ball cannons and small bombs that I blew up in a field near where I lived. It ended up giving me a practical understanding of chemistry and the way things work in the real world. I never had any intentions of killing anyone or anything and was basically a good kid.
I'm sure that if I were in High School now I would be nabbed and toted off to a councilor where it would be discovered that I played Dungeons and Dragons and violent video games. I would be stripped of everything that made me and told to conform with what they could understand.
That would have driven me over the edge.
10: PRINT "Everything old is new again."
20: GOTO 10
I don't think that anyone where I went to high school could understand me and that was the way I wanted it. I was on the football team and a weight lifter, but I spent all my spare time on computers. I showed up to school everyday in my black trenchcoat with a bible tucked under one arm. I was not part of any crowd and never really fit in anywhere and that was the way I preferred it.
I remember reading the Anarchist's cookbook and the poor man's James Bond and thinking wow that's pretty neat. I made tennis ball cannons and small bombs that I blew up in a field near where I lived. It ended up giving me a practical understanding of chemistry and the way things work in the real world. I never had any intentions of killing anyone or anything and was basically a good kid.
I'm sure that if I were in High School now I would be nabbed and toted off to a councilor where it would be discovered that I played Dungeons and Dragons and violent video games. I would be stripped of everything that made me and told to conform with what they could understand.
That would have driven me over the edge.
10: PRINT "Everything old is new again."
20: GOTO 10
The country that gave us the movie named above must be every bit as capable as the USA to write the book on socially maladjusted youths in secondary schools.
My question to you is: How did that atmosphere cease to exist between the late 1960s and when you were in school in the 1980s? And how can we learn from your example?
Kdart, I sympathise with your viewpoint, but you have the sense of my comment exactly backwards. The original poster said his high school was relatively free of hate, and I was asking how the hate-filled 1960s turned into the idyllic 1980s.
I also must strongly disagree with your implied criticism of the Supreme Court's decision. I will to my dying breath (well, maybe only gravely ill) defend your or anyone else's right to quietly pray wherever and whenever they want to. And I will equally strongly argue that it is !!!NOT!!! appropriate for a public school to force students to pray.
This country was founded on the principle of freedom to practice any religion or none at all. To require school prayer, as was done then, is to slip right back into the tyranny of state religion that our founding fathers came to this land to escape. I'm not saying you shouldn't practice religion, even in school. I'm saying no governmental body (which the public schools are) may FORCE one particular mode of religious practice on its constituents (students).
Spot on, Jon! Great job catching the rebound. I bet you saw it coming a mile off, too. I did.
Remember the movie _Die Hard_, where Alan Rickman has every move the authorities make plotted out to three decimal places? That's what this society is like. I'd like a volunteer from the audience: Someone who is surprised that the Littleton tragedy resulted in massive scapegoating. Hello? Anyone?
The problem is, our society loves to take the easy way out. Right-thinking is SOOOO much easier than thinking! Looking for any place to lay the blame rather than taking responsibility is so deeply engrained in American society, it makes me sick. I'm sure it's not healthy for me to have such low opinions of my fellow Americans, but I can't help it. It's all because my mom fed me homemade yogurt when I was young.
It's not that simple, of course. You can make a bunch of individually brilliant people into a committee, and that committee will come up with the most asinine ideas you ever heard of. Society is like that too, and when kids enter the equation, all rationality flies out the window. Hey, at least their heart is in the right place. But that's no excuse for throwing out the baby (and the Constitution) with the bathwater.
So this time, let's not let it be like every school shooting in the past. Let's not let society write off all the other victims, the ones who weren't shot, or even at the same school.
Jon Katz, please be our spokesman! Send your stories to every "conventional" media outlet you can and keep at the until they acknowledge in print and in prime-time that innocent kids are being victimized and violated McCarthy-style (or KKK-style, not that there's much difference) by the people who are being the most self-righteous about Littleton.
Don't let our "leaders" off the hook! Force them to recognize their own culpability, their own hypocrisy, and their responsibility. Make them change their ways!
Readers, you can do this too. Okay, the trick is to speak your mind without getting thrown in the clink (or out of school). Start with your friends. Engage them in an intellectual/philosophical discourse about how society is letting its kids down, about how innocent kids are getting hurt in the authoritarian "crossfire", and what should be done to correct matters.
Once you have a watertight argument, try it on some "adults", like your parents. If you can convince them, or at least make a case that they can't shoot holes in, then you're ready to write letters to the editor of the newspaper and TV stations, and finally, that most unreasonable body of all, the School Board!
Can I guarantee that you'll have any success? Can I assure you that you won't get kicked out of school? Of course not! Free advice is worth what you pay for it. Have I ever done anything like this myself? No! I'm a coward. Well, I have been published in letters to the editor, but never mind that. My point is, if you don't like the way things are headed, start doing something _constructive_ to change it! And that starts with making yourself heard and respected. You can gain respect by making your statements intelligent, well thought out, and well supported.
Sheesh, did I just write all that? What gives me the right to suck up your bandwidth like that? Who is this guy, anyway? Who cares? Does my message move you? I hope it does.
Well, my hair always feathered, I didn't have a lisp, I'm a WASP-ish, fairly attractive female. I was moderately athletic, all those things that are supposed to make you acceptable in grade school and on to high school. ;) :) my inborn geekness is welcome to me, I have friends who have the same interests and I can look back at High School (all of a year ago) and all the rumors and the pain and I can laugh. being a geekgirl has advantages in the computer industry (although if I were to be given a job based on my gender and not my skills, I would be highly insulted :P )
:) not to mention the fact that 95% of geekguys want a geekgirl.. the numbers are definately on OUR side :)
Didn't work. I was a smart kid, the teachers always made a point of making it abundantly clear to the rest of the class that I was different and I was given 'special' treatment and 'special' classes. This in itself was enough to ostracize me in a small rural community. My social skills were wanting, my parents didn't have the money to buy me tons of clothes, we didn't have a Nintendo or a Commodore, hence we were tres uncool
Now that I've moved onwards and upwards
I think the advantages to being a geekgirl far outweigh the little, or great, pain we went through/are going through to get where we're going
Welcome To Human Nature.
If you are 'abnormal', you WILL be made to know it.
In the worst possible way.
And we all have our own definitions of 'normal'...
I attempted to block out most of high school being from brooklyn in a new england town was tough enough. I pretty much had these jock clam diggers all wanting to take a swing at me cause I was from a bad ass city. Needless to say things turned violent after months of tourment. They realized people from NY fight differently when cornered. After defending myself against people twice my size I earned the respect of my fellow classmates. Then I moved and it started all over again. I just gave up after that, worked on my grades just to make sure my senior year was my last year. College is 100 times better. I made most of my female friends by saving their 10 page papers from being lost on our crusty old computers. Save some girls paper from the bit bucket and your in on the next party.
Microsoft aggravates my tourettes syndrome.
I liked going to secondary school! I consider my time spent there (1993-1997) as the best years of my life so far. Let me explain... I come from Slovakia, which for those of you who don't know is part of former Czechoslovakia (split up
in 1993). The Slovak school system works as follows:
Year 1 to 8 is primary school. This is pretty much the same for everybody, I can't comment much on this because most of the time I was in New Zealand and the rest I don't remember very well. What I do remember does have certain touches of exclusion/bullying but it obviously can't have been too bad otherwise I'd have remembered it :-).
Year 8 to 12 is secondary school, which is streamed i.e. you get to choose what kind of school you want to go to, generally based on your perfomance in that schools entrance exams.
There are three broad categories of secondary schools. Two of these have a largely specialised and practical focus. They are the so-called "apprentice" schools (woodworkers, builders, cooks, etc.) and the "industrial" schools (mechanical/electronic engineering, etc.). In theory
you can finish one of these and find yourself a job. People from these schools (except a minority from the second group) do not generally attend University. The third category, which I attended are the "gymnaziums" or prep-schools. These are theoretically-inclined and therefore much less specialised. They are intended
for people who want to go on to university. I had the additional benefit of going to a private school with (at the time) about 200 students. I was on a first-name basis with most of the teachers and they remain my friends to this day.
The upshot of all this is that I believe that the streaming system has certain advantages, notably it separates the woodworkers, bricklayers and other similarly-inclined people from the geeks/nerds who go on to a university education.
You may ask how does someone know at age twelve what they want to do? Well, in most cases their parents will decide and even their choice is constrained by that person's academic ability to pass the entrance exams. So (at least in my case)
it seems to be a kind of natural separation. I ended up in a class almost full of geeks(!), with a sister class full of, well, weirdos. Part of this was due to
the fact that the school was a well-regarded private school (it seems they have
since been admitting more rich kids rather than weirdos, probably because the weirdo's parents can't afford the rising fees) but I think that a similar situation would exist in a public school even if to a lesser degree.
While discussing this with a friend today, he made the point that the population density
of rural America/Canada/Australia for example could not support such a system. One solution is commuting - several classmates of mine were commuters, living in
villages nearby. This would not work for longer distances, obviously. Therefore, in conclusion, I think that implementing such a system would certainly be plausible in areas with a high population density and I believe that this system promotes rather than suppresses non-conformity at least to a certain degree and (unfortunately) dependent on the quality of the specific school concerned.
Thoughts? Comments?
Martin Lucina
mato@kotelna.sk
I have to disagree with the idea that school teaches you how to deal with people, at least in my case.
I spent 12.5 years at school, and the one skill I really learned thourghly was how to _not_ deal with people, as shutting off was the way I found to cope with bullying. I regard my school years as a prison sentence. I have spent the last 14 years working pretty hard to unlearn that 'skill' I learned at school, so that I can connect with people better.
Home-schooling wasn't really an option in New Zealand when I was of school-age, but my guess is that it would have suited me.
My major regret from my school days is that I let myself be stuck inside a system that was pretty clearly hurting me, e.g. don't 'squeal' because it's 'not the done thing', and doing 7th form (final year) when I could have gone to university a year early and had one year less of hell.
I have a sort of grudging sympathy with the gunmen - I am in no way condoning what they did, which was a horrific crime and solves nothing, but I have some idea where the urge comes from, as I felt overpowering rage towards bullies.
I am really saddened to see the wrong (or any for that matter) people getting victimized by the response. Trying to find a simple solution to a complex problem usually makes things worse.
Roy Ward.
>What I'd like to know is, what can we DO about it, apart from discussing this here - the very place that "non-confirmists, geeks etc" are likely to be anyway?
One thing that can be done (that is happening in this thread) is that people are sharing experiences of what is going on/ has gone on.
Maybe this isn't such as issue nowadays with the internet and all, but I went through hell at school in the 70s and early 80s (it was during my first year of high school that they got their first computer), and it would have been IMMENSELY helpful to know that I wasn't alone in the way I was being treated.
Sure, it doesn't stop the bullying, being an outcast, or change wider society, but this sort of communication is a start. It matters here.
Roy Ward
I think that the problem is endemic to the school system, and not just in the U.S.
I went to school in New Zealand, and there seem to be some differences -
1) The social strata mentioned wasn't quite so institutionalized as it was in what I have read here - I wouldn't be able to divide people into 'jocks' and 'nerds' as easily. Perhaps a blindness on my part.
2) The teachers weren't directly part of the problem, although many turned a blind eye. The worst thing that a teacher did to me that I can remember is that one took me aside, and tried to 'help' by pointing out that the problem was that I 'couldn't take a joke' and university would be even worse if I didn't change.
3) Weaponry is a little hard to get hold of in NZ, and the culture is that guns are to shoot animals, not people. Guns in schools aren't a problem. Yet.
My experience of school, while it was hell, doesn't have the horrific details I've read about here, but it was the same _sort_ of problem.
Roy Ward.
First off, a smart person or a nerd is not equivalent to an outcast. I've seen a lot of posts here with people blaming their poor high school social lives on their supposed intelligence. Well, as someone who played on two HS state champion soccer teams and won another HS state championship on the math team, I don't buy it. Yes, I know I'm tooting my own horn here, but it's the first time I've ever done it at Slashdot and I feel that it's necessary to explain my own experience in the subject.
No nerds ever gave me crap about being a jock, and no jocks gave me crap about being a nerd (I'm talking serious crap here, not throwing smack between friends), and it wasn't because I was bigger than most -- it's because I didn't mind getting to know people. Which isn't to say that everyone liked me, because some didn't. Actually, nobody on the math team ever suffered the afflictions that I'm reading here -- they were friendly and everybody I know thought that they were good guys, even if we never hung out together socially. (I mainly hung out with what most of you would call the jock/prep crowd, even if I have absolutely no fashion sense whatsoever.)
A lot of the comments I see here, though, are the same things I observed from the outcasts at our school: complaints that everyone rejected them, but possessing an attitude of being too cool/too smart to deign to hang out with anyone different from them. Basically, the same attitude that they're accusing others of. Oh, those guys on the football team are all a bunch of drunk, girl-abusing bullies -- they're all idiots and they'll get theirs in the real world when they're working for me! (Funny how it so rarely turns out this way...) Look at those preps -- bunch of teenybopper sluts who think Mariah Carey is deep or something. Hey, I hate Mariah's music as much as any "outcast" around here, but I don't look down my nose at people based on what they like to listen to. C'mon, you think Nine Inch Nails (who I like) or Alanis (who I don't) is deep just because they appeal to disaffected youth? Please. I could write a "Mad Libs" script in about 5 minutes to crank out some songs just as deep. (Let's see, throw in some bitterness, heartbreak, some profanity so that the kids can think that they're shocking their parents, mix well, bake 15 minutes...). Anybody out there think that the Trench Coat Mafia or your average Goth type or your average nerd, isn't just as much a sheep as your average prep or jock. Well, by all means, go to the next Marilyn Manson concert or Linux InstallFest and please come explain the difference to me. It's the whole, "I'm unique! (just like everybody else)" thing.
Yeah, I know there are genuine cases of people getting raw deals out there, but a lot of the people here are much more judgemental than they'd like to think -- in truth, I believe that most "outcast" types are more judgemental than any other clique, even to the point of harping on just how judgemental they think all the other groups are. I see a lot of this foolish pride, badges of honor that these people think they wear because they think that they're too cool for anyone else to understand them. Truth is, nobody's all that hard to understand (any girl I'm dating being the exception to the rule), because way deep down in our psyches, we're really not all that different. Try swallowing your pride sometime and actually make an effort to get to know some people, because you never know when you might meet your next lifelong friend or lover. If you really are unhappy with your life, what do you honestly have to lose?
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
I've had my share of being ill-treated because I was smarter than everyone else in school. I started reading at an early age, and in public elementary school, the answer to that was to let me go a grade ahead for reading. It's hard to get respect as a kindergardener in a first grade classroom, and this didn't stop until I was in third grade and moved to a different school.
It wasn't until my senior year of high school that I finally felt accepted by my peers, and I think that a lot of that is because I had a twin brother who was a lot more socially acceptable. He was involved in sports, and never had a problem with fitting in. I was just one of those freaks that scored perfectly on the standardized tests; someone people went to for help with their trigonometry but not much else.
I think I'm lucky in that my parents allowed their children to be themselves. The three of us (I have an older brother, too) managed to turn out all right... My oldest brother graduated from college into a nice job in the Silicon Valley. I'm still in school, at a school where just about everyone fits into some kind of nerd/geek/freak stereotype. I looked at the picture that a previous poster had of himself; it doesn't look too different from what a lot of people around Harvey Mudd would wear. I'm glad that I've managed to get myself into this school, where it's okay to be yourself.
I realize that many slashdotters have decided that a college education isn't necessary to get a good job in the computer industry. But there's more to college than career prospects. It may be enticing to go into the job market and get a high-paying job right out of high school (or even without finishing high school...) Personally, though, I feel that the experience that I've had here at Harvey Mudd College has helped me realize that there are a lot of people out there like me.
I think that's really the most important thing to remember. Find some real friends and stick with them; it doesn't matter what everybody else thinks. There's more to life than high school... Just keep that in mind.
Somebody must have been predicting this. This is the second most asked question on Slashdot - the first one is 'Why kids kill?'. I think they are about exactly the same thing.
Another thread is the recurrent 'We should make a free hackers' country' - and it's the same thing. I think we should stop and consider the relationship between those threads. They appear everytime not out of randomness, but because they have something to tell us.
My situation wasn't nearly so bad, but it had its similarities. I started school in a blue-collar part of town, and my kindergarten teacher refused to believe that I could read when I started kindergarten. I was instead branded a pathological liar and sent off to the shrink.
It hadn't helped that my first assigned task in kindergarten was to retrieve my nametag from the bulletin board. Someone had screwed up and not put my nametag on the board, so I returned an error message, which suggested to the teacher that I was unable to recognize my own name.
In my case, I remained a pariah throughout elementary school largely because I had almost no peer group. There just weren't enough geeks at my elementary school, so I was singled out and had few allies. Once I got to high school, I at least had other geeks to keep me company. That made high school better than elementary school.
I don't think winston was jailed for not reporting his friends...he was jailed for being a "traitor"...remember? they nabbed him while he was reading goldstein's book
does the name pavlov ring a bell?
Oh, sure. And we all know what bastions of egalitarianism among students private/parochial schools are.
Ironically, I find that Jon's writing is at its best when confronted with an outpouring of e-mail - usually in response to tragedy. This was a very well written piece, Jon: junior high hasn't seemed so recent in my memory in years.
I know exactly what the other posters are talking about, because I go to Arapahoe, another high school in Littleton near Columbine. The first thing the administration did was ban trenchcoats, certain kinds of jewelery, and other acts that suggest they really don't see what the real problem is.
/. crowd seems to consider their lifestyle the 'best', and I don't think that that is necessarily true. I agree that there is no reason why a lifestyle should be forced upon someone that doesn't want to subscribe to it, which seems to be what schools are trying to do, but both sides of this 'culture clash' are acting like one side (of jocks/nerds) is good, and the other evil.
However, I am also noticing a superior tone in some of these posts - especially Katz's. The
I understand where the mainstream is coming from - they see the 'oddballs' as dangerous, because they don't understand them, and the oddballs are usually smarter than them.
But some nerds, both here and people I meet in person, seem to see mainstream activities - especially sports - as indicators of shallowness.
I often find myself in the middle. I am a nerd, but I also play sports. I have been programming since 4th grade, and have been in accelerated classes since 1st. I have a whole group of friends that fits the "trenchcoat mafia" description. My interests fit the nerd profile too - I HATE school material, even though I do well at it, and I spend a lot of time online.
But I am also kindof a jock. I often wear a letter jacket with 12 pins on it and I have a group of friends from the wrestling team. The thing is, these two groups of friends wouldn't like each other AT ALL if they met, and I can get along fine with both. I get just as much of a rush from sports as from anything else - it's fun working out, motivating each other, getting in shape, kicking some ass on game day, or just going and yelling for your school. I'm not into the self-punishment kind of lifestyle. Why pick one when you can have it both ways?
And by the way, the killers did not really belong to that clique - just a vague association. They were not in the yearbook photo or the list of names, they did not sit at the same lunch table, and they did not wear trenchcoats, except on the day of the shooting to hide their guns- they wore nazi stuff. And they were actually austrialian dusters. The trenchcoat mafia group really got screwed by this thing. The kids that did it were loners among loners.
Basically I'm preaching a message of TOLERANCE here - from both ends. This shooting that happened five miles or so away has increased the rift between cliques in this school (and many others I imagine) by a lot.
But boy, I can definately feel for most of you guys when schools take the kinds of action they do. Grrr... it makes me SO MAD when administrators just don't get it.
Vidi, Vici, Veni
I truly wish I could say I was amazed, or even surprised, by the above, but I'm only 3 years out of high school and all it's various tortures are still fresh in my memory.
I recall walking a fine line between the nonconformist/geek and whatever you wish to call the other side. It took me until my junior year to figure it out, but I reached a point where I was equally at home with the Goths (trenchcoat, black lipstick and fishnets), the Band/Theater Folk (what most would label as preppy, but not too popular), and even those folks in student council (of which I was a member). I published the High School newspaper, but so too did I read my friend Joes home-made 'zine, filled with many things I'm sure hasty administrators would have Joe banned for now (I think they hassled him even then). The point of all this is, I got lucky. I figured out that who I was could work with everyone. Most who share the tendencies we have - the internet, computers and games, RPG's, science (god fobid you should like Physics in HS), free-thought, etc. - ARE ridiculed and find HS a horrible, if not unbearable state of being.
My response then is twofold, one directed at the parents, one at any reader in high school now who feels pressure (at least) for being who they are:
FOR THE STUDENTS FIRST: Hang in there and look forward. The present may seem interminable, but so long as you continue to work hard, be yourself and set goals, you will get past this and eventually be apreciated. How many millionaires were geeks? Lots, but they're also the type that don't compromise and work their asses off. I may sound like your guidance counselor, but I can only say what I feel is the truth that I've found from MY OWN EXPERIENCE.
FOR THE PARENTS: Though any reading this are likely not the dangerous sort, my message for parents is "open your eyes, and your mind." Too many parents miss the proper signs of disfunction and instead latch onto the things the media, which has no sense except sensation, if you catch my meaning, says denote a child in trouble. It's all crap. You can tell when you kids are unhappy! And if they are, look at yourselves before you look at the TV. I don't doubt my parents were scared to death regarding many of my anti-social tendencies before 10th grade. But they overcame it with love, understanding and compassion - NOT restrictions, mandates and threats. These make it worse.
I hope I've made some sense here. And I hope more so that people read what I've said. For those that do, I will do what I've never done before in such a public place- leave my full name and email address, for comments, flames, whatever. Good day.
Kerry Benton
krb@rsnmail.com
From the outside schools usually look great... they get us kids out of our parents' hair and they "teach us" stuff... but the parents who see it as a good thing must have been popular or unridiculed children when in school... this is my last year in HS... I'm glad to be getting out and in to a world where the people are real and where the people realize that INTELLIGENCE, not sports is what keeps you on top of the world. Today, for the first time so far, someone actually bothered me about all this crap... a guy whose name shall remain unmentioned decided that he'd say something to the effect of "I better start being nice to you now... y'know... you might kill me or something" then started laughing... then he mentioned something to the effect of "Bet you'll be shooting people to get to the front of the line for StarWars"... these mental maggots need lives... and they think that WE do... the technological generation... the people who are 90% tech-head, 2% standard, 8% whatever else they choose... or even just the 90% whatever they choose... we're better than them. We ARE the future, and those "Jocks" and populars are nothing more than children - the advanced are the techs and the different people. The people who are REAL in society, not those who are controlled by their own desire to "fit in". What the hell does fitting in have to do with life anyways? I'm personally proud to be a geek... sometimes I wonder if being alone is worth it, but then I think about my choices... I'd rather be a lonely geek than a popular moron.
-CDG
One problem with GEDs... they aren't recognized as real diplomas... you can't even hope to get a job around some areas with one. Around here you'd need a real diploma... There is a way around this - take the Proficiency tests out....
-JDL
Alright... yah, they killed people... I'm not saying I feel for them, and I personally am incapable of feeling for the victims as well... it's all lost on me... but anyhow...
Yes.... MOTS people CAN express themselves. Some aren't capable of such... Yes, those types DO need some help. Death is inevitable... hell, I expect to die early. Look... just because they had some mental issues they didn't know how to deal with doesn't really make them worse people... it just means they needed some help. I don't feel for them, but I know how it feels to be the "loser" type...
Append to the last...
I have noticed that the jock/popular types seem to get more attention from teachers in most cases. I personally have made it known what I am and found that teachers can't survive without me. The tech-headed generation is on top of computers and therefore have the ability to rule the schools... just not in the same sense as the jocks... we can control the teachers.
-CDG
Aye, that is a very agreeable point... If you've gone through college, it is acceptable to have a GED. I'd prefer to take the other test out tho... it's closer to the real thing... you can get a job while in college... some extra cash for upgrading your PC ;)
First of all - difference 1 is that you're going to a Christian School. Christian schools are not public schools. Have you ever even been in a public school? Though, you do seem right about some things. The "jocks" get a lot more attention here and yeah, the "heros" of the game get even more. Some of us ubertechs get our other way around things though. Another thing that I have to say here really quick - don't generalize... not all people are the same, even in the same country I live in.
-JDL
Ok here's the thing: The real question is not, if Quake made them do it, If being ostracized made them do it, or even if bad parenting combined with bad schools made them do it. The real problem lies in why in the name of god did they have a Quake-like arsenal at their disposal.
If they hadn't had access to the weapons they did, maybe they could have held on a little bit longer and got some help. Instead they had, at their disposal the simplest (and stupidest) solutions. Violence.
We're really focusing the scrutiny on the wrong thing here. Ask yourself why those kids really needed to have those guns in there possesion. My little sister is a freshman in a HS not so affluent as Columbine, so belive me I ask myself the same thing everyday.
they're a myth! they must be!
well at least I've never seen one... though I would like too.
to get back on topic: I don't know much about this, as I went to school in Italy and am now at university in the UK, but i felt the same. I wasn't interested in football, i liked weird music , BOOKS and COMPUTERS. I'm not a goth, but I still didn't look like everyone else, or (thankfully) think like them. fortunately I made some good friends in my years at school, and between us we formed a nice underground culture that ran throughout the school. without these people life at school would have been very hard for me.
basically what I'm trying to say is that, like so many things, this isn't US-specific, but is a problem that must be solved for all human beings everywhere.
" There is a rational explanation for everything. There is also an irrational one. "
School itself is a crime against the brilliant, independent and non-conformists. In elementary school, we are taught that school is going to prepare us intellectually for the world. We are engraved with the concept of school being a place for developing our minds.
Once we hit middle school though, the whole focus of school shifts. School is no longer academic, it becomes something else entirely: social. No longer do we have the motivation of having a sole teacher who knows our ins and outs and allows us to be truly challenged. The challenge of school suddenly becomes social without any warning or transition.
Many kids are left behind though. Many keep themselves focused on the future, always looking ahead at better times when they will be the next Bill Gates, Einstein or Galileo. Kids run on hopes to change the world, to become great and not get lost in the tome of history where our entries eventually get edited down into the now proverbial "mostly harmless."
And eventually even that wears off. So the independent thinkers are left with nothing to motivate them. They find themselves all alone in a world they usually despise. The challenge in life is gone, life becomes a monotonous daydream where we float through just trying to get to the end, tolerating the jests and jeers by fellow, enduring time as our tolerance ebs away into nothing.
And when something goes wrong, the press points its finger at us. Sure, they may have pulled the trigger, but is it totally incomprehensible? Honestly, the bureaucratic government wont help us, our 'peers' tease us and ostracize us for being smarter. And now the press labels us as killers and then tells everyone to be nice to these outcasts or else they'll go out and kill more people.
Or just as bad, they label other things as the cause of the problems. Some of the articles the press has written are far worse than any murder ever committed. For example; The Washington Post somehow linked trench coats with Nazi's, most likely because it just so happened to be that a couple of nazi's wore trench coats. Of course this is like saying lunch is the cause of all murders since all murders ate lunch. The perceived connection is a strange perversion and manipulation of the truth. Further perversions committed by the Washington Post include blaming video games like Doom and music such as KMFDM and Marilyn Manson for leading to the killings. As anyone who actually uses these tools to vent anger and angst knows and would tell you, the Post is most definitely incorrect. These games and music serve to calm anger and hatred built up. Valuable venting tools such as a game of Quake2 being played to the earthshaking anti-racist anti-violence songs of KMFDM can very easily prevent someone from going postal after a hard day.
All the underground 'outcast' cultures and subcultures need to stop being labeled as unhealthy. Their little trademarks (ex: black clothing for goth's) should be seen as menacing to society. If you look deep enough; putting aside day one through three of the horribly written presumptuous horrible press coverage, you'll see the two killers in Colorado weren't actually part of the alleged 'trench coat Mafia.' They were outcasts even from that group to many extents. This is much akin to the civil rights era with the Watts Riots where not a single town with a strong Black Panther presence ever rioted. These little 'unhealthy' or 'outcast' groups, as demented as they are, prevent people from feeling totally lost and alone. That's why no one in the trench coat Mafia took part in the killing, they had support. So stop branding these underground cultures and subcultures as unhealthy, they may just have saved some lives.
It's not the video games, its not dungeons and dragons, its not NIN or KMFDM, its not trench-coats, and its not underground cultures that are doing this, its angst. We live in a world of hype and all we see is mediocrity. We strive for the impossible, only to find it out of reach. We are filled with hope for so much, consumed by a young idealism taught to us throughout our elementary years only to have it all torn down in a barrage of reality which assaults us as we hit 7th or 8th grade.
So what can we do to stop this? Honestly, what can really be done without restricting the liberties of kids? What can we do to make gun control unnecessary? We have two options: we can officially brand the people we've always labeled as outcasts and jail them all as anarchists and dangerous to society or we can do something very simple. Just make middle school and high school what we say its going to be. Academic. Make honors classes mean something for once. Dont just drop the geniuses in with the moderately competent people who are good at homework in honors classes, mandate intelligence and independent for these higher standards. Support magnet programs. Support the ability to skip a class for fast learners capable of doing so. Get AP classes. Make school motivating like it once was in elementary school. Dont break the promise, make the promise.
But even this is not going to eliminate all the angst and nihilism. But that's ok, we're never going to get rid of all of it. But by not disillusioning our youth with false promises we can eliminate a lot of it. The very nature of the fast paced, materialistic and capitalistic world creates rage and fury amongst everyone, teens especially since they feel like they've been thrown into a world they never had any control over.
Speaking as a 10th grade self proclaimed nerd; I know the horrible crimes school has committed against me. I'm an independent, a loner, a renegade, and a non-conformist and hated because of it. But the one mistake I will never let myself make is taking my eyes off the future. Any geek capable of surviving this unholy hell some call school and not letting it crush their spirit will emerge from this horrible place a stronger person.
"Talent does what it can; genius does what it must." -Unknown
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it." -Alan Kay
"Knowledge is power." -Hobbes, Leviathan
For the future
Myren
I had an odd tendency in public school to end up in the principal's office a couple times a week. About 3/4 of the time I was called in there, and later given detention, because I had been attacked in some way.
Eh? Well, let me explain a bit. I've never been really capable of fighting back any more than a wild flailing of limbs and attempted retreat, so, of course, especially considering the uncommonly fragile emotional state in which I tended to be, I was constantly under a barrage of bullying. I was easy and entertaining to pick on.
Most of the time, this just flew past administrators' eyes. They didn't want to see. In a way, this was almost preferable. If I were ever to actually go to a teacher for help, I would be sent off to the principal. Whoever had been tormenting me would be asked his side of the story, which would inevitably be a grandiose, outrageous lie along the lines of my having fallen on the floor and he having attempted to help me, then my acting crazilly in response to this. He would then be excused, to go back to his business. Despite the fact I was the one sobbing, cowering in the corner, I was then given the aforementioned detention and, occasionally, trips to the councellor.
Everything I did came under the highest degree of scrutiny, the teachers apparently thinking me some kind of a troublemaker. If you were to have seen me, you'd understand how ludicrous this is. I was (and mostly remain) a scrawny, pale, timid ghost of a being. I didn't speak out in nearly any way -- I barely spoke at all; there wasn't anyone "safe" to talk to.
Anyway, I couldn't stand that anymore after eighth grade -- I knew high school was only going to be worse because people would have greater ability to inflict damage upon me. After a year of homeschooling, I ended up in a nearby prep school. While the students largely tolerated me and left me alone, with only a few exceptions, about half the teachers (mostly the unimaginative ones with "power") kept a strong bead on me, one or two becoming a bit fearful whenever I challenged in class their incorrect information or poor behaviour -- as if I were going to jump up from my desk and throttle them or something. I swear one dean would have put video surveilance equipment in my room if he had it, despite the fact that any student who was even vaguely familiar with me, personally, would instantly tell that I was of no threat to anyone; that I was probably one of the three "cleanest" kids there.
Oy. I still hate myself, and probably will, to some extent, for the rest of my life; it's too deeply-ingrained to just disappear.
The thing is, given the opportunity, I could draw up a model for a new educational system which would actually function as a place of learning and would put out intelligent, curious, creative, wonder-filled people at the exiting end. It's not a difficult task...
Sigh.
-- Aderack. Usually.
I'd just like to add my comment to this ever-growing list.
I went to school in England, and suffered much of what I am reading about now. I loved the sciences and loved learning while most of my class-mates did not; Was I a target? Hell, I may as well have painted a bullseye on my head! I can still think back to the seven years I spent at that school and shudder.
For anybody currently going through this sort of torment, I would like to add this:
My college years were the best of my life. I met many wonderful people whom I remain in contact with to this day. I had a fantastic time learning about subjects that I found fascinating, without the hinderance of having a group of morons surrounding me trying to look cool. I have a great job, and a loving fiance.
No matter how far away the light at the end of the tunnel seems, don't give the journey up. You'll become a better and stronger person than ANY of your tormentors will ever be. Life WILL get so much better for you. It's yours for the taking.
The gift of death metal does not smile on the good looking.
I'm a uni student now so i'm writing this opinion with the blessing of 20/20 hindsight, but I would Like to start by saying I HATED HIGH SCHOOL.
/me stands down from his soap-box and runs to avoid the tomatoes..
Going to high school in a small Australian town was pure hell, i was the small weedy kid with glasses who went to a different Primary School and who knew no-one becasue of this i was an outcast from day one. I was picked on, beaten up and pud down just becasue I was different. I enjoyed learning, i prefered mental tasks to physical, sitting in front of a computer was fun for me, getting beaten up on a football field wasn't.
From this I learnt to hate, just like the kids in Colorado, i hated SOME of the people I went to school with becasue they treated me differently. I however like 'Jay in the Southeast' could never kill anyone or condone the killing of anyone.
The One thing that high school did give me was a thick skin, so i am a better person for having to live through that hell.
I think and I know this is going to sound Corney, but the media has a lot to answer for.. they are the ones who have perpetuated the idea that all quake loving geeks must at heart be a Killer, when in fact it is the exact opposite.
On a far lighter, but perhaps more dangerious note: I am suprised that someone hasn't come along and made a laughably funny Dilbertesq cartoon about the modern highschool dynamic?
I don't know about developed, it's always been that way in the UK. OK it's some time since I was at school but it was a very miserable time for me then and when I have visited my home town and spoken to current teachers in my former school it seems nothing has changed.
This kind of school only exists to keep children off the streets. They have no interest in promoting anyones intelectual development. As a result the majority of pupils can only talk about football and what they have seen on TV. If someone wants to pursue something that demands a little concentration and thought they become outcasts and can have a very lonely time. Then they can start to get introverted and "wierd".
If they are lucky, like myself, they have the will and stamina to survive this 5 year "prison" sentence and make it to university or such. Where they find out, with much relief, that they are not alone. That it is quite normal for human beings to want to think.
America's once again earning itself a name as having to overdo everything... Maybe it's good I never got around to spend a year in an American HS as I had dreamt of during my HS life (Mainly because I figured it'd be much cooler over there.)
I don't know, I have been pretty much the outsider during Highschool. I did have a small crowd of friends and I never really cared for what others thought of me. Strangely, now after the fact I know there were even some girls who wanted me, which amazes me to no end, but I disgress.
Anyway what I wanted to mention is that while HS here in Germany is not nearly as bad as it must be in a lot of places in the US, the underlying problems are more or less the same. You're either hip or you're not. You have a C64 at home or
you play Wolfenstein on your PC? You are into Gaming and you wear black clothing? Very bad PR, man, very bad.
As I said I did have a couple of good friends in HS, but it seems that over the
years, they moved on. They discovered weed and alcohol. I'm never invited to any parties, and rarely to any birthday parties. It seems that most people just don't even remember to consider inviting me. A couple of months ago I was at a friend's birthday party - invited 24h before the party started, while everybody else had been invited about a motnh in advance - and in all honesty, I just sat there and ate salt sticks and gummi bears. I guess I just don't dig the atmosphere,
the scene. Alcohol, lewd jokes, and the worst picking up I've seen in a while. Some people have no dignity, but it's considered to be "cool".
Yeah I hang out on the net alot. I have friends all over the world. I'm proud of that. I play computer games. I'm wearing glasses. I wear comfortable clothes, not "hip fashion" ones. I still play RPGs when I have the time. My job perks include a $1000/month leased 64k line. My girlfriend is a black girl living in France. I voice my opinions. I'm different. I don't care. I am happy.
There's a lot of people whom I hated in school. I have met only very few of them. I don't miss them at all.
I think this is the single best advice to anybody who's getting harassed before or now after these idiots had to go kill people. Hang in there. Don't let the school violate your rights. Read your law books. Especially the sections covering education. When I stuedied, the teachers usually tried to do all kinds of stuff that was in no way covered by the laws. It works wonders to remind them of that, just make sure you know what you are talking about.
And always, ALWAYS REMEMBER: In real life, brains earns more money and happiness is what you make of life. I know it can be difficult, but don't let others spoil it for you.
I live in Germany and there's problems here too. I've been out of HS for, ah, four years now? Something like that. Anyway yeah there were tensions, there were difficulties. There's drugs and sex and rock'n'roll. There's also weapons.
But it seems that all of it is to a much lesser extent than in the US. Students don't carry guns, usually. Yet(?).
Thinks have deteriorated some even while I was at school. Education budgets get cut, then cut again, then cut even more.
They say that Germany lags behind the US by about 10 years in most respects. Now while we don't do all the mistakes that the Americans do, we sure seem to try hard.
But, no, there's not nearly as many shootings here as over there. I'll be honest though... I am glad I am not in school anymore.
I went to independent private schools all my life. Trust me, things may be better at private schools but there is a whole other set of problems. The group is more homogenous, because everyone is richer, but god help the kid who is there on scholarship (her clothes won't be right, uniforms or no; her house too small, her parents too divorced or otherwise poor...and so on). Also, since there is more homogeneity, even rich full-tuition kids can feel the loneliness if they are weird at all. On the other hand, I didn't witness any in-crowdout-crowd violence, while my public-school friends did all the time.
:)
One of the reasons public high schools are so tension-filled is because it's prolly the first and last time people will spend that much time with people so different from themselves. Private schools help solve that, but at what societal cost?
There are no easy solutions. And to high schoolers, the pain does get better, and you can feel it with empathy and not immediacy, like I am doing right now. hang in there and don't shoot anyone
High school was never for learning. It has always been, and always will be for forcing individuals into a mold. Go here, sit for 40 minutes, now go here, sit for 40 minutes. ... do not think, do not act out, do not question authority.
I survived high school, but it's taken years to finally realize that the things I do, and the person I am, is good and okay.
Some of my friends were not so lucky. A couple commited suicide, some were arrested (some drug related, some violent), and some just gave up, and became the automatons that the system wanted.
When your different, every day of high school is torture. I'm not surprised by what happened, I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often.
But no parent, or teacher, or administrator wants to admit what their system is doing to kids, or why. So it must be blamed somewhere, where better than the kids... the ones who don't fit the molds, now can be called dangerous, and punished for their thoughts.
Killing is wrong. But what is being done to the youth of America... is just as wrong.
CIA Industries - Running the world for fun and profit
i can't remember the last time I swore out loud, but this whole thing has brought it about me. /.
First of all, I have to agree to this point... for High School students, school _IS_ life, so school _IS_ the real world. And you know what? It _does_ suck. I for one have been so set off by this thing that I no longer think I want to spend the rest of my life in this city, this province, this country, or this STUPID country. But it's left me wondering, how far can I run? Is this really a problem that's isolated to High School? The U.S? North America? Somehow I doubt it.
There's something screwed in this world. "The children are our future", and all that, but are we just cogs on an assembly line? It almost seems like we're being conditioned to provide for economic stability in the future.
I know this kind of seems extreme, but that's the way I feel right now. Stories of students being sent to psychiatrists for expressing honest, positive opinions?!? What the hell is wrong with us?
I can't possibly relate to the pressure these people have been experiencing. The strength of God to anyone out there who wears a trenchcoat, plays Quake, or openly expresses concern about the state of our world/education/media. You guys are going to be the ones who are tested, and I'm really afraid that alot of us will break.
Regardless, I'll be checking in at these children's rights places Katz suggested. If it's at all possible, I'd like to encourage ANYONE who's been pressured by this kind of response by the world to get up and do something. Form a club, a union, a non-profit organization, i don't really care. We simply need to make sure that this discussion doesn't stay limited to
"You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help" -- Calvin
blah... getting a little worked up here...
that second "country" is supposed to be continent.
"You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help" -- Calvin
OK, so everybody is saying how understandable it is those kids shot at the popular types and athletes. But if I recall correctly, they also chose blacks to shoot at.
But what did blacks do to these shooting kids?
And why did they choose Hitler's birthday for their act?
Ok, that news hadn't made it to Europe yet.
As with every democracy (even the representative democracies) the US has a problem on its recently re-bloodied hands: how do you serve the minority when majority rules? The short answer is: usually, you don't.
In high schools across the country, students are ritually ostracized, ignored and avoided by their peers, supposed mentors and potential friends, because they dress differently, they listen to different music or they have the wrong color skin. This is not news.
The Slashdot community (can I call us that?) is in a bit of an uproar, because "Hey, those guys over there in Colorado, that's us... or could be if we lost it... not saying that we'd blow people up or anything, but jesus, it'd be nice to get some revenge on these jerks who've been mercilessly picking on me since they developed muscles and I learned to code." Not that slashdotters would actually go out and do anything violent. We've got better things to do. Like watch freshmeat update. Or daytrade. But still, we can understand.
So teachers get worried. Because, after all, many of their middle school students are already more intelligent than they are. Not in all cases certainly, but after all, those who can, do, those who can't teach, right? Obviously overgeneralized, but you get the picture. When you have to send your eigth grade student over to the local college to get math tutoring, you have to worry that maybe the kid, without guidance, will be a bit of a danger. Because it's not a far jump from learning math to learning physics to learning chemistry to making bombs. Especially with such easy access to violent images in the media, not to mention the sex and violence they learn in Sunday school from the bible.
So teachers run scared of their students, who can, in many cases, out-think them, certainly outnumber them and with a bit of weaponry, could destroy them. Small wonder that that they trample students civil rights in the name of protecting themselves and other students. Small wonder that they pawn intelligent students off on psychiatrists, guidance counselors and the schools principal (Remember, the principal should be your pal... or treat him like a member of your family... an older brother...) when any student shows promise, or interest in something not specifically in the curriculum.
A fascination with war could be interpreted in two ways: if the kid is a jock, he's a West Point cadet, if he's abnormally intelligent, he's Oppenheimer, pursuing a "sweet technology" at the Trinity site.
How do you balance your fear of those who are more able than you with your duty to them as a teacher? Here's a thought: punish students who pick on other students, instead of ordering the students who get picked on to go to counseling.
You want solutions: don't turn to parents, who have turned absentee-landlord. Maybe it's time to up teachers salaries, so we can get teachers that are more able to cope with gifted and ostracized students. Perhaps looking to a President nicknamed "Bubba" is the wrong thing to do when dealing with the rights of the oppressed? Maybe it's time for corporations to send their techies out to do some one on one, or one on groups with gifted students? Show them that at the end of the tunnel is a paycheck, if not a light. Maybe it's time to stop handwringing and ask the "misfits" what it is exactly we'd like, why we hate four years of life and how we could make it better. Because you certainly won't see teachers reproaching the football team for locking the chess club in lockers and setting fire to the swim teams clothing. But you will be sent home for wearing a trenchcoat.
Because many of us can understand the hatred that wells up in the pit of the stomache when the opposite sex laughs at your advances, the media gives you no voice and your peers and mentors all view you askance because you have been cursed with intelligence, or view the world slightly differently, or have acne, or god forbid, are of a race not the majority. Those of us who have made it through the gauntlet of high school, getting marginalized, ignored and offended, could take some of these marginalized kids, and help them.
It's pretty obvious that you wasn't the main victim. It's pretty obvious that you didn't experience beeing beaten up aproximately 5 out of 10 days you went to school. It's pretty obvious you actually had people to hang around with.
please don't open your mouth when you don't have more "credentials" as you call them.
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
High school for me sucked. I was unfortunate enough to go to a school that combined grades 7-12 in one building. I was always ridiculed for being 'different' and wanting to learn everything that I could.
;)
I consider myself fortunate that I was in the "honors" track, and never had to interact with the rest of the school, except for gym class. I disliked some of the people in these classes, but I positively despised the rest of the school. The one class that was integrated across the grade was Government and Economics (a NY required course)
At this point I finally realized the power and magnitude of human stupidity. The sheer idiocy of my "peers" shocked me on a daily basis. And to compound the problem, the teacher was even less intelligent than the students! The most frightening thing is that these people will someday be our future leaders...
Why does our high school system have to exist like this? I came to college and finally realized that there are actually people in the world that actually want to learn things! I have made more friends here in my four semesters than I have made in my entire life. I LOVE my college. I am finally satisfying my voracious appitite for knowlege, and I am no longer ridiculed for being that way.
I'm just glad that my parents made me realize that being different is okay, and that people don't necessarily have to like you for you to be successful.
-AGJ
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to my Discrete Math class
I became a Linux convert the day that NT crashed five times on me.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
- Evelyn Beatrice Hall
This was circulating a couple maillists around school. This is forwarded with permission from the orginal author, Sperry (sperry@mit.edu):
Dear nerdy kids of America,
All of us here at MIT are worried about you guys. We heard from the internet that some kids killed a whole bunch of people in a school in Colorado. Some of the controversy seems to stem from the fact that the kids were sort of "goth." But what we're more worried about is that they also seem to have been nerds. Trenchcoat-wearing open-source-software-propagating social outcasts.
We at MIT are worried about the rest of you nerds. We remember when we were in elementary and high school---boy did it suck. Getting tortured by your "peers" makes you feel homicidal.
First of all, we want to let you know that it gets better in college. You will get laid. You will find a community of real peers. And you will have to work pretty damn hard to be ostracized.
Second, you shouldn't kill people. You may be genetically superior to most of your classmates, but with that superiority comes a responsibility. No matter what they do to you, you can't react
violently. Because, foolish and cruel as they can be, these are the people who one day you are going to have to lead and protect.
We encourage you to honor your responsibility to the other 95% of society, and to shamelessly flaunt and revel in your nerdiness.
Take care of yourselves.
Love,
MIT
I'm from Belgium. In August 1996, my country was shocked by the discovery of a network of child kidnappers and molesters. CNN covered some of this in the early days of the discovery (what a way for Belgium to hit the world news). This gang (called the Dutroux gang after it's infamous leader) kidnapped children (aged 6 - 17) and "sold" them to paedophilic networks. Some of the children were rescued which lead to the discovery of some that weren't. They were found buried in the backyards of some of the gang's members.
Social life has never been the same after this event. Anything which seems only slightly suspect (regarding the paedophilic tendencies of the gang) could result in a true witch hunt towards innocent people. Just recently, a father was arrested and nearly condemned to prison because one guy who was working in a photo lab found a few pictures of this father's daughter (aged 3) playing naked on the beach or in the bathtub amongst otherwise completely innocent holiday snaps. Nowadays, fathers are watched strangely if their children sit on their lap.
With the events in Colorado and the 1996 events in Belgium, the conscience and the behaviour of a complete society is being shaped into something which is not of this age or world. Paranoia is not something that thrives in healthy societies. It can only survive in societies where freedom is no longer a certainty. Freedom is not having to defend yourself all the time. Events like this kill freedom, and there is nothing that will change our society "back to the old ways".
When I was in middle school, I wore a Simpsons teeshirt to school that said "I'm bart simpson who the hell are you?" (or something to that effect). I was ofcourse sent to the principals office, he told me I had a few options: Change shirts, Go home, or allow him to cover the word up with a black marker. If you havn't guessed, the problem was the word "Hell", back then it was a big deal to say hell - in the massmedia sense. Socity blamed radio and televisions for the violence in schools.
Later in highschool this card game came out called magic. Lots of us played it then, and for about a year it was okay with everyone. However like all things something happened to someone who had a magic card somewhere on their person for some reason in the last few days - so obviously magic==problems in school. Sortly after whatever happened the game was banned. The game was just a step in the pathway to worshipping satan, in their eyes, I guess. Occultism was another nice area of distress, people wearing magic-stars and ankhs were "danger signs".
Around this time I think was when the first seeds agaisnt video games were planted. I clearly remember getting strange and concerned looks from various teachers the day I bought Ultima 8: Pagan .
The point of all this being that none of this is new, its just the same old crap happening again. The problem is its not just repeating itself, it seems recursive. What I mean by that is: each time something like this happens subculture gets pushed harder and harder.. and people snap. Its just numbers, of n people some % of n are going to snap.
What is this statement based on ?
There was a recent study here in Finland that showed that even a three-year-old knows that the cartoons in tv aren't real; the conclusion being that the effect of media on children is greatly exaggarated.
A healthy individual will not pick up violent tendencies from computer games.
I suppose it's too much to ask Jon Katz and the /. readership to actually consider the idea that Doom, Quake, etc. might in reality desensitize people to violence and gore, and be dangerous to the psyche of folks who are already too close to the edge?
Boneheaded, fascistic responses by school administrators (probably lawyer-driven) do not exonorate anything. It's not an either-or, zero-sum equation -- it's quite possible that school is hell, administrators are fascists and Doom and Quake help set those kids at Columbine off.
I fully expect to hear "But I play Quake, and so to my friends, and we're OK." That may be true. But that makes about as much sense as arguing that alcoholism must not exist because you yourself are a moderate drinker.
Oh, well. Better to moan about clueless parents and administrators, get a thrill from reliving one's own high-school angst, and feel noble by validating the the angst of current high-schoolers, than to actually reflect on one's own life to see if anything should change on acount of this tragedy.
Do I want to see Internet censorship and banning of shooter games? No. But exactly what to you Doom/Quake players think you're accomplishing by burning in those particular neural pathways?
As for what could be done, here are some thoughts rattling around in my brain:
Reading through all the crap these kids are having to put up with, it sounds like the script from "Pump Up The Volume", only on a national scale.
--The more you know, the less you know.
It was worse because of that, because I didn't even have one friend to talk to. The cliques, the jocks and their bimbos.
Shit what a piss poor way to spend 4 years. I ended up going to a community college instead of university, because university required 1 more year in that hell hole (Grade 13, can you believe it?)
Pisses me off even now, and that was 20 years ago.
-- Perl Hack, Web Hack, SQL Hack, Guitar Hack
I know a girl in junior high who was part of an after school activity. I will call her Ashely. The other girls in the activity took to ostracizing Ashely. She rode in a carpool every day with these girls and Ashely's mother saw how terrible they treated her but knew if she spoke up she would only make it worse. Ashely's mother asked her if she would rather not carpool and the Ashely agreed. That way she could avoid 2 hours of torment each day and be better prepared to deal with the morons and be better able to focus on the activity.
The other girls' mothers strongly criticized Ashely's mother for this! They said that Ashely's mother was being over protective and that Ashely would never learn to be normal if she were allowed to run away from her problems. What a load. But I was told similar things when I grew up. I was told when I tried to avoid the worst situations that I was just running away and that I would never get anywhere if I did not learn to deal with things where I was. I was told that I would have problems all my life unless I just stuck in and learned to take it. It is as if there is never any situation terrible enough that society feels teenagers should not be forced to endure.
This is terrible. If I am treated badly at a workplace, I go through normal channels and if they fail me I can sue or try to change jobs. So far, I have changed jobs once because of intolerable conditions. The pay increase this lead to was quite nice. I have also used normal channels to get one co-worker to change his assinine behavior. This worked quite nicely.
Teens have no choice and often there are no normal channels that they can use to effect change. They are just told to learn to fit in and to just take it. They are blamed for the ridicule they receive.
I don't see it as surprising that a few teens decided to repay a school for its tormenting of them. I neither find the killings acceptable nor do I sypathize with the killers. I do understand the conditions that lead to their hate and think that unless we change things, it will happen again someplace else.
Taking away the steam valves like games, and isolating teens by removing thier internet access are not ways to help them and prevent another tragedy. Neither will threatening teens who speak out. If only the TCM had spoken out and someone LISTENED then this could be have been avoided.
--- If you don't want to know the answer, don't ask the question.
I attended a public high school about half the size of Columbine (graduated in '95). 900 kids. We had your standard cliques -- jocks, preps, band geeks, computer nerds, rednecks, etc etc. We had problems to be sure, but unlike Columbine and many other schools, we interacted with each other a fair amount. Maybe it was because the school was a good size, maybe it was because it was a college town, but our cliques were not exclusive. I was picked on; being shy, skinny and a little socially inept didn't help. For me, though, middle school was much worse. By high school most people had grown up, and those who continued to torment others did it not because they were jocks or preps, but because they were jerks.
I think this is important, because people rant on and on about cliques and how bad they are, but the fact is, cliques can be healthy. We want friends who are similar to us. People who have similar values as us, dress like us, listen to the same music. There is nothing wrong with it - its perfectly natural. The problems arise when your whole life is spent in your own little clique, isolated from everything else. We need interaction with those different from us. We need the intellectual stimulation from a spirited debate, we need to question our beliefs, we need to appreciate others for who they are before we can truly know who we are. When we start stereotyping people, labeling them as Jocks, Preps, Rednecks, or Geeks, we start seeing them as labels and not as people. We close doors. We end up no better than our oppressors -- shunning people because they are different than us.
One of the most eye-opening experiences for me was the summer after I graduated. I was employed by the grounds crew of the university, and wound up working along side another guy from my school. He was a football player (with a cheerleader girlfriend), I was a Band Geek. In our four years of high school I don't think we'd said twenty words to each other, but we talked quite a bit during those three months, and at the end we respected each other all the more, even though he was still a popular football player and I was still a skinny band geek.
On a slightly different note...
These reports of overreactions by teachers and school officials are very disturbing, and they need to be publicized. I am setting up a web site to post student accounts of these actions. If you wish to contribute, please email me. However, a few conditions:
1. You must currently be in high school. I realize that this is going on in middle schools, etc as well, but I am going to focus on high schools. I think the media will take them more seriously.
2. The actions must have taken place as a result of the Columbine shooting. Nothing before last monday.
Email me at schoolsucks@vt.edu. Include your name (if you wish), the name of your school, and your city and state. Let me know if you want to be kept anonymous. If you have written something for a school publication criticizing the actions, and have been censored, you can send in that piece as well. However, being opinion pieces I won't publish them anonymously, so you must include your name.
If you have any other suggestions please let me know. I'll post again when it goes live.
No one is supporting the acts of those two students, we are complaining about the resulting backlash. The one that points to the internet and violent games as the cause of this crime. And in so doing unfairly targets the segment of society that most of us come from.
The masses have chosen to point to external and new causes instead of fixing the underlying problem ergo. a skewed value system. Which incidentally is spread throughout the western society. This system seeks to punish those that choose not to follow the crowd, and rewards those that follow blindly.
The causes pointed to; black clothes, antisocial behaviour etc. are in some cases shared by a lot of us and we are the most non violent group in society. The same outcasts, are generally those that usher the changes that shape our future.
And with respect to recent shootings.
1. This wanton slaughter is as American as apple pie - I wonder why ?
2. Ignoring a problem does not cause it to go away, to children chose to end their lives to make a point. Why ?
I hope my comment is enlightening, if not go fuck yourself.
Woe be on to them, all who rise against poor people, shall perish in a the end. Buju Banton
This is so me. I never realized that this was so common; in middle and high school I felt so alone. I was constantly harrased, tormented, and abused constantly in grades 6-10, and spent many nights thinking it would all be so much easier to bear if I was dead.
I never entertained any serious thoughts of suicde or murder because the abuse was mostly verbal; I was never really beaten up, only pushed around. But if that had happend on a regular basis, I gaurantee you that I would have killed myself, one of the bullies, or both.
My most common dream was writting up a huge list of all the people in the school system who treated me like shit at one point or another. I would make a copy of this list for each individual in question, and mail it to them. Then I would take a nice big shotgun and blow my brains out in front of a class, just like in that Perl Jam song. Or, I would climb to the top of the school's gym the night before a pep rally, and right in the middle of it I would hang myself 15 feet above the floor.
Within the next couple of days, all the people on my list would recieve my nice little letter. YOU killed me, it would read. Its YOUR fault I'm dead.
Teachers and other school officials turned a blind eye for the most part. I can recall several situations where the teachers ignored my complaints, told me to sort it out or just gave the bully a "talking to". No real action was ever taken. You were expected to resolve conflicts yourself. "Boys will be boys" they would say.
The other half of it is all the bullshit they fill your head with starting in kindergarden. It takes two to start a fight. Two wrongs don't make a right. If you want them to stop, just tell them that you don't like it and its not funny (best way to get beat up fast is to do this).
K-12 can be ablsolute fucking hell on earth. In some ways I think it would almost be easier in a Nazi concentration camp. There, you know who the bad guy is. Its not your peers who are supposed to be your friends, and its not the teachers who are supposed to look out for you.
Now I'm 20 and am a sophomore in college. I get bad grades and don't have many friends. I will probably be fucked up for life because of public education, and there are a lot of others here who are in the same boat.
The one and only thing that preserved a shred of my sanity sanity was home. My parents are both loners who like to read and were never part of the "popular crowd." Oh, and it didn't hurt that they made sure that I knew that I was loved. I know others here aren't so lucky, but if I hadn't had this much I would be dead right now.
Now, before I get everyone too depressed with all this wonderful nostalgia, lets all go count our paychecks (for those who are employed) and and rent "Revenge of the Nerds."
I was the smart guy (Valedictorian) and the jock (2 sport letterman) but never really fit in anywhere. I ran with the "clean cut honors kids" but am not in touch with a single one today. I never was invited to a party and, being a Christian, wasn't really accepted by the geek crowd either as they typically bought into a very secular brand of intellectuallism which they pitted against my own. Any friendships I had there were ones that didn't get too deep. All my good friends I made in college. I found my identity in Christ and with my youth group.
It hurts not to be accepted by those whom everyone else seems to admire. I suppose I was blessed with the ability to see behind the smiles and, in their eyes, see how much they were hurting too. The pace and happy-go-lucky act was their mask. Don't buy it. They lash out at you because they know deep down they have bought a lie and you being different from the main crowd, in whatever way, reminds them of that. Just don't let rage win out. Hang in there and find your identity and don't worry about the crowd. One or two or three good friends is worth more than the favor of the popular establishment. Good luck and God Bless.
Andrew
This topic has been preying on my mind for two years now, and the situation in Littleton has only served to exacerbate it. I sat watching the coverage of the massacre at Columbine horrified, wondering why children would do something such a thing. But when I heard the reason, as much as my heart went out to the families and children, I sympathized with the shooters because I was in their situation nine years ago, and I am facing it now. I was one of few minorities in my wealthy, suburbanite city. I was a nerdy geek more interested in quantum mechanics than football; I never had a date, was outspoken, dressed all in black, was the shortest person in my entire school, and spent several years in middle school and highschool eating lunch alone. In short, I was an outcast, picked on, harassed, and physically assaulted every day of my public school education simply because I did not and would not and could not conform.
We are a society of hypocrites. We glorify individuality yet socially punish those who do not conform with ostracism at best, assault at worst; we put people like Einstein on pedestals as paragons of free thinking yet laugh and mock those who do not hold the typical white-bread, middle class American ideology. Anyone who does not conform to this standard is reviled like some malignant growth, best to be wholesale purged. In middle school and highschool, this paradigm is worsened by ten fold. If you looked different, listened to different music, you were an outcast. Children who were brighter than the rest are labeled as nerds and beaten with impunity. If you were poor, you didn't deserve any respect.
People always say that highschool are the best years of your life, enjoy them. How can a child enjoy life when they are teased everyday, beaten, tormented and tortured? I had a girlfriend who was beaten up once a week because her family lived below the poverty line and she had to make her own clothes. A boy a grade ahead of me was thrown into lockers and left there all day about once a month because he was especially smart, quiet, and studious -- in essence a nerd. Another boy had feces and used tampons thrown in his locker in middle school because he was a band geek. I faced no less torment, compounded on the fact that I am a minority, and for those that know me, I have a big mouth. There wasn't a day that went by where I wasn't reminded that I was a freak, a bitch, a gook, ugly, poor, a chink, and a loser. Everyday I was thrown against lockers, had my hair pulled, and kicked with the occasional punch for good measure. One time when I was in first grade, I had a huge chunk of hair in the back of my head ripped out on the school bus and the school administration did nothing. My highschool had a tradition called "taping" where geek losers were stripped of most of their clothes, their entire bodies covered in duct tape and taped to one of the support columns in the lunch room. Anyone that tried to help the poor person that was being taped would be attacked and face the same. Swirlies were also du jour (for those of you who don't know what a swirly is, it's when you shove someone's head in a toilet, preferably used, and flush the toilet). This little highschool lynching was performed by the jocks, the cheerleaders, the rich kids and none of the administration ever did a thing, again, because afterall, who cares if some loser poor brat gets their ass kicked? They probably deserved it. Besides, the parents of these little paragons of middle-America white virtue ran the administration.
What else is a child supposed to feel when he's taped nearly naked in the middle of lunch so people can throw food at him? How else is a girl supposed to react when she is told she couldn't even be a five dollar whore because she's so ugly? What do you expect a child to do when they are ostracized simply because of the color of their skin, they don't like sports, or are smarter than everyone else? After years of daily torment the only logical conclusion is hatred, do you expect it to come to anything other than hatred? And the logical conclusion of that hatred unchecked is what happened at Columbine.
But instead of looking for the real cause of that hatred, people are scrambling for scapegoats to try to explain why children would act so heinously. They blame the internet, computer games like Doom and Quake, and violence in movies and TV. Schools are going after children who spend time on the internet, who play Doom and Quake, who wear trenchcoats and who exhibit antisocial behavior. Well, I've played Quake, I spend a lot of time on the internet, and I am very antisocial. I have mood swings as high as Everest and as low as Death Valley. I love violent films and TV, and have taken martial arts lessons. What makes me so different than those children who committed those crimes, from ever other nerds, geeks and social outcasts that has ever walked in an American highschool? Absolutely nothing but a matter of degrees. The only thing that kept me from going down that road was that I fought back daily. I cannot count how many fights I have been in, but the number is well over 30. Fighting, and winning, gave me self esteem and self worth that my tormentors, the cheerleaders, the jocks, the rich kids, could not touch or take away. But what happens to the children who cannot fight, or are not strong enough? What becomes of the most vulnerable of children, the brightest, the smallest, the poorest, the most talented, the meekest? The free thinking, non-conforming children who need the most protection?
This pogrom against the internet and computer games, the witch hunt for children who fit the behavior described in the media, will only serve to exacerbate the violence and hatred children feel. It will only further ostracize the children and make them feel more like rejects and outcasts. This negative characterization of the brightest and most vulnerable of children, the nerds, geeks and losers, merely perpetuates the violence and hatred. We should be protecting these children, nurturing them and their unique intelligence, ability and skills, not vilifying them because they do not fit the cookie-cutter mold. But of course, we can't blame ourselves, bad parenting and general lack of compassion to the most vulnerable of society. We can't blame the true perpetrators because all of us, even us geeks and losers, have done the same thing in the past. Who hasn't teased someone because of how they look? Who hasn't told a racist joke? Who hasn't ostracized someone because they did not fit into the clique that you were running with? We fear what we do not understand, and quite frankly, living with a herd mentality is much easier than going at it alone -- there's always someone else you can blame when the shit hits the fan. But in the final analysis, we created those children whom the media are calling monsters. Afterall, children do not raise themselves and hatred is only a natural response to repeated negative stimuli. We are responsible for every one of those deaths, for every one of the injuries, for every tear that has fallen.
Emily M. Lee
2L University of Denver College of Law
No sympathy - I can buy that. They murdered and they died. I feel sadness for their parents, but not for them.
However, this article was not a call for sympathy, but for empathy. How can you possibly hope to help someone if you can't climb inside their head and think "Hmm, so THIS is what makes them tick - I can see the inputs, the internally consistent logic, and the outputs"? If only someone could have done this a year ago, rather than saying "Their behavior is unacceptable. I dismiss them entirely. I fart in their general direction." Until you can say "They were WRONG, but I completely understand why they did it", you are part of the problem.
OH, so those that have to suffer the slings and arrows of others of no fault of their own should just 'be friendly'? "there there little Johnny, if you are friends with them they won't beat the shit out of you." Your ridiculous. People are pushed away from the mainstream, their pushed away from fitting in. It's attitudes like yours that continue to foster the outlook that the 'jocks' or 'beutifull people' are all fine and good, and everybody else is all screwed up and it's their fault that their treated like shit, and certainly not the fault of all those wonderfull 'jocks' and 'beutifull people'
You suck
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Think about it:
Now non-conformist students are getting hell not only from their peers, but from administration as well. Pressure from students has already made enough emotionally disturbed kids snap, so what is pressure from officials going to do?
Right. More of the kids who were borderline to begin with are going to be pushed just a *tad* too far. The results? Littleton all over again.
------------
On a personal note, I only spent a year in high school-- I was fortunate enough to go to college early. But one year is more than anybody should be forced to endure, and I fantasized often about reaching into a tormentor's chest and ripping out his beating heart.
Life isn't just better in the real world, it's FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC!
Let me say at the outset that I've been out of high school since 1981.
Back then, I was a geek. I think I was just lucky, though... it was a little different going to high school in Seattle. While geeks were outcasts from the Jock and Socialite point of view, we still were an easy 20% of the overall school population. It's hard to feel sorry for yourself sitting in the "geek" section of the cafeteria when you're sitting there with 300 other geeks. Actually, I think that the "outsiders" and loners at my H.S. outnumbered the Jocks, at the very least. So, while no one really liked us, exclusion wasn't an issue for a group that had more clubs and "owned more turf" on campus than some of the more self-indulged groups.
I guess I was blind to how bad it can be.
That blindness is what I now fear as a new parent. I've got a few more years before I have to worry about it, but I now live in a much more uptight city in a school district that makes outsiders feel like the kids I read in Katz' article. I like Chicago, and I don't want to move back to Seattle just for a better high school (hell, it's probably changed anyway). I just hope I can offer my son the guidance he'll need to make it through.
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
You know... it's not everyday something like this comes around. for years i had thought that i was almost totaly alone. High School and Middle School were an absolute nightmare for me. I was verbally and physically harrased DAILY because i am different. I dress in mostly black and listen to different music and love computers. No one ever understood this untill after i graduated high school. College is very different but i still feel quite alone (with the exception of one or two other people). mass media sucks and i think it will always suck.
Just keep this in mind... while all the jocks and so called "in" kids are working thier ditch digging blue collar jobs... we'll be kicking back programing or admining and having FUN while getting paid for it.
I'm seeing a lot of complaints and rants here, which I think is understandable and justified. I was there, too - the High School no one talks about, and I found it to be the same hell that I hear so many others rant about when they finally make it out the other side. But that's another story. What I have not seen a lot of is solutions, or ideas for solutions, or at least ideas for things that might just improve things a tiny bit.
So I have a few I'm going to share.
For students:
- Look around for alternatives to the mainstream high school experience. See if there are "alternate" or snail mail schools where you can work self-paced.
- Consider dropping out, if you're at the breaking point. Really. If you're planning on going to college, the GED isn't a big handicap (at least at the college I'm in) as long as your SAT scores are good. This isn't easy for most parents to accept, I know. I was blessed with amazingly supportive parents, and was able to take this option when high school became unbearable.
For parents:
- Consider home schooling. It's not just for Baptists. I know most parents don't have the time for this, but it's what I'm planning on, should I ever have a kid. I would never want to put my child through the school system I went through.
- At the very least, be proactive. You know what high school is like, having been through it. Tell your kids! Warn them! Tell them beforehand that high school may well be the worst time of their life. Tell them early and tell them often, or the media will tell them otherwise, and they'll be bitterly disappointed.
- Try to explore alternatives with your kids, and with an open mind. Maybe the mainstream high school, or high school period, isn't right for your child(ren). Keep the thought in mind.
Those are my ideas. They are just that, ideas. I've thought about them, they make sense to me, but I'd really love to hear more, if they're out there.
Me? I'm going to go back as a teacher for a few years. With the explicit goal (in addition to teaching) of doing as much as I can to alleviate some of the problems I saw, while I was there. I won't turn a blind eye to the horrible stuff that's going on, I won't pander to the lowest denominator, and hopefully I won't get shot. Wish me luck.
Jon, great article. I haven't thought too much about my high school life in over 10 years. I now have a wife and a life and am thinking about children. I have changed a lot since then and have a pretty good future ahead of me in my career. With that said...High school was by far the most hellish and difficult time for me. I watched the jocks and the women that followed them around -the women I could admire but never have. I saw the popularity of the conformists with a deep longing inside. But I had several things going for me in my corner.
1) I had a family that was close to me. Almost everyday of my high school years I spent the last hour of the day in the kitchen talking with mom about our day. We shared about everything -both ways. That helped a lot.
2) I found things to do myself (I learned the piano, did the Boy Scout thing, studied Tae Kwon Do, ect.) that I could feel good about and gave me confidence. I could do things that know one else could and I could do them well.
3) I had some understanding of God -not nearly what I know or understand now but it was a beginning.
Even with all that, high school was pretty hellish. I will say several things to those of you still on that tough journey:
It WILL get better. College is an improvement and the work place is even better. Make a few friends (that won't teach you how to make bombs) and keep them. Realize that all those jocks will either become pro-athletes (very few) of wind up at the local shoe store. All that was cool in high school means nothing outside of it! I'm glad I actually learned math there instead of just how to play sports.
And to all you gun-banning freaks: Wake up!!!!! It has never been harder for anyone to get a gun in the US than it ever has. Up 'till the late 60's you could order a gun through the mail. Kids weren't shooting each other then...
If you want to feel even better that a jock on prom night, do the following:
1) Get a BS (and I do mean BullShit but get one) degree in something.
2) Get a good job that makes you happy.
3) Learn about God.
4) Find a good woman and marry her.
5) Have all the sex you want!!! When you are feeling rejected by the world, go home and have sex with your wife. All those years of muck will have been worth it -trust me.
There are plenty of non-school opportunities for kids to "learn to deal with people." Just because you homeschool them doesn't mean you don't let them play with other kids in the neighborhood. And there's scouts, church, Little League (for the athletically-inclined geeks), and more.
What you'll learn about people in a public school is that most people are stupid and cruel. Which is, probably, true, but do you really want to be teaching your kids such cynicism day in and day out?
Thirteen years later, I still remember: our senior English class took parts in a reading of Moliere's "The Misanthrope." I managed to nab the title role. Everyone seemed impressed with the passion I brought to my reading. It was almost, one girl said to me, as if I felt the same way. Well, DUH!
-- Jerry
I did ok, after awhile I'm 52 and still a geek but living in Bangkok now, where the girls chase me and the horrors past faded memories.
Just another perl hacker in Bangkok
It was quite interesting to read the accounts of others' experiences in High School.
I've been out of the education scene for almost ten
years now and have just recently re-entered it.
Yes..... High School sucked... It's only now that I realize
that the majority of the things I did that were so bizarre and 'out-there'
were to fit in with other kids.
Trying to be normal. Well.. I'm NOT normal and never will be normal.
I'm ok with it now and it doesn't bother me in the slightest any more
but I can remember many times when it seemed as if the whole world was
against me.
Since I've entered college it's been interesting. I still don't
fit in... but I can at least count on both hands the number of times
I have NOT gotten the feeling that everyone around me was slow.
I'd say that's pretty dang good for one semester. Can't wait for the next.
The main reason I enjoy the internet so much is that it allows me to go outside my physical location and find others who are on the same level as I. Others who need not have me type a full ten sentances because they understand me
in the first 5 words.
People who are NOT negative or narrow minded, who can appreciate
your ideas and actually be of some help in times of stress, etc.
In light of what our system has become, when it comes to it's
treatment of children, they are failing dismally.
I cannot belive what poor quality (mentally and socially) students are entering the college in this day and age.
Many of it being a direct result of the societal conditions they've been subjected to, the last few years, in our public school system.
The internet provides a larger community for us to search out those who would help us see that we are in fact the norm. It is society's game that's the sham. Pity that many of us learn that lesson late, and usually painfully at that.
Friends don't let friends buy Compaq's. (Dell/Gateway... same same) You want a good computer? Build it yourself.
I really thought college would be different. I got a free ride to the University of Montana, but just recently dropped out. As far as I could tell, it was all the same. Teachers never really cared about any kids except for the popular ones, because that in turn made them more popular. I'm 18 now living on my own, and I'm as happy as I've ever been not going to school. School, I think, is just a common torture geeks must bare. My best friend is 16 and dropped out in 8th grade when everything just became too much for him. He's my local *NIX guru who solves all my problems, and is probably one of the smartest people I know. School, at least the education content of it, is far underrated.
I don't game as much as I used to, but that's mainly because of a lack of time. My parents tried to cancel my internet account several times, but it's amazing how many accounts you can get with a few CC# and a strong drive. I, like most of us, was a complete outcast at school. The only time people were ever nice to me is when they were buying passwords from me I ripped from the school database. Hellgate was a real dunce--they stored the passwords in plain text files, not encrypted, and thought that not having access to a shell would stop us from breaking in. Easiest password-grabbing I've ever done; I just used QBasic. :)
We all have these same stories to share, because when it comes right down to it our classmates were afraid of us. We don't follow the rules, and are by nature non-conformists, and that in itself is enough reason for society as a whole to hate us. --DranoK
Shh! Nobody knows I'm gay!
Sorry slashdot for wasting your bandwidth replying to this...um....whatever is lower than a biological creature.
Sir, I think you've had as much, if not more, of a hellish experience in High School as the rest of us, and you too are feeling resentful. Instead of killing 13 people, however, you just scream at us and separate yourself further to get away from everything. You have never faced your scars and you are still hurting for it. And that's exactly what society subconsciously wants for outcasts and outsiders to do: stick up for the popular and get the f*ck out of the way.
--DranoK
Shh! Nobody knows I'm gay!
let me just add one thing. the children are responsible too. i don't think i made that clear. ultimately the kids who pulled the triggers are responsible for their actions. maybe that's why all the blame is going around. the kids are dead, so someone must be blamed.
>> Moron.
really mature response.
>> You're just as actively engaged in
>>finger-pointing - and not at the perps
>>themselves - as anyone else here. The parents
>>didn't kill 13+ people any more than the media >>did.
umm, i don't know where you come from but where i come from parents are responsible to a degree for the well being of their children. sure the kids are responsible for the shootings. now everyone is trying to damn everyone from the people who make rpg's to musicians. why aren't they asking where the parents were when the perps were stockpiling weapons for a year?
foreigners eh? unless you're an american indian, your a foreigner too, buddy.
1. parochial schools are expensive too. The high school i graduated from (a catholic school) now costs over 5000 dollars a year. it keeps going up too.
2. the same conditions exist in catholic school. they're even a little worse. you try to not be around people who pick on you when you're 8th grade class had 16 people in it. in high school, the situation there was just as bad as anywhere else. also since we were in an area where racial tensions were really high, we had a problem with neo-nazi skinheads.
the only difference between a the private school i went to and a public school was that the school was SO short on funding and space that it lacked many of the things it needed for a top notch science program. our anatomy class was in the home-economics lab!
does anyone notice how no one in america is responsible for their actions anymore? instead it's the fault of the media, of the violent video games, of the dark role playing game, of the music and/or of the kids friends. a parent ignores all the warning signs that they have a troubled child. the child finally lashes out. whose fault is it? of course it can't be the parents! it has to be those violent video games, violent movies, or offensive music. bah! so since it was the video games fault etc... anyone who plays that game is a suspected killer. heck, them geeks in their trenchcoats are weird anyway. they gotta be up to something.
america today is ripe with hypocrites. we have politicians who make big deals over other peoples affairs, when they've done the same themselves. we have people who under no circumstance should be allowed to raise kids raising them (or letting tv do so). after they've made a mess of their kids and the kids do something stupid, it's the media's fault. i'm so sick of people blaiming the media. GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEADS. IT'S BAD PARENTING, NOT THE MEDIA THAT IS TURNING YOUR KIDS INTO KILLERS.
I want to know how 2 sets of parents didn't notice their sons stockpiling weapons for a year. that's a dilly for you america.
so now the counsellors and school officials want to pick up the slack. great. last group you want to do that. they deal with so many kids, they cannot possibly know them all. so now were dealing with the results of their knee-jerk reaction to this all. trying to find their own trenchcoat mafiosos.
i know if any of those things in the article happened to me in school, my parents would have been at the school in 5 minutes to give the school official the third degree. they might have even brought a lawyer. that's what you're kids from the article need to do. the officials at their schools need a whack with a clue-by-four. just bring the lawyer and make it legal.
I sympathize, I have young, bright kids too.
Have you looked into private or charter school for your son? Our daughter is at a Montessori school, and from what I've seen and heard of similar schools, the kids in such schools (elementary) learn the self-confidence they need to cope with the social pressure-cooker of high school.
(I'm also gaining a real appreciation for what I put my parents through when I was a kid...)
-- Alastair
"Why." he said "I don't like Mondays"
Actully the person in question -- who took a shotgun to school and blew some kids away -- was a she, not a he.
The incident goes back years - 1970s ?? - and there was even a song by the Boomtown Rats about it.
"And the silicon chip inside her head
Gets switched to overload
And nobody's gonna go to school today
She's gonna make them stay at home"
(And then there was Julie Brown's rather silly "The Homecoming Queen's Got A Gun", not (AFAIK) based on a real incident.)
-- Alastair
Yes, high school can be hell for those who are a couple of sigmas beyond the mean -- the very people from whom ultimately society gets most of its advances. And also some of its most dangerous psychos, if too alienated.
As someone else mentioned above, HIGH SCHOOL IS NOT THE REAL WORLD, DON'T TAKE IT TOO SERIOUSLY. And it's only temporary. After that, the geeks who were outcast by the average majority in high school will go on to thrive in college and beyond.
There's a saying, "the best revenge is living well". There's certainly truth to it.
-- Alastair
I assume because of the size of my area and school, I have not had nearly the trouble that is described here. I do fit the description though, every last point of it. I'm a nerd, a geek, whatever you want to refer to us as. But I am certainly no killer. I have played my fair share of violent games. But I am certainly no killer. It takes a heck of a lot more than that to "make" a person into a killer. There have to be pre-existing conditions, other problems, with deeper roots. Simply spending time in front of a computer screen doesn't turn a person into a cold-blooded killer.
I also know what it is like to have high school as a living hell. Middle school too. For years I have been singled out as the geek, the smart one who no one likes, but everyone suddenly is best friends with when they need help on their homework. It is, by no means, fun. Others are envious, jealous of the abilities of the geeks, the nerds. They turn that jealousy into hate, rage, and insults. They take out their own percieved inadequacy on us. For what reason? Simply because they are, themselves, too weak to handle it!
I, however, am somewhat atypical in a different way. I have found a way out, an escape from high school, away from the mindless peers who feel the need to raise themselves up by putting others down. No, I'm not going to kill people and go to jail (interesting, but stupid idea). I'm leaving high school, and going to a more conductive, productive environment at college/university. I want everyone to know that you can do it too. It is possible, and even sometimes encouraged, to leave high school a year early, go to college, fulfill your freshman year there, which concurrently filling your senior graduation requirements and graduating with your class. Some special programs exist for people wishing to do this. The ones I have encountered are at The University of Southern California and Clarkson University. Despite my acceptance to the Clarkson School (their special program), I have decided to take my education to the next level at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, whose support and project-based curriculum caught my eye.
So, my point is, you can do something about your situation. Those of you still early in your high school years, maybe there is less you can do. But there is hope ahead. Never give up, never forget who you are. Do not let yourself be defined by what is "in" or "cool." Be who you are, and do it without hurting others. Be persistent, and you will be heard.
---
Tim Wilde
Sysadmin, Dynamic DNS Network Services
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but what you are saying is:"It can't be helped, or the cure is worse than the disease". In my opinion this is a bad approach to solve *any* problem, whether a solution exists or not. It is just as bad as the politicians' approach: they are acting without thinking, because the public expects them to act.
/.
Besides that, I disagree with your conclusion. I am from the Netherlands. We enjoy the same freedoms that US citizens have (with the notable exception of the freedom to own firearms), but we do not nearly have as much high school violence as you have in the US.
I (and others) consider myself to be a nerd, but I really enjoyed my years in high school. Our school encouraged us to explore and excel in any field, be it sports, arts, languages or science.
The nerds, geeks, jocks etc. did hang out with their own groups, but they mingled with others as well, and nobody was ashamed to call someone of the less popular groups a friend. (Sure I got picked on a few times, but that was more a senior / junior student kind of thing).
Don't get me wrong: I am not picking on the American Way of Life, and I am not saying that we are better than you. My point is that your schools can be better places than they are, and you won't have to trade in your freedom to achieve that. The first step could be the fact that the situation in your schools is coming out into the open, thanks to the students who sent those terrible letters to
You've read her books, but did you understand them?
Her philosophy is not about emotionlessnes, but about making rational decisions (meaning thinking about them and weighing alternatives) where emotion can definitively be a factor. Ayn Rand also does not teach us to be without honor.
I am not an objectivist, but I am a proponent of one of Ayn Rand's teachings: think about what you do, and make sure your opinions are well-informed ones. And I have to disagree strongly with your implication that objectivism, or like philosophies, have led to the current sordid state of affairs. Give us reason instead of opinions!
You are right though, that the world will not fix itself, nor will Ayn Rand. We ourselves have to take that upon us, each of us individually has to make the decision to take action.
Want to help? Write a (good and short) editorial for your local newspapers. The chances of getting it printed right now are very, very good.
;}
Here's an even better one. Call up the newspaper's reporter line. Lots and lots of reporters out there are just _looking_ for excuses to write a story. Tell them that you've got a story about what social outcasts feel concerning the events in Colorado. And prepare your "story" beforehand, so you can make it a good one. If you're still in high school, you might lead the reporter over to the library during the lunch hour for some impromptu interviews.
And write, write, write. Eventually, if you put out enough written word, someone is going to read it and echo it. Spread your ideas like a social virus.
Meantime, I can already see that this is starting to happen, because "Joe Public" isn't one individual. There are lots and lots of ignorant, yet not necessarily stupid, people out there that, when informed, will take the sort of action that you'd want such a person to take.
And _they_ do get elected to office.
As the great master Yoda said, "Do or do not, there is no try".
Everyone is wondering 'why' but ask the jocks and the other popular kids - they know. I've seen them on CNN, and CBC and 60 minutes. They talk about how brave they were and how strange the killers were and how they figured something like this was going to happen. But not one reporter asked the one question that would have been my first (as a former children's mental health worker) -
"Did any of you pick on or humiliate these guys?"
I'm willing to bet none of them would have put up their hands, which is a lie. Why would they lie about this? They know exactly how cruel and humiliating they were to these 2, and they know if they admit it they will get the blame they deserve. So why not lie...the media and the other adults are blaming Doom and the Internet and Marilyn Manson anyway. They might as well continue to look like the victims and get all the attention, after all, they didn't get to be the cool and popular kids by telling the truth (especially to adults in authority).
I don't condone killing, but considering the kind of society we foster in our high schools (especially more rural schools), I'm not surprised by this at all. I wonder what took so long. I can sure understand WHY they did what they did...and so can all those jocks who abused them.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
Anyone that understood the Katz article, I strongly recommend the writings of Mike E. Males. A doctoral student at the University of California at Irvine, Males wrote a 1996 book called The Scapegoat Generation: America's War on Adolescents that's probably the most persuasive book I've ever read. It's full of hard evidence pointing to the conclusion that we need to respect teenagers more!
For example, politicians point to the "teen pregnancy" problem time and time again. Yet the root of this problem aren't the teenage women becoming pregnant. Somewhere around 80% of children born to teenage mothers have fathers over the age of 18. The law says this is statuatory rape, that these young women don't have the ability to make decisions like this on their own; yet the lawmakers blame the teenagers for "teen pregnancy," rather than the adults raping them! Males uses strong and conclusive sociological research to back this up, as he does with all arguments in his book.
That book certainly tuned me into issues of juvenile rights, ageism and the divisions inside American society. I strongly recommend reading that book to anyone interested in the topic; it's an excellent rebuttal to American sociological myths.
In my opinion, JonKatz's article was the BEST article I've read on the Littleton, Colorado subject; the BEST article I've read by Katz; and the BEST news-related article I've read on Slashdot. A number of us gave Jon hell for his Linux newbie article... but this one was extremely well-written and hit a nerve with all of us.
Ryan
Could we get this thread moderated? Obvious flame bait.
Ryan
Just wanted to comment about fraternities and sororities. I'm a brother of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity at The George Washington University. In my experience, a few fraternities on this campus are the conformist cliques you described. But, in this respect, the non-Greek students are worse than the Greeks are!
I'm about as individual as it gets -- I'm a typical MIS geek. Our chapter prides itself on having a diverse group of individuals. I've gained far more out of the fraternity than I ever expected: leadership opportunities, a social outlet (as a typical MIS geek, social settings never used to be my strong suit), and most importantly, long-lasting friendships. The freshmen at this school are far more judgmental than anyone in my fraternity. I quickly realized that I had little in common with them, and luckily found the friendships in my fraternity just at the right time. Also, our chapter truly has no hazing, forced drinking (I still don't drink at all), or any of your other stereotypical frat images.
We shouldn't stereotype ANY groups as being "cliqueish," because it's the same thing as stereotyping juveniles as "prone to violence." Similarly, it does us no good to blame the "jocks" for the Littleton incident. The blame should go to anyone who treated them as an outcast. To do otherwise simply increases prejudice and stereotypes against the groups we happen to dislike.
Any LCA brothers on here? Drop me a message.
In ZAX,
Ryan
He claims that the system was copied from the Prussian compulsory education system from the early 19th century. He further claims that a specific design goal of that system was the systematic elimination of 1) individuality, 2) curiosity, 3) independance, and many other characteristics that most people would consider desireable qualities. The goal that this was supposed to achieve was a manageable populace.
Perhaps this is why the powers that be strive to identify the flaw in the children or the children's parents, rather than the flaw in the system. That is, they have no desire to "fix" the system since they don't see the system as broken. It is performing the desired function. This notion certainly casts a different light on the behavior of administrators who allow bullying of "non-conforming" students. The bullies are just one means by which "the nail that stands above the rest" might be "hammered down."
I am somewhat reluctant to invoke Gatto's name in this discussion. Most of the references to Gatto seem to come from conspiracy nuts. And, I haven't checked ANY of his assertions for historical accuracy. But I have to ask myself, "What if he's right?". So just in case he is right and assuming that the slashdotters will check the facts before making up their minds, and with the forgoeing disclaimer, if anyone is interested in reading more, here's an interesting article . And he's published a book: "Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling" which is available from Amazon.com.
Good luck to us all.
After all this $*%& I have seen about this, I have to name this all to be BS. We are going after people that make our society run well, becuase they are not the common jack ass.
If we keep blaming all these things, the people will produce a hatred towards people like us and will do anything to make us crack. If more of crack like this, we will see more school shootings and more violence in the future.
The common person thinks their are right out of their own ignorance and it's their ignorance which will end up ruining society which we know today, which sucks at the momen and progresses to become worse each day.
You didn't see this kind of crap when the Waco incident broke out. Did you see any one going after the religious people for this? No, becuase religion is so wonderful and blah blah fuck blah. But yet computer geeks, poets and the other high class intellagent people get shit apon.
It seems that society has become to good for itself. If you remember in history, this is how Rome came tumbling down. They had a bunch of jack ass running around thinking their were supream and mass-histera broke out and down came Rome.
We really need to address what has become of this. If we don't we shall be hit hard by our own ignorance and letting this happen.
"The pen is mighter than the sword... But what if you can't write?"
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Drug Supply" -Jello Biafra
"The pen is mighter than the sword... But what if you can't write?"
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Sorry the real quote is
"Pump up your drug supply" -Jello Biafra
"The pen is mighter than the sword... But what if you can't write?"
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Boy.. How many people have recieved that in the ICQ box and their mail box? I have seen it about 200 times.. I got spammed with it.. And what really sucks, some of the people know i'm not religious.. ARRRRRGGGG.. I'm just going take everyones computer.. Not kill them, just take away their computer.. Ok.. South Africa is looking good right now! Running around naked on the plains with nothing to deal w/ this shit.....
"The pen is mighter than the sword... But what if you can't write?"
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Geeks drop-out, school GPA drops down to 65 or lower! Great idea!! Make the school hurt. If I were in school I would do it.. Beucase this has become tottal bs..
"The pen is mighter than the sword... But what if you can't write?"
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
I'm struck lately by how being afraid of things seems to stimulate exactly that which we fear; it's almost as if the cosmos has some sick sense of humor.
...
... thus intensifying the anger and rage that those scapegoats, already feeling outside of the system, feel ... making it more likely that someone else will snap.
So middle-aged Americans, uncertain of what made the kids in Littleton snap, are afraid that it could happen at their children's school, and are looking for scapegoats because it's always easier to blame something external than to take a long hard look at the things you consider normal or natural
And when they find the scapegoats, they single them out, and repress them, and apply subtle and not-so-subtle levers of harassment
Out of fear that you'll harm me, i'll treat you like shit, and then you'll want to harm me.
*sigh*
I used to make bombs, love to game, and other things that the experts say are warning signs. But the thing that restrained me from killing people was, my parents taught me right from wrong. They raised me be independent and think for myself and i could do whatever i wanted when i was in high school, and i did many dumbass things but when things got serious and came close to the line between becoming really bad i knew what to do. There is a line that shouldn't be crossed, my parents taught not cross that line. If the parents of these kids in Colorado had paid attention to their kids and taught what is good and what is bad not of this would have happened. I went home this weekend and watched the new with my mom and the first thing she said was, "What were thier parents doing?" I guess the message here is love your kids and teach them right from wrong and they will make the right decision.
Carrie was sort of like that too... only difference was she had telekinesis instead of Big Guns. The metaphor fits like a glove though... kinda like many episodes of Buffy. (Not to mention last weeks ep.)
Your High School sounds much like mine, although mine is American. My High School had a modular schedule that varied from day to day, including blocks of "Unscheduled time" when we didn't have class. Juniors and Seniors could leave campus(along with Sophomores after they met a certain GPA, Freshmen weren't in my HS), and we were generally trusted. We had plenty of the typical emphasis on sports, such as pep rallies, but I don't remember being persecuted.
Maybe it was just me, but it seemed like eccentricity was PRIZED at my HS. We had our cliques of "preps" and "geeks" and "rednecks," and if anyone is discriminated against, it is the last. Still, for being in what is considered a "backward" state(West Virginia), it would seem we were way ahead of our peers.
Perhaps we should be giving the kids MORE responsibility. In my HS, the thing that fostered the most "school spirit" wasn't a football game(although that worked pretty well), it was the school board trying to make us into a "closed campus" school, which they did at least once a semester, it seems like. The most memorable occurrence was when somebody decided that Coke machines were too unhealthy to be in schools, so they banned them. Our Student Body Prez, along with that of another HS and the support of the school principals, managed to get a lot of people to show up at the public hearing for the bill's review, and the law was eventually repealed.
I guess what I'm saying is that the school's structure seemed to help a lot. Sure, there was still discrimination, but it was mostly a holdover from Junior High. By senior year, it really didn't matter much who you were, although the geeks didn't get invited to parties.
Well, I've rambled long enough. I think I've made my point, though: these kids are as mature as you treat them. Trat them like they can't make decisions for themselves, and it will be that much longer before they can.
- Free tabletop fantasy gaming! Grey Lotus
See, unfortunately, even though I went to a private school, where there was tremendous pressure to perform, being a geek still wasn't cool. I mean, obviously, if you were into computers, you had some kind of disease. There was this catch-22 where you had to pretend you weren't smart, but still get good grades. About the only time people made nice with me was when I could help them with a computer problem. My friends and I were all "weird," somehow, and I'm sure that if I was still there, we all would be in the counseling office. Of course, we were the only people who could have demolished the school, if we had chosen to....
So you agree with a zero-sympathy statement, then say that it's okay to sympathize with the motives of the killers...?
If I choose to be different, I should be treated according to my actions. If I am different by loudly insulting people and spitting on them, that is one thing. If I don't like sports and choose to play computer and role-playing games, I shouldn't have to put up with the kind of crap that I (and most people who are into that kind of stuff) had to put up with in school.
I think we can all sympathize with the rage that builds up in people who have been beaten down all their lives. Why do you think punk rock and metal tend to be geek music (in my experience.) However, sympathizing and condoning are not the same thing. I believe killing is wrong, unless it is done in self-defense or the defense of others. However, sometimes I fantasized about hurting or killing my tormentors. I'm sure plenty of us have. That doesn't mean we do it, though, and that is the difference.
You are right about one thing, though. We need to take responsibility for our actions. I think everyone can learn from this: don't torment others. God knows, it's easy, and I gave as well as I got, though of course never to the same people. So rather than snap at someone, be nice, okay?
Makes me wish Andy Rooney was still doing his commentary at the end of 60 Minutes. He'd probably do just that.
Well the officials have decided to maybe prosecute the parents for not reporting their boys but for me, "it's too lttle, too late", "The damage is done" and all the other cheap quotes.
I know what you guys are all saying, and how you all felt at school. I made it through, and now I'm the richest 22 year old I know, work in a slack arse job (spend 30% of BH on 'net), get paid thousands a month and have ultimately a great life.
I have all the sympathy in the world for anyone who was victimised at school, but none for those two boys. Life 'aint that bad. If it is, like pinko says, "get your parents down, and take a lawyer". Heads can roll, but blood can not be spilt. That's what should happen to the parents. They fscked up and I think they know it. The state department just has to prove it.
Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect
Oh, so well said.
You obvouisly had a decent education
Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect
Have people watched the breakfast club?? It confronts the issue of placing people into categories. And it also shows no matter how different we can be (which can be good), kids still have many things in common.
Perhaps schools should show that in High School like they did mine. Insecurity and lack of self worth, exploited by others, are what drive these kids to extremes. We need to tell each kid that (0) you are important and worthwhile and (1) so are all the other kids.
matt
> Meanwhile, when the jocks and popular kids grow
> up, they take their places in the leader-caste
> of society; and while most of them are, by then,
> relatively decent individuals, they do not see
> that there is a problem.
I think this is why everyone is blaming the games instead of the environment: all of those tv people were the popular kids! They grew up self-confident and popular, and don't see what is right under their noses.
Please don't interpret anything here as an attack on your decision to homeschool your kid. There are some aspects of homeschooling that I've always wondered about.
For instance: How long do you homeschool a child? Like, until what grade? Do you really think you can give them an entire high-school education, including the deeper meanings of Shakespeare, history and poitics of Africa, and the fundamentals of physics? If you plan to teach them to a certain extent, and then introduce them into the school system for higher grades, how are they going to cope with suddenly being one of two thousand people? What happens when your child reaches the inevitable rebelious stage, and doesn't want to go to school, _or_ be with his parents? At what point can you let go?
On the subject of relgious education, do you completely skip ideas of evolution and genetics? The big bang? Modern science has brought us computers and tvs, so it can't _all_ be hogwash.
As for a "homeschool support group," it sounds to me like the parents _and_ kids spend time together. While to parents this may seem like a good thing, I would predict the teen would desperately seek to be with people his (her?) own age _without_ an adult constantly watching over them. I had a friend who's parents _refused_ to let him go anywhere without a parent present, right through middle school. It was oppressive, but it was also a hassle.
I'm geniuinely interested in hearing your response, because I just don't understand how a child can grow up in the confines of their own home.
Heh, that's what I was known as: a semi-nerd. "But we're not being mean, because they're not _really_ nerds, just semi-nerds!"
The point is that it didn't take throwing gobs of money at a special program. He simply accepted us, and gave of himself. This was his hobby and he chose to share it with us. It gave me a role model and a place to hang my hat, and school was bearable after that.
It didn't stop the bullying, but I had a place to go and belong. The best part is that I gained a small measure of self confidence and was able to deal with my "peers" better.
Dave Williams
I immediately felt the way as many of the posters here. I told my friends this was just revenge of the nerds. I was fortunate; I had a decent set of friends (all brighter than I, so they received more of the antagonism than I), a family and church (-- insert community here) that was open and supportive, and my parents had the intelligence to immerse me in books/learning as well as sports. Not that I ever did too well at sports :), but I gained an appreciation and and love for sports, and an understanding of the 'jock' mindset. I think they understood that, and therefore why I was exempt from a lot of bullying (although there were a few close-calls). A solution: I recommend everyone read Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle and Slapstick. If we could somehow implement (not literally how Vonnegut puuts it) his ideas, I believe we would be a much better society for it. -Bokonon PS- I was never invited to any parties either... :(
I suspect that if the abusive school alphas knew just how many of their whipping boys and scapegoat girls fantasized about killing them, they'd be a teensy bit scared. I know that if the thought was the deed, there'd have been a bunch of dead kids at my junior high. So why don't we have more? And why are we having a sudden spree of them? I think there's three things that have to break before fantasy turns to reality -- and I'll speculate that this famous year-long plan started as not so much a plan but a comforting fantasy of a plan to warm the heart every time a football player body checked the guy across the hall between classes and sauntered off with a smirking apology. But most kids:
1) Don't lose sight of the fact that this, too, shall pass. That you've got a future somewhere beyond this hell, and if you can hold on and survive things will be much better. I think this is the easiest thing to break, but most kids who snap like that don't kill others, they kill themselves, because...
2)... you have to lose sight of the fact that other students are human too. Assholes and vicious in a lot of cases, but being an asshole isn't supposed to be a death-penalty offense. Especially when you are a teenager.
And even most of the kids that have those two check-dams break still don't go postal, because...
3)... there's a really huge psychological step between daydreaming, and planning, and even sneaking a gun into school, and actually taking it out of the locker and pulling that trigger on real live people. In fact, I suspect that what's driven the series of shootings over the last two years is not that schools are more terrible to endure, or kids are crazier, or more guns available: it's just that a bunch of kids on the border have had it demonstrated that they can successfully (within their definition of success) make their daydream reality. And thus is born a fad, if a series of nightmares can be called such a thing.
Laura
And what the hell does that have to do with kids getting abused because they look or dress or act different? I'm real sorry about what happened in your town, but my friends shouldn't be being harassed for wearing the same damn clothes they've worn for years.
I don't excuse those two kids; stop using them as an excuse for the bullies and abusers who are currently loose in the school system (and beyond -- people are getting beaten up for wearing black!)
Laura
It sure would be nice if there was a school where people like us all could go.
I'm currently a University Student, and even it bores me. It'd be nice if we could have a nice community, with a nice education system that works, and meets the needs of every student.
I even have ideas on exactly how it should be done.
Anyone care to engage in intellectual discourse on the subject?
iconnor@penultima.org
Despite the TV ads and the words the recruiters give out, the Armed Forces is not an escape from the hell of High School, for those that turn 16 - 18...for nerds it is a descent into a totally different hell...one that can damage you for life or kill you for real... My brother was "different" and took that out...he came out with a DD, and is COMPLETELY non-functioning now...I was luckier, I had Vietnam and they were looking for homicidal maniacs, so I got to take out my anger on innocents and the Enemy...been out 10 years and only now getting my head together, but I could always "pass," even in High School... Letters like this make me wonder whether the problems of homelessness, drug abuse, etc. are actually responses to the pain and suffering the American/Anglican system imposes on our youth in High School...I agree with the posts here, I just wish we could hold the school teachers and authorities up to the District level CRIMINALLY CULPABLE...my wife was a school teacher, until she quit in disgust...she used to say that if the Russians had done to our children what we did in the schools, we would have called it an act of war. Dead Mike
I did 27 years...was _paid_ to be weird...paid to work out...sent to some of the best schools in the world...learned a trade (besides my Primary NEC--which might as well have been "Homicidal Maniac" for all the translation to the civilian world it had)...make beaucoup bucks and most importantly got out of the little mud puddle that was my home town (incidentally, a former "sister city" of Littleton)...
My point was that it isn't for everyone... many of my shipmates (including my brother) were "lost at sea" or worse...I remember one young D&D'er in the early '80s who disappeared in the Straits, along with 300 pounds of tie-down chains: He was in the Computer/Data Systems Division...
From your talk of "the Regiment" I take it you were either a Ranger or a memeber of the British or one of the Commonwealth forces...If so, I didn't mean to denigrate the Armed Foorces of any state..._My_ time in the Navy was the best in my life too...I could do what I was best at and not have to worry about ostracization, because my aggressiveness, my braininess and, yes, my homocidal _RAGE_ against what was done to me in my teens was rewarded, not punished...Eight years later, my brother enlisted in an _ENTIRELY_ different Navy (today's Navy) and wound up _SEVERELY_ damaged...My point was that to join the service when you don't fit in in high school is a _HELL_ of a gamble...It could mean your life...
My second point was that no one in the US is talking abbout holding the school authorities (who spent more than 8 waking hours a day, every day with these young men) _CRIMINALLY NEGLIGENT_...also, we might consider these little Podunks like Littleton...these mud puddles...these cess-pits of conformity and miscegenation...these "family friendly" small towns that Moms and Dads move to out of Fear for Their Childrens' Well Being...the problems can be worse in Littleton than in the Bronx, or LA, or the South Side of Chicago...the authorities (up to and including the Mayor and the Police Chief) and certainly the school authorities, including the teachers and administrators are primarily to blame...the real violence here was done not to the 13 victimes, but to the young men and their peers that felt pressed to exact their revenge this way...who knows, if they had waited a few weeks, there might have been a war for them to temper their anger on, as there was for me...
Dead Mike
If you smoke 2 packs a day for 30 years, then die of lung cancer, we may blame your doctor for not finding that tumor when it was small enough to be operable, but fundamentally it was the cigarettes that caused your cancer.
These kids were being forced to smoke 2 packs a day of dehumanization, and their parents didn't catch the tumor of hate in time. The problem with expecting the parents to prevent this is that we'll never be able to catch all the cases in time. There are kids who are clever enough to hide it well and parents who are too uninvolved or too much in denial to do anything effective. Denial is epedemic. What about all the parents who've no idea that their "good kids" are daily tormenting and physically abusing their peers? Who never instilled compassion and the need to treat everybody as human in their children? I think that at the very root they're just as much to blame for this whole horrible chain of events.
To prevent this from happening again, we need to remove the cause of the hate. This is the motivation behind our posts. Nobody is trying to justify or condone what happened. We're speaking out because we don't want to ever see it happen again, and we feel like we have a better insight into the crucial "why" of this than mainstream society is able or willing to.
Stop the hate. Humanize high school.
The following is my response to the Littleton massacre. A horrible event that could of been prevented. But the public system was too blind to see it coming:
I am 22, and since the age of 4 I've been a Geek. All through grade school I was considered a thug because of the people I hung out with people who
liked to think, rationalize things, and for that I was an outcast along with them. I developed a horrible temper, and was sent to the principal on
a regular basis because I wouldn't take the insults. And this was just 4th and 5th grade.
Then came middle school, I saw the anger I had, which was the same anger my father had, was killing him, and would kill me too if I didn't
try and control it. It took months of work on my self to bring myself to a level where the insults and ridicule wouldn't trigger the rage against people who saw me as a freak because I like chemistry, math, computers, and Star Wars.
But this if ofcourse didn't stop anything. In fact, it only made it worse because now I would "take it". In the 7th grade it got to the point
where I had to switch schools. My father had divorced my mother and moved to the suburbs. I can't describe the nightmare of that year.
In a world where you had to be a jock, or cheerleader in order to not be slammed as a nerd, it was straight out of the movie "Disturbing Behavior". I was supposed to go to the local highschool after that, but I moved back with my mother in the city, where there was at least
more people who thought on my same level. I would of rather died then stayed in the suburb where I was. They threaten to take me back, I threatened
to run away, never to return, and showed them the bus ticket to prove it.
Ah yes. High school. The most patheticly egotistic and superficial institution I know of. My freshman year was just as bad as 8th grade, only at least here I had a group of fellow geeks to lean on. Nerd, Geek, Dork, you name it I was called it. That was until an honest accident in high-school.
I was mixing two chemicals to study air pressure in a contained blast, for a science project, the teacher knew about it. I forgot that the vent fan wasn't on so it was basicly a big contained
box. I blew up the chemical shield that the compound was contained in. In a full class of 40 kids, the room was cleared in 10 seconds. They refused to come back in with me in the room. I was given a suspension, and was told that if anyone wanted a bomb from me, I was to report them immediately.
After this I was never ever bothered again. The people who once thought of me as a freak, thought of me as now a dangerous people who could snap
at anytime. They left me alone, and my friends and I who knew that I wouldn't hurt anyone, laughed, and were also saddened that it took an accident and the fear of me the "Crazy bomb making psycho" to finally make the cruelty stop.
My sophmore year I met my wife, online, and she supported my "crazyness" my irrational "curiosity" and now I'm a programmer and system administrator
at the midwests largest private ISP.
What the Littleton kids did was horrible. But not surprizing. My hearts go out to the families of the people who died. But we need to look at the
social struture of our schools. They can be segregated and twisted environments, which lead to twisted individuals who no longer see the value in life. Individuals who won't control the rage, and have no support system to vent it.
And then you have Littleton.
To those in school who see this situation as their own, you have to take heart. With places like Slashdot, you have a vent. You have a culture that accepts you are on the net. Life gets much better
after high-school. Find people who you share the
same ideas with, and who you can be creative with.
Don't get isolated. Find your kind. They ARE out there. The net makes it much easier for us to find eachother. And when the Jocks the people who find our curiosity dangerous and offensive are 30 years old with beer guts, watching re-runs of "All in the Family" wondering why the NFL hasn't called, you can laugh from your leather chair in your office knowing that for all your suffering, it paid off.
I went to high school in Canada in the early eighties, and never had any problems as a nerd. I got top marks, played dungeons and dragons, and took the first computer courses offered in my school. I was never attacked, beaten up, or even harrassed by the more popular students. The worst they would do is just ignore me.
What some of you might find unusual, is that as high school went on, things only improved. I would attribute this overall "maturing" on everyone's behalf. By the time I was in my final year, "jocks" and "nerds" could be found talking to each other, getting along, and going to the same parties.
Credit for this atmosphere lays entirely on the teachers, I think. They were mostly very friendly, and encouraged toleration.
I wonder how much sports has to do with problems in America. It seems to me (based on the media) that Americans take sports very seriously, and that academics takes a back seat.
At 49, I am considerably older than most slashdotters, and I believe I have a somewhat wider perspective based on those years of life. I was a nerd in high school myself, in the mid to late 60's. I was so much a nerd that I carried a briefcase, because it was so much easier than fighting a stack of books. And I remember the unending, although low-key, harassment because of it. I was the outsider, an early computer geek because the math club had access to a business' mainframe computer so we could practice programming. I understand being an outsider.
In some ways, I understand the kids at Columbine High School. But I do NOT condone what they did. I do CONDEMN the system, the parents, and the (so-called) FRIENDS!
No way could those kids obtain the guns and explosives legally! Someone else had to buy them, or else the kids were buying black market. Did that person think about what these kids would do with that stuff? Or if they were going to the black market, where did they get that much money?
Someone, quite a few someones, had to know what was going on. Did anyone try to stop it? I have seen news reports that claim that reports were turned in, at school (to both administration and teachers) and to the parents. Apparently, no one listened. There is a point where teen angst stops and true violence starts and these kids were past that point a long time ago.
For the kids in this story, who suffered that backlash and scapegoating, and all of those who are like them (as I was), try not to let the backlash get to you too much. There are ways to compensate. Each will be different, for no two of us are the same, but if you look, and especially if you look together with the friends you have, you can find an answer. Face to face friends are better than internet friends for this, if for no other reason than sharing hugs. It might not be macho, but it sure feels good.
It is hysteria, an unthinking reaction by the unthinking media, administration and parents to something they don't really understand and are frightened by. It will pass, over the summer.
As you move on into the real world and try to survive, like all the rest of us, remember this and don't do everything the same way it was done before. Some of you will become teachers, and those I salute. You, especially, can prevent the future from echoing the past!
I came from another culture (Hong Kong to be exact). No. The situation in our High School
is different, at least during my time,
which is unluckily more than 10 years ago.
There are probably two reasons. First, the
schools usually took disciplines and order
much more seriously. Bad behaviors like
bullying others wouldn't be tolerated.
Second, the concept of a good student is way
different from here. Intelligence and excellence
in academic matters are more highly regarded.
Physical fittness is an admirable attribute
but only if it comes together with intelligence.
My two cents. Not sure how much things have
changed now.
I am a high school student, and I border on the "geek" defintion.
We spent much of the day in school today discussing the Littleton massacre--the Principal came on the intercom, we observed a moment of silence--and I tried to tell my classmates that although I don't condone the actions of those two boys, I can understand it. I tried to tell them that isolation and humiliation leads to anger and sucidial, destructive actions. I tried to tell them that High School is a horrible environment for many people, that it is very difficult, very isolating. And boring. Most of my classmates looked at me with blank stares. Most of my classmates actually like school, something I don't understand. I've told them before that I hate high school, and they tell me I'm insane. "High school," they tell me, "is the best years of your life! What about the prom? What about your senior year?"
I guess I'm luckier than a lot of kids. My parents are wonderful and let me take college classes at night to keep me from going insane with boredom. I keep quiet in class, and have found that when I shut up about computers, sci-fi, and politics I can have a few friends. I'm the only geek at my school so I have to conform while there to survive. I tried not conforming last year, to be myself, and discovered that there was no one else. Very depressing.
--jalen
"Even a single lamp dispels the darkness"
--Gandhi
Well, i must admit. High School was interesting. I'm 22 years old now. I work as a Sr Systems Administrtor for a web company, i've done contracts for bell companies, internet companies and all sorts of mad crazy jobs. I can admin, i dropped out of high school. High school was pointless. I just wanted to do what i wanted to do. that isn't sports, that isn't theater, and it wasn't math or english either. I wanted to use my mind and my computer and school didn't help that or reinfoce that at all. I basically just skipped class, went out and partied, got a job and did my own thing. If i stayed in school i had to deal with people harrassing me for whatever reason it is.. I find it kind of ironic that now since i'm making alsmost 6 figures i'm "da bomb" i don't have any problems and i'm socially acceptable. But i find most of my friends soon after ditching me because i work a steady job and i do things to improve my skills. I'm a computer nut, i have messy hair, i wear strange clothes, i have piercings, i've been through mo hawks and shaved heads and combat boots to addidas.. but i'm not a bad person. i have different needs, different tastes and different styles. Just because i don't conform doesn't make me evil. and just because i'm unique doesn't mean my parents did a bad job. this is the 90's baby, its almost the year 2000. people should get there asses out of the head and solve the problem rather then wonder what it is.. obviously its 1) GUNS 2) People and 3) Society. Its not games, its not music and its not freedom. its everyone thats taking those rights away from us that are causing these issues, not the people listening to it. Its differences in people and the ineptness of one another to work together that causes this. Screw unions, screw religion, screw society.I am my own self. and i believe in myself. and just because i don't believe in your god or your beliefs doesn't make me a bad person nor anyone else. Keep on wearing what you want, keep on doing what you want. Your life is YOUR LIFE. Dont let idiots and biggots take away your freedom. But at the same time, remember that we are all a part of society and that we all have our differences and that being unique doesn't make you any better then anyone else. just be fair, be kind and things will work out. don't worry about what the rest of the world thinks of you, worry about how you think of yourself and what you want in life. it is your life after all.
Wow, I thought that that was a really great story. It really struck a chord w/ me, cause I've had experiences similar to those in the stories. I am a social outcast for the most part and detest my school with a vengeance. I see incompetance and stupidity wherever I look and don't particularly want to waste my time pretending that this is a valid system any of us live in and that it's not completely arbitrary and poorly put together.
In the past few years I've had a bit of a rude awakening. I've discovered that my parents have ceased to understand me. I explain things to them and they simply don't get it. One could make a case that the communications error is on my side, but even when I ask them simple questions they will answer them wrong. It often requires me 2 or 3 repetitions to get the response to the question I asked and not to some other. In school, the administration is incompetant and corrupt. I guess I can't complain totally here, because their corruption and incompetance has saved me from criminal prosecution (shhh, don't tell). Most of the teachers are idiots to the point where the school has finally asked one to leave because his classes would simply put up with him no longer fought with him constantly. We have to put up with poorly lit, unventilated, fume filled classrooms, and poor construction of the new ones that I've heard our Hitler look alike VP refer to as "the final solution." And yet I've intervened w/ by a commitee that is in place to identify "at risk" students, conveniently the week that those kids went postal.
I wear a trenchcoat. I wear all black. Right now I am wearing a T-Shirt that says I HATE THIS TOWN. I do. The area I live in is conservative to the point where it sickens me. They think nothing of going into our school with drug-sniffing dogs, going through our lockers, and searching through our belongings. Our newspaper is highly censored and did not allow me to print an article in which I commented on a field trip to Unisys because of some odd reason of which I cannot ascertain. In that same issue 5 articles (I counted) appeared by one girl pertaining to things I couldn't care less about, including thrift shops and horoscopes. When I am unsatisfied with this system I am branded "at risk."
The people I hang out with (most of whom I dislike, but band together with out of disgust for the rest of the school population) are harrassed by the administration, treated unfairly, and used to be called the "trenchcoat brigade" by the faculty before some kids with more mental problems than us killed their classmates and suddenly having a derogitory name for us became in bad taste, not so much out of concern for our welfare, but out of a misplaced sense of decency that led to one disciplinarian taking me out of my AP Calculus class for 10 mins a week before our mock exam which represents almost all of our grade and a few weeks before the AP exam, led to him harrassing me to take off the trenchcoat, and then led to the principal doing a little repeat performance later that period.
I thought that I had it rough then until I heard some of the other stories. I did not realize that arbitrary suspensions, expulsions, and arrests were not merely isolated incidents, but more a trend in schools. Sometimes I wish that the school would pull the same shit that they did with some of these students and do something that's more an outright violation of my civil rights. I would get so much joy out of suing them that it's unfathomable to their puny little minds. Of course sometimes I worry when I read summaries of state and federal Supreme Court deicisions. I worry that the days of just, constitutional decisions are over and that these recent decisions in favor of organized religion, brutal police, and Big Brother schools are just a grim portent of things to come.
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face-for ever.
-George Orwell, 1984
Nice little essay you've got there, but I'm thinking you need to look up the word superlative, though I'd definitely define Hitler as such.
You are a lucky one. While threatening a lawsuit can often work, your other methods are far less likely to do so. My school newspaper kills any article the administration wants with no explanation whatsoever, and if it's challenged, then they dismiss this. Somebody would actually have to sue the school to get this altered and that would need to go up to a rather high level in the ultraconservative community in which I live. This communities misplaced priorities are also the reason why no local paper would ever publish an article criticising the school or expressing any idea of any worth whatsoever.
oh you are being so repressed... poor baby...
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
It' only really when I read about people's experiences like this that I realise how lucky I was. I went to a selective (based on academic merit) school. As a result although I was a bit of a geek there there wasn't really any of the victimisation that I would have experienced at a normal school.
Another good Katz article.
Is this just an North American Cultural Thing? I'm an Australian and school here was different. I went to an all-boys Christian Brothers school and was a definite geek, and loner. I was crap at sport, did well in class, and played (basic) D&D with my friends. (At school!) - Not that I saw my friends after school - we all lived > 3 kilometers away - and we didn't have computers (Atari 800's came out when I was in Yr 8)
/. articles.... Thanx.
While there were some hidden problems at the school - (After I left School some of the Brothers (2) went up on Child Sex Charges) - we never had this intense level of isolation and ostricisation that seems to be in American Schools.
I'm wondering if this some huge "clique" thing of American social system and schools. Do schools really isolate people so badly? And is this just a result of the way America is socially. (Being so uptight and self-righteous as you appear to us Aussies)
From our (Aussie) point of view:
America idolises your hero's - and winners. There is imense support for people who do really well, and not much for people doing okay - or just giving it a go.
Australia - well our greatest heroes (ANZACS - lost their "war" - Gallipolli) did their best, and died. We suport the middle guy, or the underdog and have "Tall Poppy" syndrome - when someone gets too big - you bring them back down to size.
Anyway, this is all the way through our society. Sure you get picked on for being too smart, or too white (I was a goth and didn't know it?) but on the same hand, guys who did weight lifting got jokes made about not being able to get their shoulders through the doorways. Even though I felt isolated and like my friends and I were copping most of the "picking on" - everyone was fair game.
Probably the main rule was : If you gave it out, you had to take it when it came to you. Is this in america? Is it viewed that if you give others shit, you have to accept it when others do it to you?
Mind you - I had some "interesting" teachers in school. I'd believe that ridicule and humour is something all teachers need to know. My view of america is only what you see on TV - you have dull boring teachers. We had teachers who's best way to stop fights or classes was to bring the two people out to the front of the class, and get them to play "knucles" in front of the class. Mind you the teacher would always let the smaller guy go first, or give him a bonus "3 goes for him per 1 go of the other guy". It always seemed to stop the bullies as they knew they were going to be humilated if they did anything - especially if they were chicken and pulled their hands back. I never actually saw anyone actually go through with it - The geeky person was usually just satisfied with having the bully identified and made fun of.
This sort of typifies Australia. Sure I lost my temper at school - and earned two nicknames in the process "The Pink Fit" and "Jekyll & Hyde" but the same guys who made fun - also helped me out when I broke both my ulna and radius in my left arm. It's this idea of helping someone in trouble - that some Aussies view as a quintessential Australianism.
I wonder if America works like this? It's difficult for me to put the recent happenings into focus, without understanding what America is like compared to Australia.
If you feel like replying, please email me directly, as I have almost no chance of finding it in the
I lucked out when I was in high school. I was in an accelerated program that was like its own school on the high school campus. We had our own administration and counselors. Every class I took was with people in the same range of intelligence and desire to learn as me. Still, we had some contact with the "regular" students. Those of us that participated in a sport were targeted by the jocks as nerds and by the nerds as jocks... but it was still better to be a jock among the nerds than a nerd among the jocks. My friends were all computer nerds, geeks and hackers.
High School should be a place where you learn to think freely and independently. We should not be teaching conformity and how to follow along with the herd. It is not our sameness that makes our society great, it is our differences
hell yeah. if i hadn't gone to a private school where being smart was cool,
i don't know what i would have done. but it sucks to rely on scholarships
to keep oneself sane.
Geeky females get to deal not only with the pervasive
anti-intellectual bent of American schools, we also have to deal with
a culture that tells us that if you're young and female and don't look
like a supermodel, you don't count. Being female in HS is hard enough;
being female and a geek is worse. IME you've gotta be "one of the boys"
to be accepted/respected by geek guys, and that's not always the greatest
either.
The Colorado school shootings make me want to buy a bunch of the stickers
that Unamerican.com sells:
"THIS TOWN EATS ITS YOUNG" and post them around my hometown.
One of those kids looks just like a guy i knew in HS who got suicidal
because he couldn't deal with the XOR choice between being smart
and being cool. damn shame.
srl
No, just wait until you get out of college. There are decent MOTAS out there. and in general, ppl don't figure out until they're older that intellect can be as important as looks in a partner. College and HS are just the beginning, but it doesn't seem that way
while you're in them.
we now return you t your regularly scheduled topic...
srl
If you really hate high school, but are a good student, see if there's a chance you can graduate early. A friend of mine skipped 11th grade by taking English in summer school. Just think, one less year of torture...
That's what I did. Dropped out when I was sixteen and tested into college. It saved me from having to burn the damn high school down. If you can't understand why the kids did what they did, then you are probably one of the things that make kids like that do what they did.
But until you're sixteen there's really nothing you can do about it. Don't let them change you, don't let them scare you, tell them 'Fuck you' every chance you get and take your beatings like a man.
Then leave as soon as you can and don't look back.
You said, "And yes, nearly fifteen years after my walk through high school hell I am still angry over how I was treated and how the school administration prevented me from living in a reasonable non-violent and non-abusive environment."
As am I, and it's been 22 years since I left Hell Elementary School. (I shudder to think what would have happened to me if junior high and high school had been anywhere near as terrifying.)
I don't have children, but if I ever do, this will be the number one reason why I would strongly consider home schooling. Private schools are good for an education, but I don't believe that they are much better at the social aspect.
//
You said: "Once my parents found out, they tested my IQ (it was high) and put me back in the regular class, but the teacher resented it - she took every opportunity to tell me, in front of other students, that I was retarded and that I didn't belong in the class."
There are some teachers who are just as much bullies as the worst bullies in the student population. Unfortunately the teaching profession doesn't seem to have a way to screen them out.
I went through some of the same stuff; my second grade teacher seemed to resent me greatly though I'm not sure why. I was already reading at a 9th grade level, but she put me in the lowest reading group, and wouldn't allow me to work ahead. I was punished for reading independently.
In fourth grade, when I was nine, it was even worse -- we had a teacher who, two weeks into the quarter, split the classroom into a "good side" and a "bad side" and assigned us to the sides based on his perceptions of our behavior in the first couple of weeks.
One of the kids on the bad side wasn't bad at all; just quiet and artistic. He got in trouble because his handwriting (which was beautiful) was faint and light, and a bit hard to read because of it. That alone got him assigned to the bad side, and the teacher constantly kept after school, yelling at him to press harder when writing.
Other things this teacher did were just as twisted. He threw chalk at a student who couldn't get the right answer to a question, and hit him directly in the eye. He told us we couldn't have art class (he was the art teacher for all the fourth graders in the school) because we were bad kids who didn't deserve it. In December, he put me out on the porch (our class was in a portable building) for some transgression, and locked the door from the inside. I wasn't allowed to take my coat. It didn't take long before I was freezing and knocking on the door, but he wouldn't let me back in the room. I was scared to go in the main school building because I knew I would get in trouble. But finally I went to the principal's office and told them what happened, and they called my mom because I wouldn't go back to class. I think that may have been the day that my mom pulled me out of school. I stayed out of school for about three weeks until I could start at another school.
During that fall semester I was having horrible stomach pains every school day. I dreaded going to school. I would cry and scream, begging my mom not to make me go. She took me to a doctor who said "If you don't get her out of that school she will get an ulcer." I couldn't just change teachers, because all fourth-grade classes spent at least a little bit of time every day with the bad teacher.
We ended up requesting a transfer to another school. In the pre-busing days, this meant we had to have a doctor's statement, and a sponsor on the School Board. Four of us ended up transferring to various schools around town, and the teacher -- who should have at least been put on leave for the rest of the year -- continued teaching. His defense? He said he was having family problems that made him a little crazy. And he was the vice-principal, and had tons of seniority.
Anyway, when I went to the next school, the teachers were a little better but the students were far worse -- that was the school where I was beat up and otherwise abused on a regular basis. Out of the frying pan, right into the yawning pit of hellfire, as it were. But I posted about that in "Kids That Kill" the other day, and I won't go into it here.
I think that bullying teachers can be even more damaging than bullying kids -- they are the authority figures, after all. If you can't go to the teacher for help, especially at an age like 7 or 9... well... that's a really frightening place for a child.
I'd honestly like to see a no tolerance policy for school bullying. I don't know if it's possible or how it would work, but whether the bullying are students or teachers, it must be made clear that we don't accept that behavior in schools. There are far too many teachers, parents, and administrators who are willing to call the bullying a normal part of growing up and just pat the bullies on the head with a minor punishment, if any. We cannot and should not tolerate this.
What can we do about it?
//
L'Ecole Polytechnique isn't a highschool. Its a a "poly technic institute" ... Its about 5 blocks from my house, I know. At the same time, you can't treat that situation the same. There is one fundamental difference. The man in the EP shootings was wacko from the start. The two shooters in denver were only 1) Able to justify their actions because it was acceptable in their peer group (they probably couldn't have done it if it was only 1 person) and 2) it was caused by external stress rather than specific internal defects. I went to a Canadian highschool. For those of you outside of the cushy suburbian and urban atmosphere (which geographically is much more of canada) like where I grew up, everyone has guns. Not just little handguns and .22 rifles but BIG guns. Very few of these are obtained "legally" or are registered. The difference is that country kids are raised with a sort of awe of guns. Guns are not fantastic things which cause pleasure. Like a tractor or car they are essential tools (groundhogs and other rodents are a real threat to crops or livestock due to disease or consumption.) and we learn how to safely operate them. There is absolutely no place for guns within a city. Its when city people get guns, or people get guns for the reason of intended or implied use against humans that guns begin to cause trouble.
--- ask me about nihilism, I will have nothing to tell you.
I sure hated my first few years of high school and junior high. Worst years of my life.
:-)
Ben
P.S. First Post
brain fart...
What I meant to include is that College has been the opposite. I am having a great time. The girls here actually want a smart guy.
Ben
I go to Earl Warren College at Univ. of Calif. San Diego.
Where do you go?
Ben
Well, one of the "alpha primate" types that used to bug me.....well, he was screwing one of the teachers in high-school.
Well, guess what? Today, she is a fat cow and he's a *janitor* at the adjoining grade school.
It brings a smile to my face every time I think of him cleaning up some poor kids puke!
Yes, Virginia, there *IS* a Santa Claus!
I am currently a senior in high school, and the shootings have struck a nerve with me, as it apparently has with the entire nation. I am one of the few people in my school of 1500 kids that can see the viewpoints of the Trenchcoat Mafia... throughout high school, I have been shunned and mocked for being "smart" and being a "geek." Fortunately for me, I was also a starting football player and wrestler, which kept me away from daily beatings. Most people in the country have never had to go through years of constant torment without any way to retaliate. While I do not condone in any way killing people because they are mean to you, steps should still be taken to right this moral dilemma in our society. Why should the "popular" kids be allowed to push around the future leaders of the world? It makes little sense. We "nerds" are the ones who will make the world a better place, not the party-every-weekend group. Schools need to be reformed in order to keep this from happening. The teachers see most of what happens, but do not act in a way to stop it. This must change in order to stop more violence of this sort.
This remind me of the witch trials in europa a few centuries ago but although it reminds me of the spanish inquisition (don't know the english word) and all the communist hunt in America after the second world war (McCarthy) and that remind me of the pogroms made in Russia against the Jew last century and "the final solution" made by Hitler.
That's sad human can not learn to accept each other differences and end up with hating other people that don't fit in their perception of the world.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
school sucks society sucks social groups suck jocks SUCK!!! i wear all black, in fact every article of clothing i wear is black (except for some boxers and one pair of pants)... those kids were dumb tho since they were nazis. linux rules. i like being an outcast
--
hellraiser ( @linuxfreak.com || @nac.net )
awk 'BEGIN { printf "Just another %s hacker\n", ARGV[0] }'
--
hellraiser ( @linuxfreak.com || @nac.net )
awk 'BEGIN { printf "Just another %s hacker\n", ARGV[0] }'
Perhaps some form of martial arts could be something if he is interested?
/.'ers are martial artists as well. (And then it can't be all bad, can it? ;-)
I've learned one thing from growing up, though Swedish schools are better, kid's can be cruel regardless of gender/race/nationality. And sadly many of these kids only understand naked force.
I'm not suggesting that you teach your kid to maim others. Anyone who has trained martial arts know that it's very soothing for your personality and is good for many mental activities as well.
Personally I've never been very interested in sports, martial arts is much more about "personal advancement" than most sports. Which appeals to me. If the kid is interested (perhaps he should get a little older.) then Judo or similar is a good one get into. It's really extremely defensive if you (or SO) have problems with "teaching your kid to fight". I'm no expert on the subject though. However I bet many
//Marcus Hast, Lund, Sweden
One way out is homeschooling - from just after sixth grade until the start of college I was homeschooled. I think it really helped me out, and it definitely let me pursue my interest in computers as deeply as I liked (which was pretty deep!) without any fear of ridicule or harassment.
I think things like the Columbine tragedy might make a lot more people consider homeschooling - it is a big commitment though!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I was homeschooled from the end sixth grade through the start of college, in the early days of homeschooling (I'm 29 now).
I think I learned a lot more about intereacting with other ADULTS and taking responsibility than many of my fellow friends who attended a "real" high school. Just because you are homeschooled does not mean you cannot go out and do things, have labs, or play sports if you like.
My sisters were also homeschooled until college, and have no problems whatsoever interacting with people.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As I've already mentioned in one or two other responses, I was homeschooled from the end of sixth grade until the start of college (I'm 29 now, that was a while ago).
As other responder already mentioned, you can learn just about anything you like on your own. My parents helped choose what curriculum and materials I needed in order to learn what I needed to learn, but a lot of time was just spent learning on my own, with them there to help if I needed it... a lot more like college than high school, and I think it prepared me well for college. Plus I got to choose what interests to focus on - I chose computers, and by the time I went to college I knew I wanted a computer science major and never once wavered from that.
Now it's even easier on kids homeschooling - my little sister just recently started attending college after being homeschooled almost her whole life. She's doing really well in college (in fact better than I did), has no problems making friends or doing anything she wants to.
For studying literature, there are online groups that my sister used, in fact she was for a while a moderator on a "Young Adults Book Club" room on AOL (cough). She was also in a homeschooling orchestra, and is also in the orchestra at college now as well.
Homeschoolers can have chemistry/biology/any other labs you care to think of, and for topics that are too much for the parents to help with there are always community college courses to help round you out, and many high schools (at least in the US) are starting to let homeschoolers have access to band class or labs there as well.
Sure homeschooling support groups have a lot of parent time together - after all, it's a big step for any parent to try and teach their kids and they generally need some support to know how to proceed. But many other homeschooling activities also just have kids - one thing we did (kind of in the place of a prom) was a night out to a dinner theatre for the whole group. No parents attended, it was great.
Plus, if you don't like the other homeschooling kids nothing is stopping you from seeing the other kids you like still going to school - one of my best friends from my high school years attended the local high school.
And as for suddenly being one of two thousand people - after having been homeschooled and then going to school with many people who had been shaped by the normal high school experience, I felt more like I was one out of two thousand people, not one of two thousand. I felt better prepared than many there.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
My flatmate is frightened of guys with long hair and black clothes, despite the fact that her only (!) experience of meeting one was unilateraly positive. It reminds one of the cliche regarding "[Insert ethnic group] people can't be trusted/steal/are bad. Of course John/Jill is different, but they are an exception. And no, I don't know any blacks/jews/whites/asians, other than John/Jill."
Most of my (male) friends (I am in my mid-twenties) have long hair and wear black clothes (and long coats). In general, such people are among the quietest, friendliest, most-least-likely-to-harm people I know. I know it has been said before, and most people reading Slashdot will know it anyhow, but it bears repeating over and over - and not just here, but in any social setting we find ourselves in - in order to defend people's freedoms: Fashion and computer games don't kill, people with guns do.
On School, I come from Ireland, and my experience was that much of school was blighted by the natural propensity for evil of a small proportion of teenagers, and the instinct of the majority to blend in with the confident students.
However, I think that the situation described by many commentators - on Slashdot and elsewhere - where Sports Jocks are viewed as minor gods, and the only way a teenager should want to be, is not matched here in Ireland. I always thought those films and TV shows were using an unrealistic stereotype (geeks vs. jocks), and wondered why it was so popular an image. Now I know.
One (short) final point : here in Ireland, coverage of sport in the media has reached saturation point. I like current affairs and talk radio, but it is impossible to listen to a talk-based station, without a sports item being put into every general programme, as well as dedicated sports shows. This saturation thing is recent. Are there similar developments elsewhere, and is there a solution?
Andrew
-------
I'd rather go down in familiar flames than be lost in that endless blue.
My kid is 6 year old too. He figured out how to multiply on his own. He knows how to spell "Linux".
My wife and I decided to homeschool. There are many reasons for this. We don't want our kids to experience the prison-like atmosphere of schools like we did, and we are sure it's even worse now than when we were in school. We want to include religious ideas in our teaching, instead of atheist/humanist ideas. We think we can teach the core subjects better than the schools and give our kids the opportunity to direct some of their own studies and have fun learning, instead being bored to death by schools.
Many people worry about the social life in homeschool. It is a non-issue. Find a homeschool support group (there are many, since homeschooling is a growing movement), and give your kids a chance to have positive interaction with people who are not exactly their own age. Give them a chance to be their own person and avoid the terrible peer pressure in school.
There are many alternatives to public schools, including many types of private schools. If enough people used them, perhaps the public schools would be forced to change.
One interesting note about the reaction to the shootings is how few among the media seem able to understand how anybody could hate high school.
If you think about it, the reasons are pretty obvious. Your average TV reporter is likely the type of person who was popular in high school.
Many studies have been done that show that when people are applying for jobs, better looking candidates are more likely to be hired than technically superior, but not as good looking competitors. This applies to jobs where appearance is not relevant to the job in any way (back-office, techs, etc.). It applies more when customer interaction and charisma plays a part of the job (sales, reception). And of course it plays a very big role when appearance is central to the job (acting, modelling, and of course TV reporting).
So should be no big surprise if your average TV anchorperson loved high school.
It has often been the case that the popular people in high school become the leaders of society. This is not through any particular skill, other than people skills, but rather from charisma, contacts, and good looks.
An interesting supporting statistic is the average height of US presidents. On average they are giants. It isn't the only reason they're hired, but this imposing presence is something people find attractive when choosing someone to lead them.
The interesting thing is that this power structure seems to be shifting. Since the early 1990s there has been a shortage of skilled computer professionals. This is one field where looks matter less than competence. There has always been a need for technically competent people. But that hasn't always translated into power. Now, the combination of omnipresent technology, an extremely fast-moving technological environment and a communications medium to tie these people into a sense of community has started to give "geeks" true power.
It used to be that successful chief executives didn't need to really understand technology as long as someone beneath them did. These days things are changing. The CEO of IBM can't run the company like it sells typewriters anymore.
Since the very things that make someone an outcast in high school are the very things that tend to make a good geek, how long will it be before high-school changes to accomodate this new world?
I promise not to get all mushy about this, but shucks, hasn't the quality of this thread been great? It's unfortunate that it's taken such a tragedy to pull this community together, but we may have found the one topic with truly universal resonance among slashdot readers: the trauma that is high school.
/.? I doubt it. But next time you start loading up that flamethrower to toast some wrongfully-opionioned fellow /.'er, remember your highschool years, and what it's like to be on the receiving end. Don't become the musclebound ape in highschool that faithfully tried on you each new wedgie that Dinosaur Bob comes up with.
:-)
And it's startlingly unanimous. Last time I checked this thread, there were 612 postings at level 0, and 611 at -1. That's right- 1 article has been moderated down. And it was the only one criticizing the posting of the story (that I saw). When have we ever seen a Katz article that has generated so much traffic that wasn't the familiar "Katz sux vs Learn to filter" flamefests?
This demands some self examination from us, as a group. What happened to that macho-geek verneer that so many of us cling to when we're talking about other subjects? Why do we inflict on each other the same kind of abuse that so many of us are so bitter about receiving in high school? Make no mistake about it: there normally is a conformity-enforcement engine running here that is as viscious in words as the sticks and stones and fists hurled at the misfits in high school. Just look what happens when someone advocates a pro-Microsoft position.
There's irony in the fact that the very topic which prompted such an outpouring of heartfelt honesty is probably responsible for much of the vitriol normally found here. The angst, anger, shame, and depression many geeks experience in highschool leaves scars that are too often evident in the bitterness and callousness of many postings.
Is this thread a new beginning? A kinder, gentler
Unless it's about a "first post". Those bastards deserve it.
611 posts at level 0, 612 at level -1. Sigh. Rob, when are you writing that automatic proofreader? :-)
I work at a university which disallows towing illegally parked cars during football games. Sports teams have tons of money while departments such as english and anthropology are provided with little more than heating and air conditioning. These values are really messed up.
It doesn't have to be that way. My last two years of high school were spent at a public boarding school which emphasized education first and foremost above everything else (The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics). We still had jocks and rich kids, but the social structure was not as severe. All groups - sports, cheerleading, etc - were clubs. There were no try-outs. Everyone who wanted to join was allowed to do so with no exclusions. You could get a pin for your club to put on a letter jacket. Letter jackets were available for purchase by anyone from the student store.
Such a school is probably not the ideal solution for the US, but the over-emphasis on money and jocks has to end. The brief time I lived in Germany people had careers. Several played sports. But many people were equally interested in what books you read what art exhibitions you visited or what music you listened to.
I doubt scenes like this are going to end until the values of our society change.
I would like to comment about how the people who are different is treated here in Brasil.
Our people don't like confronts very much, the opposite as I understand of you Americans, here if you go to a restaurant and is not treated well many people would still pay the tip to the waiter (the one that dind't treated you well in the first place) just to don't create a messy confunsion.
Since we have this way to deal with stuff, people who are different here do not have such bad time as you describe here. Maybe that's why I am writing this, the stories that you wrote realy shocked me, as I myself wore one of those different kids, shy, lonely and very interested in computers and games (atari 2600 in those days).
I would not say it was easy but shure was much better then what you describe. I was lonely all right, mainly because I couldn't get any girl, but no one beat me or harrest me for being diferent. I was a nerd but yet I had my friends, most of the time they were something like me, but some of them were with the kids that you would call "popular". Here in Brasil we don't classify people as "popular", of course there are people that are popular, but this don't make them better then others.
It's very hard to explain how this things work here, mainly because I don't know your way and you never saw my way either. I am shure I didn't said many important things, but I hope that I gave you an idea of how brasilian schools are.
The net here in Brasil right now is quite popular, people think is cool to be on the net. And papers and magazines like to show relationships that started in the net. And of course there are people acusing TV and games like "quake" as a start of violence I never saw anyone acusing the internet. Maybe is a matter of time, since our society like to immitate what you (americans) guys says and do.
[]'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins
^[:wq
Check out this "Johnny Eagle" toy gun commercial from the 60's and then tell me it hasn't done more damage than any Quake/Doom clone.
Images and ideals like these are now embedded in the subconscious of the people who rule your country...
http://www.tvparty.com/vaultcomsat.html
The answer is not to homeschool your child. Homeschool deprives your child of social interaction, positive or negative. Kids are harsh, but the real world is also harsh. Do you really think that keeping your child at home is adequate preparation for the real world? Homeschool only serves to shelter his social growth. A strong family life can combat an adversity encountered outside the home.
I'm 21 and about to graduate college. In high school I was rather unique - I was not a part of any group, but was accepted by all. I hung out with the "non-conformists", I ate lunch with the "white-hatters", I got invited to the parties. (But I never went. working 40 hours a week on top of high school doesn't allow for much free time.) I didn't fit in anywhere.
The white-hatters thought I was wierd, because I hung out with the non-conformists. But I've always been laid back and accepting of everyone, so I was close enough.
The non-conformists thought I was wierd, because I talked to the white-hatters. But I've always been laid back and accepting of everyone, so I was close enough.
No, I didn't hate anyone. No, I wasn't ostracized. I was lucky, in that respect. Problem was, I still didn't have any friends. At least those kids who fit definitively into one group or another had friends to work with. I didn't have any.
It was tough. I didn't have anything to put my time into. I was a computer dork since middle school, and became active in the local BBS scene and met people there. But even at it's max, that was only a few hours out of my day. I never found an outlet for my time.
The one thing that kept me sane? My parents. I was lucky. I have a wonderful set of parents, that still to this day provide me with a wonderful place that I can call home. I didn't really realize it until I came to college and finally made some close friends. Long nights up talking provided me with the insight into other peoples lives to understond just how lucky I really am.
A strong family can defeat any problem. If you parents who are worried now care enough, do not homeschool your children, but simply care for them. Be a good parent, and the rest of life will take care of itself. Your children will have problems, but guess what? They'll deal with them. Katz's article in Rolling Stone a few weeks ago had a quote in it that made a very strong impression on me. "Character is a trophy you take away from conquering a trouble" By homeschooling your child, you shelter him from these troubles, and deprive him of the an essential area of growth.
Too bad this will get lost in the other 700 comments....
I don't know who you are but you are really smart and eloquent. If you are in highschool it gives me some sense of hope, to know that there are youth out their that can see things for what they are. Why you may ask? Because your mind set and skills are what America needs to help overcome Littleton and Kosovo and.... and.... and.... Please take some solace in this, what usually happens is the status quo has a problem it looks to those that can give them a solution. A solution that involves thinking outside of the status quo and over comming standard perceptions. Your words tell me that you are all ready doing that. and in that I find hope. Because one day the geeks will be the heros. Just ask Noam Chomsky. He's a geek and he's my hero.
Peace
No offense, but some of this sounds like some whining to me. I had plenty of friends in high school, was fairly popular, graduated from Carnegie Mellon, and am making a living as a consultant (mostly Perl & DB stuff). I personally take offense in that you think that my fitting in is because I was a "swallow dumbass who is basically a clone of whoever happens to be the most popular kid in school". I was one of about 5 kids in my school to have long hair, and dressed like a skate punk. Being different does not make you an outcast - it sounds like many of you look down on people who like athletics rather computers, or drinking beer on a saturday to playing Quake. Face it, people are different, and there are assholes at every level of society. I've met geeks that I can't stand, jocks that I love, and vice versa, and everybody in between. If you don't want to be generalized, don't generalize other people.
Ian
Check out DRM-free movies at http://www.bside.com
The feeling in those letters shure feels familiar. The school is relly not a good place to grow up in I would say
:/
There are lots of people who don't like to learn for example all the math or something else but they are foreced to, by family and society - this doesn't generate a good mood
Add to this that some teachers sux and you may not like your classmates.
But it still doesn't answer the question *why* kids kill their classmates
As I see it
Schools don't have to suck, they can be made better, and it's relly easier to create a good school instead of trying to censor games, taste and attitudes which would meen alter the humanity. The will to play games, be different, and have fun will always remain but why should a corrupted and destructive system be allowed to last?
De lyckliga slavarna är frihetens bittraste fiender, legalisera!!!
I think Katz has just solidified what happened to us in high school without the witch-hunt of the colorado killings. I would guess most of us here had to endure ridicule, stupidity and persecution.
I consider myself lucky, as I went to a pretty enlightened (relatively) high school, Chaminade-Julienne, where the computer geeks were able to have normal lives. On the other hand, I can't speak for the people who wear black and listen to KMFDM, as they were never people who I hung out with, so I don't know what tribulations they've gone through. What my hope is, is some wacky-alternative (ie a-typical) reporter/media type will find a way for Katz' logical word to find a way into the mainstream. Its simple to blame a big bad computer, but for the average 'rent to talk to thier kids about how they treat other kids at school is beyond the average parent.
Good luck to those still in the hell of high school, there are _much_ better things past it.
-jeff Gondek
http://www.somethingpositive.net Funny + bitter = comedy gold
I've spent 12 years of my education (1st-12th grades) in private schools, catholic actually. Its still there, just different. I was rarely bothered physically, but mentally it sucked alot at times. I've heard of public schools that are alot better for people who aren't mainstream, but they're easily outnumbered by those that are... Something out a Neil Stephenson's SnowCrash (highly recommended btw). Good luck to those still suffering through high-school. -jGondek
http://www.somethingpositive.net Funny + bitter = comedy gold
I, for one, am glad to read this type of analysis of the Colorado situation.
With some background in sociology, I have been amazed at how much energy has been spent looking in the wrong directions for blame.
With all the current emphasis on political correctness and multiculturalism, the lack of tolerance demonstrated by the school administration and "social elite" toward the "geek outcast" (note: this is not redundant) sub-culture is amazing.
Obviously, no one is ultimately to blame but the killers. They were certainly aware that their actions were wrong. But in a society where post tramuatic stress syndrome gives legal legitamacy to many evils, the society must also conclude that these young men, as well as the people quoted by Katz have experienced their share of tramuatic stress.
The late 90's answer to aleviate the stress caused by being a member of a persecuted sub-culture is to celebrate the very qualities which separate them from the mainstream.
Besides the radical approach of dismantling the public school system and replacing it with smaller, truely neighborhood based schools, I think the time is ripe for a new wave in public school administration.
Sensitivity to diversity is more than a racial or sexual issue. It must be taught that all individuals exist on a continum of style and behavior. And short of illeagal behavior, the only "wrong" behavior is that which causes harm to others.
Nerds shooting jocks is wrong. Jocks hazing nerds may be less wrong because no one dies (usually) but is still in the same family of "wrongness." Both crimes are committed because the victim is a member of the "hated other."
Perhaps the answer for the people repressed in the ways outlined in Kats' article is through the legal system. In much the same way that other minority groups fought for their rights in the courts, a few choice law suits citing the repressive environment of public schools will definately have a great impact on the national debate.
Finally, I propose a national geeks vs jocks Quake deathmatch day. It would do a lot to demonstrate that the motavation to survive and win is really something that both groups have in common.
Ted Richarson
Haven't read far enough down the postings to be sure, but this doesn't seem to have been mentioned. :)
As the father of a four year old daughter, I'm seriously concerned about schools and their effect on her. Add to that my own lousy "smart and out-of-place" high school experience and you can understand my worry.
We're still trying to decide, and my little girl is participating in the discussion, but homeschooling is looking really good! Washington State provides an equal access option of allowing homeschooled children to participate in all the same activities (band, drama, sports, etc.). This is another "child of a geek" who does more with her own little mac than most of the adults I know. She already tests out at 2nd grade in every area. The only question is if she'll calm down and believe us when we teach her! (She's a devoted skeptic
All you highschoolers! if it's as horrifying as it sounds (and as I remember), consider homeschooling. Just bring it home, and graduate early. Get out and get the geek jobs earning three times what the rest of your friends will make.
You Can Make IT!
--p
Patrick Curtain, Husband & Father ( i also write software )
http://www.swdev.com/people/patrick/
Patrick Curtain, Husband & Father ( i also write software )
I was in exactly the same position as these kids throughout my elementary school, junior high, and high school years. I had an abundance of intelligence, curiosity and computer skills, but my social skills were sadly lacking. I was somewhat of an outcast until I reached puberty, when I was Fortunately, I was blessed with better-than-average athletic ability, which saved me from being a target of daily ridicule.
I am curious about what would have happened if the situation had been reversed. What if the school's most popular athlete had gone on a shooting rampage, killing the school's social outcasts? How do you think the media would have handled it differently?
On a different note, this situation brings to light the importance of parents' relationships with their children. My parents were highly instrumental in helping me to survive my tumultuous junior high years. They constantly reminded me of the same facts that many of you have mentioned: that my tormentors were just as insecure as I was, and that the smart kids like me would be the ones who would come out on top in the end. It is very important that the parents of geeks try to give their gifted offspring a better perspective on life in general. There is much more to life then high school, and had the two Colorado teens been more aware of this fact, this tragedy might have been averted.
--= ThreeTee =--
Hey, folks. We're the choir. We accomplish nothing by preaching to each other of our personal hells. We've all been there. We all know.
Bring Jon's article to the attention of the mainstream press. E.g., you can reach the editors of the New York Times at letters@nytimes.com
Be kind and generous to those even more excluded than yourself (such people probably exist, believe it or not). Laugh at your mistakes. While it doesn't matter how you look or dress, take care of yourself physically. Flirt, especially with members of the opposite sex who are way, way out of your league. Don't bother harassing teachers and administrators; they're rarely malevolent, and there's no need to make unnecessary adversaries. Tell people what you're thinking. Turn the other cheek yourself, but don't stand by silently while others are picked on. In short, be the best person you can reasonably be under the circumstances.
There is no question that high school is an oppressive environment, sometimes wildly so. Don't ever believe it when someone tells you, "These are the best days of your life." But you don't have to go through it with your eyes on the pavement. Be a free person, no matter what. It may not be easy, but it is worth a try.
My problem is that it is hard to find other people with the same interests as I. And even if they do, I think they wouldn't want anyone to know. There are those who are too vocal on who doesn't belong.
I have a disadvantage. I used to be hyperactive until recently. And believe me, it is hard to make friends when you act like a loony. And at times, it sputters out of me without control. And I slur every now and then.
I also have quite a few advantages as well. I am mature, or at least I think I am. I try to deal with things in a rational manner. I am also somewhat intelligent. I don't make straight A's by any means, but I am good in Math. I have a very slow temper. That is very helpful with peer-abuse. But when my limit is reached, I explode. But it happens SELDOM.
All in all, high school isn't too bad when you treat it in an open way. I am a natural optimist, so your mileage may vary.
I'm 16. I don't have a car (too poor) and don't have a girlfriend (not important to me). That makes me an outcast right off the bat. Some of the jocks and others are nice to me, and I am nice back. I don't hang with them. I usually keep to myself or with a few select friends of mine.
But high school is in no way easy.
--
--
My wife calls it 'Nerd Revenge!!'.
Nerd Revenge!! is where the 'outcasts' in highschool end up in VERY high paying enjoyable jobs, and the people who picked on the 'outcast' end up asking the 'outcast' "do you want fries with that?".
[SOB STORY RANT]
I was picked on in highschool. I actually 'snapped' at one point in time, I was sent home for standing up in the middle of class and screaming at some 'jocks' who were throwing 'paper footballs' at me. Summed up I told them to F-off and die, they told me it was I who would die. I stopped and looked around and realized the sillyness of it all and proceded to laugh, they thought I was laughing at the threat of death. I was sent to the office and held for about an hour, didn't stop laughing the whole time, they finally sent me home for the day. On my way home, during lunch hour, the 'jocks' actually hit me with their car (~5mph), and proceded to 'whup' me. One small problem with their plan... My parents in one of their 'Lets boost his self esteem' plans, enrolled me in AIKIDO when I was in 6th grade. I was able to hold them off until the Police came and hauled them away, assault with deadly weapon (car). No one touched me ever again, I was actually 'praised' for being able to 'hold my own'.
[/SOB STORY RANT]
The whole point of the above stuff is, a while ago I was at a BurgerKing for a 'lunch meeting' with some co-workers, the guy who took our order was the driver of the car that hit me.
Karma
--
Bun-Bun Rules!
90% of day read
10% of
What millions of adults just do not seem to get, is that for the kids attending high school, HIGH SCHOOL *IS* THE REAL WORLD. And just because it seems less serious in retrospect once you've been out of the hellhole for a few years, does NOT MAKE IT OK to dismiss the relentless torture as "kids stuff". That attitude can only make things worse - it's like saying to kids "hey your little problems at school are unimportant and meaningless, and you'll agree once you get into the real world".
How is a kid supposed to feel when you tell him his ENTIRE WORLD is some little meaningless thing that he will forget about? Is he supposed to feel better that every day of his life for the next five or ten years is going to a fiendish hell filled with torture, physical assault, anguish and hatred?
This whole thing reminded me of John Lennon's "Working Class Hero" ..
As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
When they've tortured and scared you for 20 odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be
Keep you doped wit religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be
There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be
If you want to be a hero just follow me
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
"... don't worry about what people say"
What people say isn't much of a problem. Heck, school would not have been nearly so bad if it was just verbal assault.
The real problem here is the day-in day-out physical assault that kids endure for years on end, that EVERYBODY in the system turns a blind eye to. Kids don't just tease each other relentlessly, as seems to be a common misconception - bullies/jocks/etc are literally beating up other kids - daily - and literally right underneath the noses of teachers etc. I remember a guy at our school whose hand was broken by being kicked, and another time when someone was stabbed with a knife. This was in an upper/middle class decent school in a decent area. Calling this SELF alienation is failing miserably to see what is happening here, and who are the real victims here.
"it has happened to everyone"
This is completely false, at least where I went to school - only a small minority of the students, maybe 2 or 3 percent, were beaten up, ridiculed, taunted, rejected etc day-in day-out for years. Such a tiny percentage is certainly not "everyone".
"Is there any way to drive the culture out of the kids who are in school today?"
Perhaps one way to start attempting to address this would be to train teachers on how to recognize bullying, and to punish this type of behaviour heavily (suspensions etc.) (In no other section of society is physical and/or verbal abuse tolerated as much as it is in schools - this double-standard should be addressed.)
In my school kids would beat up defenseless kids literally right under the noses of teachers. It used to absolutely astound me how a teacher could stare right at stuff like this going on, and then stare right past it. Not once in all my years at school - despite kids with broken bones and stab wounds - did I ever see a single instance of this type of criminally violent behaviour going punished at all.
As far as I'm concerned, if you condone this type of criminally violent behaviour when it is the "jocks" victimizing the "nerds", then you can't at the same time condemn criminally violent behaviour like what these gunners carried out.
For "real" psychology regarding the psychological aspects of online environments, a worthwhile read is Sherry Turkle's paper, "Constructions and Reconstructions of the Self in Virtual Reality" ( http://web.mit.edu/sturkle/www/co nstructions.html). I suggest reading the entire thing before passing judgment, the paper seems much weaker than it is if you only glance over it. It basically discusses how online social environments (in particular, MUDs) can be used to help people deal with real-life problems through role-playing and enactment.
She has a bunch of other papers on similar topics (which I haven't read yet) at her homepage http://web.mit.edu/sturkle/www/ .
Definitely better than the "games are evil, the spawn of satan, they possess our children and make them do evil things" type crap that the mass-media latches onto.
"Do the kids who got pushed around ... say something to their teachers"
Generally, no. I can't remember what happened with the stab-wound case, but the broken-hand victim claimed that it was some or other accident. (If it was my hand broken I would have taken persecution of the perpetrator as far as I could.)
Obviously it can be argued that the victims are partly to blame here for keeping quiet. Unfortunately, a combination of factors makes it extremely difficult to not keep quiet;
I could probably think of a few more reasons if I had more time.
The real way to "solve" this problem, I believe, is to attempt to reverse this seeming cultural "double-standard", which says that criminally violent behaviour is not OK except in a school situation. This means engendering(?) people, teachers particularly, with a culture of complete intolerance to bullying - an attitude towards it that is similar to the intolerance of other related "abuse" perpetrators, such as child abusers. The crime is quite similar. Society just sees one as evil and the other as "a part of growing up".
"Was such violence really ignored?"
The stabbing couldnt really be ignored because it was on school grounds and the victim had to be treated. Like I say, I can't remember too clearly what happened, but I think the "punishment" amounted to little more than a warning and perhaps a caning (which was still legal then here in South Africa, but isn't anymore.) In general, every other case was ignored, especially the "everyday" stuff. I saw time and again kids being horribly victimized while teachers, watching the whole thing, would stand by, staring 'past' this as if nothing was happening. I have no recollection of a teacher ever punishing this sort of thing, or even mentioning it out loud.
You are right, children should be taught to deal with such problems in a real-world manner. But this involves a widespread change of attitude amongst educators. I for one don't remember ever feeling that there was anyone I could go to, or anything I could say, that would have changed the situation. My situation was compounded by the fact that I suffer from clinical depression.
I believe the school system should serve as a catch-net for problems that either originate in the home or that are missed by parents. Children simply in most cases do not have the capacity to seek out solutions to their problems by themselves, and often may not even realise there is a problem. There are way too many screwed up families to just hope that wishing for better parenting is going to solve these problems. This only leaves one possible catch-point for these problems - the school system. There is no other system that has the potential to serve such a useful purpose.
I hated high-school - I used to read fantasy/sci fi books, play any role playing game I could get my hands on, and play computer games til I could barely walk just to get away from it all.
:)
I am a nerd, a geek, whatever the term - different from the norm. I was teased, beat up, jeered at, harassed, picked on - I never enjoyed any of the subjects or the teachers - save one - Computing.
Heck.. I barely scraped through High-School! And only JUST managed to get into University afterwards (I actually missed the first two rounds of offers and only got offered a place at the last minute - one day before lectures started!)
At uni though, I was finally learning about stuff I enjoyed - Computers!!!
Once in my element, surrounded by people more of my kind I did incredibly well. I graduated with honours and immediately found a highly paid job developing software. I have a house, a car, and a wonderful family - in short - I am definitely not the outcast I was ten years ago.
Why the sudden change? Environment - pure and simple. People are affected so much by the people and things around them. Have you ever noticed that if you hang around someone for too long then you start to adopt their mannerisms, speech, and expressions? We absorb so much from around us that it's inevitable. High school, for me was an incredibly negative environment - I felt so oppressed by it that I wanted to escape - books, games and computers were my forms of escapism.
Without them I might have done something crazy.. who knows. Once outside that environment though, I was free to express myself how I wanted - free to learn without social infringement - surrounded by peers who had similar ideas and were more like me.
When I look back on it all now I can't help but laugh at it all. The high-school, all the teachers - they had no clue as to my potential back then.. they couldn't understand me.
But now I can look on their silly little teaching lives, earning pathetic wages, and laugh - because I know they don't have a clue.
"Life on the edge is perilous - but the view more than compensates" - I've always been on the edge in that sense - on the fringe of social society, and though it's hard to start with (a bit like a
wizard in most role playing games) - the power later on more than compensates.
- Radix
-- Wireless WaFreenet user since March 2002
Bill Gates has stated this is his favorite book of all time. So a copy is probably in his house too.
To purchase it is not like spending money but rather it is an investment in the future in a blow against the empire
I was both jock and nerd in high school (14 years ago). Worst time of my life. I needed anti-depressants, 18 months of counseling, and strong support of my parents and my few friends to make it through without killing myself. Life has improved by magnitudes since then.
If your parents abuse you, Child Protective or Social Services steps in. If your co-workers harass you at work, The Law protects you. If some stranger harasses you, there are restraining orders, and stalking laws, and such, to use as a remedy.
But if your classmates treat you in a manner that is not acceptable in _any other facet of society_, it is called "part of the growing up process," or "all part of high school." I have never again seen the callous viciousness that permeated high school.
I do not, in any way, condone or sympathize with any violent actions. I do not condone, nor understand racism (especially because I am of mixed race).
But this national search for scapegoats must end. If the Internet and violent games cause behaviour like what has surfaced in Colorado, then how do we explain the actions of Ted Bundy and Ed Gein, whose killing sprees were far, far more sinister?
I was also an outcast in high school because of my deep interest in computers. When I was 15 my best friend told me I should enroll in American School. I enrolled and I was able to finish the last three years of high school in one and a half years while I was working a 30 hour a week job. I now work as a consultant pulling in between forty and fifty grand a year. Anyone that likes self study anf feels outcast try finding a home school to enroll in. It helped me become a much better and happier person.
For those of you who will listen, this is my personal story of HS. (It's rather long!)
/. poll - How many of you have trouble getting action on a Friday night? :)
I started high school in 1994. I thought I had real friends. Turns out I didn't. It really started in Grade 7/8. Back then, I was sort of an outcast - I loved computers, and learning anything I possibly could about science. I would go to the library and read for hours on end, on subjects as diverse as chemistry and aerodynamics. I loved to learn (and I still do - I can't get enough information).
Then one year, for our school science project, I was teamed up with a classmate of mine. We sort of hit it off, and we did well on the project. We would hang out together (sort of) and would work together on just about any project that came our way. Then high school came around.
Grade nine was hell. I would spend my lunch hours with this classmate of mine (who happens to be one of the preppie-jock guys in the school) who was a member of the larger group of preppies. I would stand there, leaning up against the lockers, with a sick feeling in my stomach.
These people were so shallow. Daily activities included barking at some of the (physically) unattractive girls in the school (some of the nicest and most intellectually and emotionally attractive girls I have ever met in my life) and pushing each other against the lockers in mock wrestling matches. I only participated on the fringes always wondering "What the HELL am I doing here"? These people were so shallow. If they didn't insult someone to their face at least once a day, they would look like they were missing something in life.
Midway through grade 10, and I had had all I could take. I finally realised that these people only liked me for the help I could give them with their homework, and the extra 20%+ I could add to their projects. Wow, did I ever feel stupid when I figured that one out.
The next few weeks were spent as a loner, desperately looking for someone to talk to about my interests. I found a group of them. Our group (rather small at 5 or 6) is probably the easiest to talk to group of people I have ever met in my life. You know that glazed-over look that other people's eyes get when you talk about technology? Not these guys. Even if they have no clue as to what you're talking about, they want to learn, and have no trouble letting you teach them.
Since the middle of last year, I have let myself loose. The preppies had ingrained in me that playing a musical instrument was an instant ticket to loserville, as was playing around with computers. They had taught me that fashion consisted of what was in the magazines today. Now, I don't care what other people have to say. I wear a black fedora and a leather jacket to school, and play in 3 bands (celtic, MoTown, and 90s rock). I'm currently working on software that does my geometry and calculus homework (which I plan to distribute to my classmates). My geometry teacher is helping me write a 3d engine. And I have never felt better.
I am often praised for my being different, and how cool that is (not only from my friends, but even the preppies). I do what is comfortable for me. If that happens to be part of one group or another, who cares?.
And those shallow preppies? I still help them with their homework (but refuse to work on projects with them, unless I'm sure I can benefit somehow), but with the satisfaction in knowing that I, the lowly geek - the guy that goes to almost no parties - knew something that the "with it" people didn't. And you know what? In my fifth (I live in Ontario, Canada, and we go to HS for 5 years if we want to go to university, 4 if community college) year, those same preppies have begun to invite me to parties, and talk to me on an equal level - maybe they aren't so shallow after all (or maybe they've wisened up in their old age).
Perhaps I had the benefit of the right school to go to. One that accepts originality more readily than most others. Or perhaps its a matter of attitude. Who knows. All I can say is that I honestly believe that high school doesn't suck (although I still can't manage to get a girlfriend - but thats another post for another story)
Thanks for listening.
Aric Guite
PS - maybe that should be a
I'm from Australia, and I really do find all of this utterly amazing.
I can relate to some of the things that people talk about, like being different (I mean who here _wasn't_ different?), and not being popular, and things like that, but pretty much nothing else.
I was top of my year several times, generally way above most of the rest of the school academically, but that didn't make me a target for the kind of bullying and torture that seems to be common in the descriptions that I have been reading. I wasn't ostracised: I was merely ignored, or left out of things. That was pretty bad at times, but never anything like the dehumanising treatment that people have been describing. And I was going to a "bad" school, probably one of the worst schools in the area.
I could easily be completely wrong here, but I think that part of the difference is simply cultural: being different in Australia is generally accepted (at least, it is in my experience). I don't know why, or why that would be different to America, but from the sound of it conformancy is _very_ highly valued there. That is not the case here.
Which is not to say that everything is sweetnes and light: children and teenagers everywhere are probably pretty much the same in that they tend to be very cliquey (sp?). But cliques are just a way of defining yourself, not everyone else. I don't think this is anywhere near as destructive as the descriptions of the American situation.
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
"Children - AND THIS INCLUDES TEENAGERS - don't
comprehend the implications of their actions.
It isn't part of their thinking process yet."
I'm sorry, but you are making a very serious mistake here. Firstly, you are assuming that children are not capable of reasoning out the consequences of their actions. This is a stupid assertion. Children are as capable of reason as you or I am: the difference is that children generally lack the experience that "mature" people have, so they quite often don't take their reasoning to it's "correct" conclusion. This is inexperience, not a fundamental inability to reason. And given that, why would you want to minimise your children's chances at gaining experience?
Secondly, and most importantly, when do you stop? At what point do you decide that your child is actually capable of "comprehending the implications of their actions"? Is it when they can vote? When they can drive? When they first go out and get a job? When?
Children are _not_ unable to comprehend things. They can think and reason, and often they are as responsible (if not more) as many adults. What they tend to lack is experience. Parents who hide the world from their children, because they believe that they couldn't comprehend it, are merely ensuring that they have no chance to learn about the world. If a child has not had a chance to learn about the world, then they are almost certainly not capable of dealing with it. So your policy of protecting them actually leaves them completely un-protected when you are no longer in a position to continue protecting.
I cannot emphasise this enough: children *MUST* be given the opportunity to learn about the world. The role of parents is to provide guidance as they learn, not to say that they can only learn certain things until they are old enough to "comprehend" them. Let them learn as freely as their interest dictates: in the end, they'll learn far more, and far better, than anyone could possibly teach them.
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
Now that's a level of ignorance you don't see every day.
Hypocritical immaturity; the arguments are thin and invalid, covering a subjective topic, of course. But thin and invalid, nonetheless.
We all have the basic right to be treated as a human by our fellow members. Take that away from few of the many cohorts, and the few rebel.
Also, you really shouldn't have to SHOUT to get your points across. I can read. Use clear sentences. Not loud words.
Perhaps sometime in your life of ignorance and bliss, try and comprehend what it is to be on the devil's plate, looking up to those who do nothing but look down.
Much like you are looking down now, I can imagine. People are thinking no better of you as you are of them right now. Only one side is justified
The other is ignorant.
Sounds like "they" want to arrest
people "before" they act.
About school uniforms.
My son wears uniforms to school.
His school has taken the lead in
arrests. How many of you knew
anybody that got arrested in the 7th
and 8th grade? I didn't.
I gradutated two years ago from a high school in a town of 19,000. We had approximately 150-175 students in my grade, and by the end of middle school, 15 had been arrested (mostly for misdemeanor drug use, a few for resale), and, to the surprise to everyone, several pregnancies occurred. My crowd sat back an watched it all; drug use would become common among a few friends a couple of years later, but at that time, we were able to see these people, the shining apples of their peers, have to bear these in middle school (which, IMHO, is a far harsher environment socially than high school), and, in a twisted way, we were glad it happened (although it does not say much for us in that respect).
I survived the utter boredom of high school through a close-knit family, a few friends, and the support of the teachers. Most of the teachers there despised the administration, and many of them would help myself and my friends through various ways: our programing teacher (supposed to be BASIC, we did C and C++) allowed access to the school computer security system, under the supervision of the man in charge of it, actually improving on it. Our english teacher would hold reading groups with us; we'd pick the book, and then we would meet two weeks later and discuss it. I won't go into more detail, but the fact remains we were fortunate. I do not go back there; I maintain contact with those teachers through email. I do not see anyone from that high school except the six people who I considered close friends... 3 of them have moved away now, so the 3 of us huddle together on the holidays and summers, inviting our college friends down to help pass the time better.
I had decided a long time ago that the people who would ostrasize me for who I am are not worth mess with or worrying about; it was hard to learn to ignore them, to not worry about them, but, after several months (almost a whole semester), I was able to do it. The result? I am never bothered (they do not wish to waste their time), and I am actually on slightly friendlier terms with them then I would be otherwise. Sometimes, the best solution is the hardest one; we just have to remember, when these other people are shunning us, or poking fun, or hurting, why are we around them, and do we truely want to befriend them?
-G.
-G.
Like most geeks, I was not accepted in high school. I went to an extremely alternative hs, but even with that, I didn't fit in. I wasn't a 'stoner' or even a 'prep'. And the geeks that we had, who I kinda thought of as friends.. well, they made fun of me behind my back, and sometimes to my face. I was the only girl in that group, I was 2 years younger then anyone in my class, I was overweight and totally lost. High school was not fun, socially.
However, I was lucky. I'd always been around computers, cause my dad used CAD and stuff for work. And when the 'net came to our little town (in early '95) we were one of the first families connected. So.. to make a long story short.. through the next few years I made friends who live around here, and learned a lot.. The same people are still my closest friends, and I now work for the ISP.
Anyway, I guess my point is.. high school is hard when you're the only one -no matter 'what' you are- And a lot of us are that single 'whatever'.
There was this catch-22 where you had to pretend you weren't smart, but still get good grades.
i know that one all too well. I go to a Private school, being a geek is ok there, as long as you can still hold a conversation about . I don't like a LOT of the "i'm better than you" types, or the guys that act all tough because they think its cool. I laugh it off when they make fun of me, I just think of the colleges they will be going to. Just today, I blew everyone away on a Bio test, and screwed up their curve. (ahh, sweet revenge).
P.S. I always get my revenge in a non-violent way. Like, screwing over my Computer teacher (its an Office 97 class that everyone has to take) when it comes time to fill out her evaluation.
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
everyone needs geeks. And we made them need us. Geeks invented Unix, non-geeks, are scared of Unix, and therefore need us to run their servers,mainframes, and other computers. "They" can't install hard drives, cdrom drives, motherboards, ect. Without geeks, businesses would go out of business, the stock markets would have to close, the banks would fail, should i continue?
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
private schools are no different, same jerks, just richer.
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
Even I,the biggest geek in my school, make fun of the kids that do that. Pressure points are retarded, a kid ried that on me, and i beat the living crap out of him. (we were arguing about something, i forget what). Ido, however defend him when people make fun of him for being in chess club, because that isn't really fair to him, chess is something he likes. However, pressure points are a wimp's last resort. Even the smallest geek, should stand up and fight like a man. (or woman, however, girls don't seem to fight as much. Maybe i'm wrong.)
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
Life does suck. Helmets don't help.
Lotek---
High school and junior high kids have felt rejected by their peers since the beginning of time. The fact is that this is an insecure age for a lot of people, and most of them don't have enough experience living to realize that it has happened to everyone. Thus, young kids think that their own individual suffering at the hands of is a fresh pain felt only by them, and that it makes them different from other people. To encourage this by saying that they are 'voiceless kids,' is not healthy. They are only voiceless if they talk to no one.
This is not at all to say that the things happening to people lately are all good. Some people are certainly misundertanding the shootings and what they mean; however, this does not justify self-pity or self-alienation.
And to all of the people out there who are feeling under things -- don't sweat it, things'll get better; however, they won't if you don't want them too. Just do your best to do what you believe in, and don't worry about what people say.
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
Perhaps I spoke out of ignorance. I have /never/ seen anything of that sort in any school I have attended. That is of course not a representative sample of the schools of the nation.
I do have some questions however:
Did the kids who got pushed around (especially the ones who were really injured) say something to their teachers/administrators/teachers?
Was such violence really ignored?
If the answers to these questions is yes, then I submit that this is nothing short of scandalous. Letters should be written, legal action taken, and even protests staged. The time to say something is now, while attention is still drawn to such matters by the present disaster.
If, however, the abused kids said nothing to anyone (or if their parents didn't take teachers and administrators to task), then this becomes a much different issue. Kids should be taught to stand up for themselves (no, not by fighting physically) the way they will have to in the real world - by bringing problems to the attention of those in charge, and, if necessary, following the chain of command until something happens.
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
Yeah, sure, blame the parents, someone's got to be crucified, it's the American way..
If these kids were as smart as the reports, they kept the stuff hidden till the last minute, after that, why bother hiding it. Probably explains the stuff left out in the homes. They had planned this for a year, probably had caches of stuff hidden all over waiting for the big day.
I had my stash in the house when I was a kid, there way no way anyone would have found it without using dogs or metal detectors. Even then, they'd have had to unscrew panels and take things apart to get to my hiding places. I could have kept guns, even rifles, hidden in the air ducts in the house. Its a good thing these two were smarter, it sounds like they were on the way to building Fuel-Air Explosives, those pack more punch than mere pipebombs. The SWAT team found Propane tanks in the school, if they had worked, they would have made the school look like OKC.
The unrelenting stress placed on them slowly made them go insane, the most deadly killers are made this way. Their peers are the ones who bear most of the blame for this.
Starman97@Gmail.com (bring it on spammers)
Hm, guess you need an organization like
"Nerds against social rasicm"
Like someone who can stand up against stupid ppl.
With so many articles posted already this is bound to be redundant. However, Ive observed a few things about my High School in the last few days. Everyones a little freaked. And people are being very zealous and very misdirected in there actions they are taking. (people reffering to school administration and faculty) Rather than do the very thing all these phsychologists would have us beleive should happen which is talk to people. People are being kicked out of my school for band stickers on there folders. People with trenchcoats ( whom wore them LONG before this ever happened.. students whose parents even teach at the school ( even teach there own chldrne )) Are being ridiculed. Many of these people are different. Non conformists. It makes me very sad to see so many people who have absolutely no clue. Rather than listen they just shuffle the problem aside making it worse. Talk about irony. Thats the school system for you. What will REALLY? help. Take away the clothing on a person and all thats left is personality anyways. Something that would leave the prepish/athletes the truly naked ones in many cases. It takes a lot of heart to be ridiculed every day. Ive never suffered personally butt.. I know people who have and its pretty tough just being around them some days helping them with there problems. nuff said
What is this crap about Games and Marlyn Manson(I dont even know how to spell his name...) and all these things many Non-conformists like being the problems with society!! It is total hypocrisy on the part of the media and the people who beleive even ONE bit of it. It all makes me sick inside. Take a walk back to the midieval times with me when... It was a public spectacle to see people half-choked to death, drowned, racked, drawn, quartered and beheaded.. And families with children not even old enough to comprehend the events occuring around them watched. This numbing to violence stuff the media forces on our society is such BULL. I dont think 90% of the people in modern society COULD handle the graphic detail of a drawing and quartering. I have done my fair share of hunting and find it pretty nasty when you field dress the animals you have slain. I threw up the first few times. That is just a simple fact. Now anyone even the weak and demented can pick up a gun and do some serious damage. In the midieval times you had to be huge and buff to really do damage like the sick people at columbine High school did. So is this stuff the prevailing cause of the decay of society? The answer is pretty simple. NO, so what IS the cause? Perhaps its the very people who force these sort of ideals into the minds of everyone. That in fact they force these sort of sentiments into the minds of America's youth......
I'm 25. When I think about colorado, sometimes I think to myself how close I came to being just like them. To simply give up, snap and go for broke. I stuck to a really small group and stick together we did for over 5 years. Fortunately, it so happened that the group I was in wouldn't take shit from the jocks or other "in" group. In fact, we mocked them at every opportunity. I remember thinking how they were the biggest losers in the world but they just didn't know it yet! Well time passed. Graduation came... Now, almost ten years later, I know I have the last laugh. I'm working in the IT industry and I love my job, have good money and am about to get the car that I've wanted for a few years now because I can afford it (nothing beats a WRX!). This past (sp?) christmas season, I went back home to my parents. On the night after xmas day, I went out to a pub downtown I used to hang at with my friends. I was there again, with the same friends, who all made it and have good careers. Well it so happened we came across most of the "jocks", yep... those who were hailed as most likely to are now down and out, trying to get by at working menial jobs in that same old town. I and them both know their "days" are behind them. And I know I have the last laugh. So my best advice to you is this: Don't give up. There's so much more satisfaction in knowing you came out on top and feeling that for the rest of your life. Much better than killing yourself and others to prove what you know to be the truth. Geek Power!
Let's not all suck at the same time please
"high school is only a mere pin point as to what life will hold for you." "the same people who you think is "popular", will be the very ones after school to be failures."
Man, hindsight is a great thing isn't it?
Look, I remember high school all to well. I outright hated every second I had to spend in that pit of materialism and BS. I really related to the Nada Surf song "Popular" because it reminded me of all those popular pricks I could not stand. Made me laugh about them. And yes, I was suicidal for a little bit. I hated it that much. It is known as teen angst! Everyone has it at some point between 12 and 21. Hell, John Hughes made a living off of it!
I generally agree with your points I quoted above, the only problem is, I and most people in this bad situation High School can create did not know or believe that when we were IN high school.
You are right, people have a tendency to whine, and I myself wonder how many of these posts are authentic and how many are just jumping on the touchy-feely bandwagon. However considering the forum we are in, it seems entirely believable that most of the people (me included) are or were geeks in high school. And geeks have always been and always will be seen as outcasts by jocks, preps, and all the other little cliques formed in and by the public school system.
Your post makes sense, and is refreshing in the midst of all the "I feel their pain" postings, but before you chalk everything up as right and wrong, black and white; remember hindsight is always 20/20.
/Sig/
This place is full of whiney children. "Nobody liked me 'cause I was was different and smarter than them. Boo-hoo-hoo" Well, if you were so much smarter, why were you getting you're butt kicked?!
Society is a wall just like Pink Floyd said. And just like him, you want to break out of it and still be comforted by having it around you. Well, it don't work that way. If you want to be a part of the wall, you have to be willing to be cut to conform and then peacefully take your place in it. If you want to be completely free to move as you please, then the world will lonely place. If you attempt to remain in the wall and not conform, the wall will kick you out.
I was smart in HS, too. I was especially hated in chemistry. The teacher graded on a curve. I made 100 on nearly every test, and it wasn't until after mid-year that the teacher could get other students to consistenly grade above 80 (some of those preps were really suprised to get their first F in their lives). I was also poor. I never had the right clothes, and what I did have was usually tattered. I was also ethnically wrong, being a Native American/Caucasian mix. The Piedmont of North Carolina consist of blacks and whites, and they tend to stick to their own groups. I was just SOL, as far as that was concerned, since I didn't fit into either group.
At my senior awards ceremony, the entire student body gave me a standing ovation. Why?
In my sophmore year, I decided that I was tired of being the school laughing stock. I decided that I was going to be me for me. The rest of the school could chase whatever fad they chose, but I was going to develope MY mind and body to its fullest extent.
I joined the wrestling team (to the geek complaining about not being able to join any team, my school had 1000 student -- you'll have no problem joining the wrestling team, and your intelligence will make up for athleticism). I joined the cross country team (to the geek complaining about not being able to join any team, my school had 1000 student -- you'll have no problem joining the cross country team, and you don't have to be athletic, just determined). Note that neither sport was cool. You had to play football or basketball for that.I did neither for popularity, I did it because I wanted to win.
Some continued to make me a laughing stock, but they could never get a rise out of me. I ignored them. Eventually, the mockers gave up.
I refused to be impressed by fancy clothes. If I drew snickers because my socks weren't the right color, I either ignored it or commented that the snickerer might actually pass a chemistry test some day if they would give it the attention they gave to their underwear.
I refused to hangout in the 'commons' during break time. I was not accepted there, so why present myself for ridicule? Instead, I went to class early and prepared for the class. If one of the 'in' crowd graciously asked me for academic help, I graciously offered it. If one of the 'in' crowd acted as if it were my duty to help them, I told them to RTFM.
I still graduated without having a date (but that had more to do with falling in love with Teresa Barnette who still doesn't know I exist. I had offers, but not from Teresa.), but at least I had respect. I had respect for ME first, and after awhile, other followed.
Those kids in Colorado weren't smart. Need proof? They're DEAD!! The smart animal will adapt to their environment.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
I have one thing to say, and I can't say it loudly enough:
The talents and values which are rewarded in high school have NOTHING to do with the real world.
HIGH SCHOOL IS NOT THE REAL WORLD!
I get up every morning to go to my over-paying job GLAD that I made it through without killing myself. Eveyone I know who is happy as an adult HATED high school.
HIGH SCHOOL IS NOT THE REAL WORLD!
If you're an outcast in high school, it's probably because you have values more meaningful than sneaking beer and attending pep rallies. I'm sorry it sucks, we "adults" aren't doing a very good job making it better.
People used to tell me it gets better after you get out. They were wrong. It gets fscking GREAT after you get out.
I can't imagine why adults are fascinated with high school. Every day I put between that place and myself is an improvement.
HIGH SCHOOL IS NOT THE REAL WORLD! DON'T TAKE IT TOO SERIOUSLY!
Hope this helps.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Why are we so narrow minded to think that only kids in the US have problems in late grade school and through high school? There are pleanty of non-conformist kids in schools in England, Canada, Australia, and (insert any non US country you like here), aren't there? Don't they go through the same difficulties of having friends, not being part of the "in crowd", and authority figures being in their face about being who they want to be? What the "heck" was the Pink Floyd album "The Wall" all about then?!?
And yet, do other countries have the same problem with school violence? A friend from Canada claimed the only random act of violence he remembers recently was someone breaking into the house of some high ranking official while armed with a butter knife.
So do the other countries teach values? If so, what/whose values are they? What about countries where the children grow up carrying weapons as part of 'civil' war or other strife?
I won't claim to know what the fix is. I can knee jerk a few things I think are to blame but _none_ of them are all inclusive. I'd just really like to hear opinions and maybe some stories from non-US kids that show the same understanding of the situation as those quoted by Katz.
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
If you want fame, destruction is the easiest way to get it.
Bravo...
Seen the recent L.P. article saying much the same ?
I was just looking at www.lp.org but I couldn't find it. The title was "Release: Colorado massacre".
It's obvious: Nerds are Legion. So how do we hammer home this message:
The social nightmare of High School is the heat under the pressure cooker ! How can we get our little forum on the CBS News ? (without hurting anyone)
Jon-
As I read through the emails you posted I felt again the fear, anger, and pain I felt as a kid in High School. I haven't felt those in a long time.
I went to a small, relatively affluent HS, and I was one of the outcasts. In our school, there was no middle ground - you were either with the "in crowd", or you were an outcast. I never succeded with the "in crowd". After a few tries, I made no effort to be a part of the crowd - they seemed to have no values, or morals, or any socially redeeming value whatsoever. Mommies and Daddies had money, so no one ever could get in any serious trouble. (Tough to discipline up the Mayor's son.) I spent my middle and HS years practicing the art of being invisible - eating alone in classrooms, taking the long way around buildings to classes, coming and going at odd times, finding out of the way places to exist without being found. It is what you have to do when you're the butt of the joke, the object of ridicule, the outcast. It was how I survived. But I hated it.
I hated not being able to walk across campus without fearing for my safety. I hated the taunting, the bullying, the group beatings. I hated not being able to store anything in my locker, because it would get vandalized regularly. I hated all the "beautiful people", with the perfect/popular lives, and their storybook childhoods. I was angry for the way they treated me, and jealous of the life that I couldn't have because I wasn't just like THEM. I was never so glad to escape someplace in my life.
I have never been back.
Fifteen years later, as I sit here in my office and read these letters, I am astounded at how clearly the feelings come back. My gut wrenches with the trepidation of just having to live life outside of my own bedroom. I've no reason to feel this way anymore - good job, spectacular wife, and some of the best friends on the planet - some of whom were outcasts themselves in HS. I am one extremely fortunate person. But reading those messages reopens those wounds, just a little bit.
The issues that create the environment that the outcasts of yesterday and today live in haven't changed all that much - us versus them, groupthink is good, conformity above all, different is dangerous, understanding unthinkable, enlightenment unbearable. They are some of the same causes behind racism, sexism, religious persecution, etc. The solutions lie in education, compassion, understanding, and acceptance. They also take courage, which seems to be even less evident today nationwide than it was in the hometown of my youth.
To the kids out there: occasionally, when one of the adults says they want to talk, or that they understand, consider the possibility that they do. At the very least, find out what their background is like - they may really understand. In the meantime keep a low profile, compromise a little to get through it, and get out as quick as you can. Then maybe you can help change the world. I know I'm trying.
Dave
-- "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity." - R.A.H.
Note that the post above yours noted zero sympathy for the TCM. Smiley-caption Derek's first sentence for extra flavor.
You are in violent agreement with Derek and you proceeded to call him a moron. This is just OTT.
--The basis of all love is respect
I was one of the lucky ones. My parents knew me. I was the D&D player. I was the metalhead (okay, well, fan of the hair bands. This was the eighties). I didn't have dates. I kept to myself a lot.
My parents knew that I was "weird" since before grade school. They could handle it. They talked to me, not at me. And they listened to what I had to say.
I had my problems, something other than violence. My parents were concerned, and gave me a chance to solve the problem myself. I failed to, and they confronted me with the problem. They applied a lot of pressure to force me to see the problem, and then we worked through it.
To anybody out there who is a parent or is helping a parent, I cannot stress enough the importance of understanding. Though it doesn't feel like it, bona fide attempts to understand teenagers are not just a way see how they're doing. In and of itself, listening is a way to improve how they're doing. If you feel persecuted at school and then persecuted again at home, something is likely to crack. If you are persecuted at school and free to discuss it and deal with it at home, home helps you keep your sanity.
Don't immediately judge. As a parent, it is important to know when (and how) to put your foot down. But a knee-jerk response is simply going to reinforce the teen mantra of "parents just don't get it". Understand, then evaluate, then act.
--The basis of all love is respect
I can relate in that I can see where they are coming from. I can see where a lot of people are coming from, because I have learned to put myself in other peoples' shoes. It's a survival skill.
I can't agree. These kids chose to do something incredibly wrong. In retrospect, I can see why they made that choice. That doesn't make it any less right.
--The basis of all love is respect
I have said it before, and I will say it again: look for signs of mental illness and treat it. You don't need bathroom cameras, video game bans, or similar Big Brother treatments. The signs are there, have got to be there, visible without invading privacy. These kids were planning this, plus an airline hijacking, for a year.
We have to recognize the signs and make sure that the people who watch over our children (first and foremost parents, then school faculty and others) recognize the signs. Distant early warning, without loss of privacy.
--The basis of all love is respect
Absolutely.
I am part of an organization that has been teaching exactly that message for two millenia (three guesses, and the first two don't count).
Maybe some more people will "get it".
--The basis of all love is respect
Awww...let's have a pity party for you.
You will hear about this over and over again. When you're lucky, it sounds like people talking, or keyboard clacking on Slashdot. When you're not lucky, it sounds like a 7.62 slug leaving the barrel...followed by the sound of a 7.62 slug hitting flesh.
that this whole media thing over littleton has caused all these geeks to be discriminated against in the past week, well you know what... thats their own problem.
It's everybody's problem. It's not just the discrimination, it's not just the rights violations. More importantly, it's an ineffective solution to a major problem. An ineffective solution is worse than no solution at all, because it makes you think that you are solving the problem.
As for the email sent in about the girl who showed up at school in a trenchcoat and whined over her rights being violated because they told her she couldn't wear it.... ARE YOU STUPID OR SOMETHING? HELLO PEOPLE.... 13 STUDENTS WERE KILLED LAST WEEK while they were in the "safest" place possible. Don't be stupid and wear your trenchcoat to school the next day just to be dramatic and prove some kind of point... have some %$#^ing respect.
Thank you; I'm embarrased to have missed that one. Wearing a black trenchcoat is not a problem. Wearing a black trenchcoat right after this shooting looks too much like a deliberate troll in meatspace.
I can't belive some of the crap I'm reading. You "understand" the killer's feelings? Give me a break... the are murderers... case CLOSED.
We're all trying to "understand" the killers. That has nothing to do with condoning their actions. I agree that anyone who condones their actions needs to be pulled aside and corrected themselves.
Police departments have profilers; experts in understanding criminals. In their case, it's to find the perpetrator. In this case, it's to find possible perpetrators and intervene before the violence starts.
Some people think that they understand these killers. "Doom and Marilyn Manson will do that to a person". It is the right thing to do to try to understand them, because you can't stop what you don't understand. I just believe that what we are hearing on mass media is not a proper understanding; they're not going deep enough. Their incorrect understanding will not find the next killers.
Are they murderers? Yes. Personally, I don't think that they have the motives of murderers. To my eyes, these kids were suicidal. They knew that they wouldn't live through it. Their endgame involved crashing a jet into a building. I think that it's a bigger leap from teen to teen ready to suicide than from teen ready to suicide to teen ready to suicide and take people with you.
Basically, if you can keep these kids from wanting to commit suicide, you are already keeping them from shooting up the school.
NO ONE... NOTHING is to blame except for those parents that didn't notice the 30 some bombs and guns in the house or the fact that their child was depressed. IF YOU ARE A PARENT.. FOR GODS SAKE, TALK TO YOUR KIDS.
I agree. I only have two extensions to this. The first is that, if a faculty member noticed what was going on, they should have intervened--starting with the parents. A school cannot be a parent, but it can and must assist in that role.
The other extension is about talking to your kids. Talk and listen. Importantly, understand the vast difference between talking to your kids and talking at your kids. Talking at your kids only fans the flames.
--The basis of all love is respect
Actually, one reason my wife and I are willing to spend a painful amount of money on private school is exactly because the good ones ARE far more egalitarian than the public schools.
For instance, uniforms aren't to enforce conformity but to eliminate differences so the students can all relate to one another as equals. Making equality happen is a big deal in private schools, and completely ignored in public schools.
Part of this has to do with school size, too: It's just imposssible to avoid the formation of poisonous cliques in a large school. What do we really expect to happen socially when we put 3000 people in a high school?
To use sports as an example: Even those interested in sports or other activities haven't a chance unless they're pro material: the talent pool is just too big to allow players of average (or even above average!) skill on the teams, so we wind up with sports teams comprised of the same extreme physical specimens that dominate college and professional sports.
I would bet that there is a direct correlation between these sorts of incidents and school size. A smaller school creates a much better sense of belonging than the big impersonal windowless buildings in which we warehouse high-schoolers today. If we continue to force adolescents into huge, impersonal overcrowded schools, Littletons will sadly become more common.
(Check out "Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning" by Doug Wilson and "For the Children's Sake" by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay for real eye-opening books that show how we can build *good* schools for our children.)
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Homeschooling is great. You're never made to do stuff you already know, or do things you don't want to. Well, some stuff, some states require you to pass standardized tests. I just started homeschooling a couple months ago. I love it.
John
Most of the U.S. States alone have almost the land area of an entire dinky european country. My state (Texas) has almost as many people as Great Britan.
One CITY (Los Angeles) alone has almost the same population as all of Scandanavia, the same CITY is probably bigger than Luxembourg and Lichtenstein combined!
Perhaps it would be fairer to compare statistics for one U.S. State to one of the entire European countries.
I would also be willing to wager that the United States has much more racial diversity than any single European country, this is often the source of violence.
It is therefore unfair to directly compare the crime rates of the US to any single European country. I would expect a country of 155 million people to have a higher crime rate than say, Andorra.
By the way, I rarely hear of 8109815087 people being trampled in a soccer stadium, IRA insurrections, or ethnic cleansing here in the US.
Didn't some psycho brit gun down a bunch of children in a schoolyard a few years ago?
Doesnt Britain have strict gun control laws?
Hmm.
You Europeans should stop being so self rightious and arrogant.
You're right, European food is generally much better than American food. We did have corn first, though. Mmmmm corn on the cob dripping with butter and lightly salted/peppered. But I digress.
I still have yet to see the volume of terror bombings and sheer atrocious massacres in America that happen in Europe.
With the American population being almost as big as the entire European one, I still think we're doing rather well.
I would first like to say that this is the first Katz piece that I have actually enjoyed reading, it actaully struck a chord in me. I'm glad I didn't moderate you, John.
.22 browning pistol since I was 14 years of age. I have also been playing Doom since it came out. Needless to say, I have never slaughtered innocent people.
Although I have not had time to dredge through the
500 or so postings under this topic, I have not seen this method of education mentioned.
I myself am a product of home schooling, that is my parents refused to enroll me into the public education system although it is often required by law. The impetus for this action was that my father was in the military, and we were often moving from place to place around the country, making it more feasable to keep my sister and myself at home than to constantly keep enrolling us in new schools. This also kept us from being emotionally harmed by uprooting us from newly made friends.
Personally, I believe that my sister and I were complete successes. She recently graduated from the University of Texas with highest honors in Mathematics, I will soon apply to the UT Law school.
Though we were home schooled, we had no lack of social interaction, we were enrolled in physical activities, I hold black belts in three different styles of the marial arts (I also had one of the first Amiga 500's and started hacking on it at an early age. You see that physical ability does not preclude intellectual ability!), and I play the drum kit with an emphasis on jazz. My sister was a ballet dancer and won a national young artists competition with her violin playing.
My sister and I were fortunate to have loving, concerned parents that only wanted the best for us. They shuned new cars and trinkets to pay for our lessons. I believe that it was this caring attitude that made the difference between us and many antisocial neurotic children that I have seen other 'military brats' become.
Though we often did have a dearth of interaction with children our own age, we were popular with the kids we did know, and we learned to associate with adults at a much earlier age than did our 'peers'. This has only been to our bennefit.
My point in typing all this has been to lead up to my theory of what went wrong with those kids.
I believe that they had uncaring parents that were not concerned in the least what their offspring did, and the social environment at their high school was probably no help either. The prevalance of guns and computers in their life is irrelavent. Being from a military family, I have been around guns all my life, and have had a 12 guage remington shotgun and a
I think that society needs to take a long hard look at how parents are bringing up their children, and the torments that many people are exposed to through the education system.
>Well, if you like genetically engineered corn, >then yes. Over here we have banned most of it and >wait to see if you'll get a third arm or not ;-)
Genetically engeneered product is not purely American. I myself am against it and only buy organically grown produce.
Ever heard of Mad Cow Disease?
>Well, Americans did a big genocide against the >natives (and believe me, some of the attacks >against natives were as bloody as the worst parts >of WWI). Then there was the war against the >English, the Mexicans. The civil war. The Corean >war. The Vietnam (nice mass killings too >there...). I don't think Americans can make any >lesson to us about pacifism. Of course >eradicating the natives from the start was a good >insurance that you wouldn't have to fight them >later...
Look at the timeframe, you Europeans were up to much worse stuff, may I remind you of Africa and India? how about Stalin and Hitler?
and you guys STILL have the Neo Nazis and the IRA!
>Well, you export your problems. You export your >pollution (which is the highest in the world >per-capita or in absolute numbers), you export >your wars, etc... of course it makes things >easier for you but at the expense of the others.
You exported and caused both WWI and WWII, the bloodiest conflicts that humankind has ever known.
Korea was lengthened by American administrative stupidity. Vietnam was originally caused by the French.
You guys ARE arrogant.
>But can you tell when you buy a finished produce >(say, chocolate bar) what kind of cereals it >contains ? It depends on the candy bar brand. Not with say, Hersheys, but there are smaller candy bar makers which usually have their products in the smaller Co Ops or 'hippie' supermarkets that document at least the type of ingredients in their product. Interesting point. The English are fond of imitating the US. When the conservatist were in control here, they unregulated a lots of tings in a very Reagan style, creating gaps where health is at risk. In the US you still feed beef with hormones (they are banned in Europe). When the US governement has to choose between consumer health or industry interest, the industry always comes first... I only buy beef that has not been treated with hormones, and I only buy milk that comes from dairy cows that are not treated with BhT. It's nat hard to purchase food from more natural sources in the USA, and I believe it's better for me. As for Africa the latest events in Congo where pushed by the US (which is trying to get a foot on the continent). As for Hitler you are right, but he would have been there if the Americans hadn't started a major economic crisis with their wild capitalism in 1929. German stamps used to cost billions of marks in the early 30s because of te crisis that threw the country on its knees (along>with WWI damages, I concede). There was a US -> Germany -> France/Britain -> US money cycle that went on so the countries could pay their repercussions/war debts to other countries, it was a neccesary cycle. Hitler was almost entirely due to the draconian repercussions demanded by Britain and France. Japan was part of WWII as far as I know. WWI was indeed the bloodiest conflict in history. But we never used the atomic bomb also... Were we to invade mainland Japan (without any european help!!!!) in operation 'Olympia', estimated casualty rates were 500,000 dead on the american side. Unfeasible. Korea was lengthened by American administrative stupidity. Thanks :-) However, it was certainly not started by the United States, and was probably a neccesary evil. Vietnam was originally caused by the French. Certainly not ! It was caused by a bunch of stupid rightish US politicians who helped a corrupt Vietnamese governement to resist a local revolution. No one will ever be able to justify the US actions in Vietnam. You really were on the bad side on this one. I don't approve of the American actions in Vietnam and never have, I was simply recalling what the French provencial government did. You guys ARE arrogant I've talked with Indians, Chineses, Europeans and all of them seems to believe Americans are the most arrogant people on earth. I've always considered that honor to belong to the French. :-D I'll always remember this quote from an American on TV when the wall in Berlin felt : "People must come here and see how they should live". If this is not arrogance... Well you get a little ill of europeans lambasting the way of life in the United States, I believe I've brought up enough germane points to cut this viewpoint down a little.
well I managed to bugger up the formatting in that totally. That's the last time I post as html
After 13 years and in the age of everybody being "PC" you would think that the school system would change. I wonder if the school's realize that in the information age that the geek's will control how the information moves around, or in some cases not move at all. This crackdown on the computer geeks will only serve to piss off the people, who the next 10 years will start running the counrty.
Even though at the time I thought I was in hell,(I have found the real hell since), high school help me make up my mind to be differant. And thanks to the S**t that was given to me for that decision I have learned to control myself and filter out all the BS and find what is important. The people I work with like the fact that what they see is what they get with me no more, no less.
Back to the crackdown in the schools I would like to see them try that in the real world. Any company that tried that s**t would have so many law suits, that there would be more laywers working then other employees. As for why its happening most of the teachers I know were alpha primes' in high school. So they fear what is different and lash out accordingly. My advice to to blow it off, but do not give in. In 10 years the teachers will be telling people that you were their best student,this is after you have made your 1st million.
Don't panic - Hitchhikers guide 2 the galaxy
I kid you not!
I sent off a letter to the school administration in an attempt to educate them with the truth about veganism. Yesterday I finally got a response. It implied that the recent events in Colorado simply reinforce their need to engage in this sort of behavior.
It is this sort of idiocy that make school such a hell for intelligent young people.
Thad
The Bolachek Journals
I'm just forced to comment on that last line...
where do you go to college? I work at my college & do what you say every single day, but I don't see any friends or even any recognition from them that I have some value...
I don't know maybe I should start letting them almost loose something so I look like more of a savior or big projects or something...
It could be much worse, I'm at a university of technology in Ohio, not quite the bastion of non-technology northwestern PA was, but I'm constantly tempted to move west just because the complete lack of smart people period... it doesn't help when most of the few women here are married right out of HS....
I wish their were more like you. Out of 5000 people at the university of technology I go to, all of maybe 500 are omen & most are married before ever coming here. That seems to mean about 2000 available geek guys & no or few women who for the most part go out with the other 2000 guys (the part that came here because they heard their was good money to be made in computers but are otherwise brainwashed derelicts that act as if they are in HS still). I guess I'll just have to move elsewhere to finally ever get a date...
trust me thats how american schools (both HS with it's cliques & college with it's sororioties/et all). THose who don't conform might as well be dead because they aren't wanted. I was told that more than once so far in my life... It is rather funny though that at my college has a class I'm taking where the teacher keeps telling us we will be the ones to create policy in the future. I kinda doubt that, but it does seem like a nice concept...
must have been nice having friends who could relate, I went to a very small school & their was no one. My parents didn't understand my problems any more than teachers et all. I was suicidal at one point even because of it.
For all the people who have said they've made it through being different in their younger days because of their friends are lucky. I had to keep myself alive on what little hope I could gather. If it has proved one thing it has proved that I can depend on myself & survive by myself no matter what, but the price was way to high if you ask me.
Now while I can't speak for the other person, I was physically assaulted more than once during my time in high school (about 3 years ago) & let me tell you a little story.
In 6th grade I had about 6 people who all physically abused me for the length of that school year & at one point after being stabbed by a (thankfully!) non-lethal weapon I struck back. After having to see the principal & all those other authority figures (including the nurse) who wouldn't even listen to what the real problem was. I went back to class & the teacher took me aside & told me this: 'I know they verbally & physically abuse you every day, but I can't/won't protect you & if you fight here I'll be forced to help kick you out of school'.
THat wasn't the last time I heard similiar lines from people only one teacher in my entire time in HS ever even bothered to stand up for me & to him I am forever thankful, but he was always getting in trouble with the principal & school board because of his beliefs that things needed to change in schools.
Now I have a few friends who are just now graduating from the same HS & they tell me the same things are still going on just as they always seem to have. The people may change, but the situation does not. Administrators don't care about the students who don't fit in, period. I had one teacher who told me flat out that those that don't fit in should just be dead. It's ahrdly a wonder that I was suicidal at one point during HS.
I wish I had a solution to the problem, but I don't think letters to anyone is going to help & I don't think things will ever change on their own.
I was the bottom of the totem poll so there was no one below me, but if there had I would have reached out to them. No one above of course ever cared a damn about me, but as even you said thats not uncommon. It might be a good idea to reach out to others below you on the social ladder, but to be realistic very few are goign to have their already (in some cases) poor reputations & position lowered further by 'hanging out with that geek'.
We had a senior HS student taking classes at DeVry because of that & I only wish we had had that back in PA where I grew up...
High school was definitely a low point in my life. Nearly 10 years later I think I am finally understanding the greater picture.
Several things set me apart from the killers in this latest tragedy:
First off, I had a small, but close group of friends that I could turn to and know that they would understand what I was going through because they were dealing with the same crap.
Second, I had a family that was there for me. Sure we had our share of problems, and I was just as alienated from my parents as anyone, but still they were there when I needed them too.
And finally, I had computers, science and tech. This was basically before the net, before online gaming, etc. But computers and tech gave me a channel for the anger and frustration that built up all day at school being taunted, ridiculed, beat up, etc.
So what kept me from snapping like them? What made me different? Connection to others, and an outlet for my emotions. Ask those involved in the net, in online gaming, in the latest morphing of subcultures in the world, and you will find that this is exactly the same thing they find online and in their fellow geeks. These are solutions, not problems!
How to communicate this to the generally clueless masses is another question entirely.
-- Have Fun, Play Nice, Use Linux.
This is a poem I wrote a whole 5 days before all this stuff happened. Luckily I'm in college now, if I'd been in High School and a teacher or someone found it, boy I'd have been in the slammer or something. It expresses my feelings about society, both things that linger from High School and things I see everyday in College.
... suffering.
(My brother made a picture that I wrote the words for)
Emotion
The ether tugging at your subconcious
pushing, pulling, helping, hurting.
An event, more torture, nagging endlessly.
Why?
A world of faceless automotons, grinding at the wheel.
Forcing you to adapt, otherwise: pain
A crowd surrounds you, yet you've never felt lonlier.
Just wanted to share this with the world
Heya,
I'm just going to tell you a quick story about my first day back in school after my April Vacation. I dress weird, you can say I'm a freak, or just weird. This is what I look like just about everyday at school. Because of this, I was assaulted. For many many years since about fifth grade, i've been the object of ridicule because i'm very defenseless. I'm now a junior in high school, everyday I get made fun of or joked about. I've got the reputation in my class for the mostly likely student to bring a gun to school and kill people. This is very untrue, I wish to harm no one. In fact i'm a real peacefull guy. I just don't get treated as a human being. Since i've been through all this ridicule i've learned to ignore it. (BTW in my picture, i'd like to explain that i have a very serious "ANTI-TREND" deal going on. I hate dressing like anyone else because $50+ for a pair of pants that has the name "Tommy" on my ass just isn't worth it.)
Anyways here's what happened today. A fellow student noticed me standing in the doorway of an empty room, he began shouting at me saying stuff like "Hey! Here's that psycho kid!" and "He's in the trench coat mafia, watch out he has a gun." I know he was just messing around with me, but it was just getting ugly at that point. I told him to back off and he began to grow violent with me. It all went off when he first spat right in my face. I stood my ground and didn't flintch, I grew angry myself at that point. He then demanded that i appologize for being disrespectful to him. Just right there, that's BULLSHIT! One of the most disrespectfull thing one can do is spit in another mans face. Yet I still stood my ground.... After a few more mins of him taunting me, I was fed up and told him to "Leave me the hell alone." Being the punk he was, he quickly threw his hand to my throat and began choking me. I could tell he wasn't 100% serious about choking me to death because I was still able to breathe through my nose. After about 4 seconds of this I immediatly ripped his hand off my throat and once again told him to leave me the hell alone. I guess he grew tired of me and so he left. Before leaving the room he walked over to me and punched me in the side of my throat/neck area. I was very lucky he didn't get a HARD hit on me, or else I would have died right there from a colaspsed windpipe. He then walked out of the room. I was left in the room with saliva running down my face and finding it difficult to swallow anything.
Now let me ask you this. At what point did I do anything wrong?
BTW... this guy can be labeled "A jock."
-----
prm@alignment.net
----------
Check out my blackbox styles
i was a nerd in school. i took computer classes and stayed up late learning turbo pascal and all about object oriented programming. i got excited about that stuff, but i had my click of friends... they all played D&D, but i did not. we defined for ourselves what cool was. it also helped that we were in a small private school where everyone had good grades and the "cool" crowd could not overshadow us.
but this is not true to lots of kids in school these days. i had trouble even though i had good friends around me.
what i feel would be helpful in these cases of extreme prejudice would be to let it all out. explain to them that you are being alienated and hurt by others. tell them how you feel. only when they know the facts will they be able to help.
and also be careful who and when you share your thoughts. standing up in class may not be the best time, but after class you could share your ideas with the teacher so they do not have to save face in front of the entire class that does not share your point of view. don't force them to be defensive. set them up to be compassionate. tell them you are hurting first,then tell them why
i am sure you will have a better chance at getting the results you want as opposed to saying i sympathize with these kids and understand why they wanted to kill everyone. sure you do, lots of us do, but comments like this force those in authority and among your peers to go on the defensive.
Brennan Stehling - www.offwhite.net
There should be no sympathy at all for the kids who decided that their self-absorbed little problems were so monumental that it merited rubbing out their whole school.
High school is rough for everyone. For jocks, for geeks, for minorities, for fat kids, for skinny kids, etc. It's a pressure cooker. It shouldn't be that way, but it is. A football player who spends everyday after school training isn't doing that just for fun -- he's struggling for acceptance, too. Unfortunately, we often don't raise our kids to be happy with themselves and accepting of others, so a lot of insecurities come out as aggression and teasing. I encountered that, you encountered that, and you can bet that most other people did too.
But responding to daily ridicule w/ pipe bombs and guns is such a weak and sick response. If anything, self-declared geeks should be angry at those kids for giving them a bad name, not angry at the news media for doing what it always does -- giving writers the job of summarizing complicated tragedies in 200 words or less for an audience that just wants the executive summary.
Over the past few weeks I've really been reevaluating what I think is wrong with society. This isn't something that was brought on by the Colorado incident neccessarily, but it made me think about it a bit more. And what I came up with...
I think people these days are brought up far too much to think only of themselves. You can see a very big difference between those who are thinking about others and those who are out for ME ME ME! If you know what I mean =).
I am in college now, in about my sixth year. I don't know, I lost count =). I started watching for this behavior among people at college and I was amazed at what I saw. People were mean and selfish to eachother all the time with a few exceptions. The people who were the exceptions were the ones actually enjoying life. In fact, even the mean people couldn't truly feel mean towards them because here was someone else who is simply refusing to play their game. I started actively trying to live this way and it has helped me like you wouldn't imagine. It enhances a feel-good "can do" attitude. As bad of a cliche as that is, it really is nice compared to angst.
And of course, this starts back with the parents again. Why is it that we keep training our children to grow up looking out only for themselves? This is producing a psychopathic society!!
A good book on this matter is "The Celestine Prophecy" -- not because I believe in all the new-ager stuff in it, but because it details a new way, a new paradigm, of looking at psychological interactions between people. It also has some suggestions on how parents can help this matter.
It all boils down to one thing though: think about something besides your own skin, and pay attention. Pay attention, pay attention, pay attention. Five minutes of saying "Hi Son, what are you up to tonight?" could be worth years of saved jail time later on.
BTW, I went to TAMS too (@ UNT in Texas) and graduated in '96. I had a pretty easy time of it in high school as those things go, as they didn't manage to do much physical damage to me and I found good friends in the faculty at each "normal" school. I also was lucky enough to get into a magnet school with loads of geek friends, and escape to TAMS later on from the normal school I still had to attend. It's sad to see that TAMS too is heading towards the "normal conformity" that everyone else is eschewing. It used to be a haven for smart kids. It's becoming a private school for preps in a lot of ways. =(
Oh well, everyone in school, hang in there. It's bad for now but once you're out you'll feel better in a lot of ways. Not because the "real world" (haha) is less prejudiced, but because you can pick your crowd.
Dan Potter
Cryptic Allusion - New Mac and Dreamcast Games!
I do apologize for the formatting, if any comes out all fouled up. That's what happens when cutting and pasing email messages :) /. gets in it will help :) Oh, and I also apologize for length. One of the reasons I DON'T really post are that I'm not well known for brevity.
4 9.shtml
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The following is an email that I just sent off the CNN, hopefully it may delight or piss of some of y'all. But I'm sure that the publicity
Before I begin, I would like to present a URL that I would like to have
someone at CNN take a look at, as I believe it points out, through the
comments of hundreds, what Mr's Harris and Klebold's lives MAY have been
like. These comments SURELY show how the lives of many of our brightest
and creative students are while they endure the misery of high school
and college.
http://www.slashdot.org/articles/99/04/25/14382
I implore you to read through the comments on this message board, and
while some may be no more than flames and unintelligent gibberish, many
of them are well thought out pieces of literary art.
The following text is an email which I sent to a reporter at MSNBC. I
am also sending it to you, sans his name, as I believe that it may bring
some insight into this horrible tragedy. I also hope that it will spur
additional research so that the troubles afflicting many of the
brightest students in our schools today.
Before The aforementioned text, I would like to tell a brief story about
my personal travails in high school during the first half of this
decade. As a child, I was always taught the "Golden Rule", to do unto
others as you would have them do unto you; and for the first half of my
life, that we pretty much how everything worked. Then I turned 11, and
entered into the realm of Middle School (one of the worst mistakes our
educational systems have wreaked upon students). Those who were
obviously studious, intelligent or just plain DIFFERENT from the carbon
copy, shallow and stereotypical students were at best ignored, at worst
hospitalized. Through Middle School (MS), I went pretty much unscathed,
except for the fact that I wasn't among the "prettiest" of children. As
such, I endured a considerable amount of ribbing, and in some cases out
right hostility. This was compounded by my much higher than average IQ
(as tested at age 10, well over 140, and my last test put me at over
160), and my obvious contempt for the cookie cutter molded people around
me.
Placing an extremely bright child in normal school surroundings will
absolutely lead towards one of two situations: an over achiever who
garners respect simply for the volume of work done, and the
underachiever who is derided by all because they literally skate through
with decent grades without trying very hard. This second group of
highly intelligent students also tend to suffer from severe feelings of
self doubt, and have self esteem issues. These are compounded by their
lackadaisical approach towards school, procrastination, et al that come
from a lack of feeling both challenged and driven to be truly successful
students.
I fell into this second group, and while middle school was bad, what
happened to me in high school almost killed me (quite literally). In
High School, I may have made a serious mistake, socially, in
participating in band, both concert and marching. I took great pride in
being involved in these activites, however, I was an outsider even
within the group that I belonged to. That I was belittled, mentally and
even physically abused by my peers would be understatements. To tell
the school administration about what was going on would have been
absolute social suicide. By my junior year of HS, I had reached
absolute low points in my life. I attempted suicide twice, and at one
point at a pistol (not owned by any member of my family) pointed to my
head...the only thing keeping me from pulling the trigger was the love I
have for my youngest sibling and only sister.
To this day I still suffer from the effects of an absolutely miserable
adolescence. I am the little boy who is always picked last for an
athletic team, regardless of the fact that I was usually an above
average player, and in fact ran 4 minute miles in HS but COULDN'T GET ON
THE TRACK TEAM. This, I believe, is the kind of life that Mr's Harris
and Klebold endured until they could endure no more. People "snap"
mentally in different ways. Me, I just crawled into a cocoon that took
8 years to begin to break down, they became cold, heartless killers.
I now end my personal remarks to you, dear reader, and hope that you
read the following rmearks which I sent to your colleague at MSNBC.
> I have several concerns regarding your recent article on MSNBC's
> website concerning the vastly increased watchdogging of children,
> especially high schoolers, on the internet. I would also like to bring
> to your attention a number of other facets of the whole situation,
> including a possible insight into the psyches of the murderers. you may
> have already received both e-mail and snail mail along similar lines,
> but I hope that my presentation is somewhat more informative for you and
> your colleagues.
>
> 1. It is my opinion that the internet, and the information which can be
> gleaned from the internet is not, in any way shape or form, responsible
> for this horrid attack. Nor is the information contained on the
> internet available only online. I assure you that I can walk into just
> about any library in the US and find literature somehow related to
> building bombs. The insinuation that the Internet and the availability
> of information is at fault is offensive to those of us who make our
> livings both using and maintaining it.
>
> 2. Computer Games are also not at fault, and in fact may very well help
> to curb and release some of the anger pent up in those who have dealt
> with the kind of torment that these individuals dealt with...possibly
> throughout their lives, but more CERTAINLY throughout their shortened
> High School careers. I will even say this: if it were NOT for the
> release that games such as Doom, Wolfenstein3D (to get a couple of the
> shooters available in 1990-1994 when I was in HS), SimCity, Civilization
> and myriad others, you may not be reading this e-mail today.
>
> I'm sure that you have been told, have heard or have even observed just
> how cruel kids can be those who do not meet up to their standards of
> conformity. Yes, children are cruel. Many, and certainly _NOT_ most
> tend to grow out of it by the time they reach high school. The issue
> here is that everyone has a breaking point. As I heard President
> Clinton say in a quick soundbite I caught on CNN: (paraphrasing) "It's
> been said that sticks and stones will break bones, but words will never
> hurt you. It's simply not true, and believe so is utter foolishness".
> I believe his words were more along the lines of "less than
> intelligent", but I blieve mine drive the point home more forcefully.
>
> It is said that the pen is mightier than the sword. As the pen is the
> symbolic representation of speach, which is, in turn, the vocal
> representation of thought, the logical source is found. Those who would
> treat others as so much dust that they would brush from clothes are the
> cause of this attack in Colorado. The attack ITSELF is merely a SYMPTOM
> OF THE DISEASE. That disease is very simple to see, if one has the
> heart to look.
> We are living in a society that praises conformity and lack of creative
> and original thought, that demonizes the arts, creativity,
> non-conformity and all other aspects of individualism so reminiscent of
> Orwell's 1984 that it is truly frightening. Have we come to a point
> where we should praise those who tell Big Brother that someone just
> MIGHT be showing signs of individualism? I pray to God that we have
> not, for if we have, then may He help our immortal souls, because we
> certainly aren't able to.
>
> Enough of my tirade, I'm almost as tired typing it as I'm sure you are
> in reading it. However, I do have a couple more very quick points I
> wish to make. First and foremost is that those who are popular,
> regardless of arena, through backstabbing, harrassing and who
> dislike/hate/etc those who are "different" from them should be vilified.
> Are we not in a state of war in Yugoslavia for a similar reason? It is
> my understanding that we are there to stand up against a man who
> believes that those who are different than him are no better than
> animals. How can we, as Americans, take the moral authority to take on
> a man being described as "Hitler-esque" when we have almost the EXACT
> same issues going on in our High Schools, Colleges and Universities?
>
> My final point is to leave with you an URL for your perusal, and
> hopefully the comments that you will read there will help bring some
> added insight that I may be unable to bring to bear. I implore you to
> visit http://www.slashdot.org/articles/99/04/25/1438249
> nothing else, you will read about how literaly hundreds of people around
> the world feel about the reaction those in authority here are having.
>
I know I'm not treading new ground here, but...
I'm 26 years old now, happily married with a 10-month-old son. But I can remember being 15 like it was yesterday. I know it's a cliche, but highschool really was hell for me. I always had a hard time trying to fit in, partially because I couldn't stop myself from thinking how strangely surreal or even comical so many people were (kind of like Brazil, if you've seen it). So I ended up on the fringes with not too many friends. Of course, the people I did befriend were similarly "outcast" from the popular circles for this reason or that. Highschool kids can be absolutely merciless, and once they find out that you're not "one of them", you might become the target of verbal or physical abuse. Of course, none of this helps the situation - it only widens the chasm between "in" and "out". When you find yourself in a situation like this, you turn to things that make you happy. For me, it was music (after all, the coolest game our Tandy 256 could run was King's Quest III).
The thing is, whether we realize it or not, all highschool kids feel a lot of insecurity. It's one thing to not be cool - it's another to have an image of coolness to maintain at all times. But I think the difference comes in how closely you analyze your situation. It's true that those who don't have clue 1 about life seem to have the easiest time of it. But I just couldn't do that. I was born with an analytical/critical mind, as I suppose many of you were as well. And it's real hard to understand the mindset of a cheerleader or the class president when you realize how mindless and superficial so much of highschool activity is.
But I look at it this way - if my experience in highschool can help me to be more empathetic toward my son or whomever else, then that's a good thing. After all, if we are to learn anything from this, it's that people just want to be known and understood. Those who don't find that will do anything they can to get it, even if it costs them their lives. And I think that if more people were interested in actually *listening* and not rushing to panicked judgment (like so many HS counselors ironically seem to be doing), then we may see the situation improve for a lot of kids.
P.S. Quake is not evil!!! It isn't what goes into people that corrupts them, but what comes out of their hearts. I think some guy named Jesus said that once (except for the bit about Quake).
What's even weirder is that one of the killers was Jewish.
The ambitions are: wake up, breathe, keep breathing.
Hmm... Are propane tanks and gasoline outlawed in Canada? I didn't think the smothering state had gotten quite that bad up there yet.
Had the perps concentrated on their little BLEVE bomb rather than the guns, their toll would have likely been at least 20 times as high. The situation was horribly bad. I was nowhere near as bad as it could have been, and very nearly was.
It is not ok to kill people. No matter how much you hate them, feel ostracized or rejected by them, etc. (I realize there are reasons such as self-defense, country-defense, etc)
It is not ok to be mean. Making people feel like they are sub-human, worthless, lower form of life, etc. is damaging to both the reciever and the giver of such treatment. EVERY person has incredible potential. (Used to be a teacher, guess some of the paradigms stuck around)
It is not ok to force people into a mold. Any kind of infrastructure or environment that inhibits intellect and/or creative powers is dreadfully wrong.
It is not fair to generalize. If my brother were to rape and kill someone, I would not want people thinking that I was potentially dangerous. Everyone has the power of choice, and they alone are responsible for their choices.
Sometimes we can get caught up justifying or condoning wrong behaviour just because we can understand/empathize/abhor the causes of it. But as my mother use to say, "Two wrongs don't make a right..."
"Know Thy Ignorance"
"I lost that ability."
I hear you on that one. Before high school, I had a virtually photographic memory. After years of being forced to choose between the repetition=learning method of so-called educators or flunking classes ("Hmm, no homework turned in, 100% on every test. Yep, that's an 'F'."), that ability has atrophied.
School pretty much sucked, but I think I have forgiven them everything but that.
If you spend most of your life at home, with relatives, and with a few close friends, you don't learn how to deal with other people. That could be a serious problem.
I'm a homeschooled HS junior and I agree here, but with reservations. The isolation can be a bit of a problem, but I was isolated in public schools anyways. I've found that as long as I can get a bit of time with a friend my sanity remains intact. I know that I'm atypical, but most people who would be considering this could say the same.
Also, leaving the education of children up to the parents only works if the parents are themselves responsible enough to teach the children. If you have bible-thumping fundamentalist parents who teach you that evolution is a sinister conspiracy of godless atheist scientists, you're going to be laughed out of college.
LOL! Every so often we get some catalogue of Christian teaching materials, including creationist science texts. Always good for a laugh. I don't know why they assume that if you homeschool you must be into that stuff.
I'm in 10th grade now, and over the past 3 or 4 years, I've had three choices. I could act normal, I could be normal, or I could leave. Since I couldn't become "normal", and I couldn't leave, I've had to adopt a sort of second life. With friends, I act like I don't care that much about computers or technology. However, on my own I spend almost 90% of my free time in front of my computer. I've adopted this second life so well that my parents can't tell the difference. They think I act the same at home and school, and they have no idea that it is absolute hell for me to get up in the mornings and go. If the killers were like this as well, it's no surprise that their parents didn't catch anything. Everyone (parents, administrators, and everyone else) needs to pay more attention to kids' lives, and they might be able to prevent something like this from happeneing. It's not the games faults, it is the parents, teachers, and peers.
My name is Glenn Tucker. Luckily for me, I've never really been too much of a social outcast. Although I have been able to meld myslef into all the mainstream BS. But, I've never really felt myself to be in the right place when I'm around preppies. When I was in Junior High, I did have a lot of problems with social interaction. I remember going home and listening to the most depressing music I could and thinking about how much people hated me. I got to the point where I was pretty much saying "fuck everything." I even tried to kill myself on a few occasions (although, i never really had the guts).
Even though I'm no longer on the recieving end of all the torture and torment, this is the side of the story that has been pissing me off. Not because I don't have compassion for it, but because no one seems to want to pay attention to it. Luckily, I have a way to get my voice out and I'm willing to put in as many other voices as possible. I write for a high school newspaper in Sunnyvale, CA and we distribute it throughout the district and a few other places. If you would like to throw some comments into my article, or if you have written something yourself, I'll put in as much as I can. You can e-mail me at the above address or gonzo420@hotmail.com (hit that one more, hempseed is fucked a lot). I appreciate all comments you send and I feel for everyone who has had to go through the torment of being a misfit after this tragedy.
Glenn Tucker
aka: junk
Fremont High School (Sunnyvale, CA)
the Phoenix =-that's the paper
I am sorry, but I am not going to read to 700 replies to this article. And I presume next to nobody is going to read my reply, so here I go.
I am glad that these boys did what they did! Highschool is hell. The world is messed up. And there is nothing anyone can do about it. Only highschool kids would be crazy enough to pull a stunt like this. O.K., some others do, but once we're out of highschool most of us stop caring. We stop searching for the meaning of life. We fall into place and become part of the problem.
It takes "insane" acts to shake people. Unfortunatley it shakes most the wrong way. They fall into step with the mainstream brain dead jerks. I think it is sad. The kids who shot up the school are not the "sick" ones. We are. We allow the stupidity to continue. We encourage it by being part of what is wrong. we are the villians. But we are not the cool villians of the TV shows. We are the pathetic stupid people.
We are the criminals, not the kids who decide to go out killing. We are to blame. We are the ones who go to work and school every day. We are the people we hate.
regards,
Tim Moran
I consciously try to not be a part of the mainstream. Mostly because through lengthy sessions of thinking and introspection I've become a deeper person than most I encounter. I dress in a "goth" fassion when possible (and I do mean goth, not mansonite. I like the romantic shirts and things like that, stuff circa 17th and 18th century). I, personally have not hated school though. Granted I have not enjoyed it nearly as much as the others around me, but I have never been ridiculed all that much. It has been nearly the opposite in that some of the other students admire my being different and wish they had the guts go go against the mainstream (and yes, they have actually told me this), and I suppose this has allowed me to make friends easier than others like me. When I did receive ridicule for who I was I am unlike many of the people quoted in the article. I did not feel rage or anger, well before the long bouts of thinking and introspection I did but, instead I felt pity for those that felt so unstable
in themselves they felt they had to ridicule me to make themselves feel like something. I suppose I could be an exception among many who have a much worse time than myself. Maybe I've had it easy. I am a high school senior by the way.
"I swear I won't break you if you let me take you where the willows never weep" -- Switchblade Symphony
at least one of the shootings was motivated by race
The student in question was also a popular athlete.
Last I'd heard, the kid's father was blaming race, but there was no other evidence.
Forward, retransmit, or republish anything I say here. Just don't misquote me.
High school isn't CRAP! Nothing I did there has helped me now. I have seen so many oppressed by what school thinks is right and wrong. Sometimes I myself feel like going back and beating the hell out of the principal at my brother's high school just out of the stupid crap they do to nonconformists. The new youth of America are not sheep! I can't see why anyone would miss high school. College yeah, high school to hell with it.
Madhatter --It's no wonderland out there.
It is a free country, for most of us. For those who don't conform to what society wants its not quite a free speech country.
Madhatter --It's no wonderland out there.
>does anyone notice how no one in america is responsible for their actions anymore?
>...
>GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEADS. IT'S BAD PARENTING, NOT THE MEDIA THAT IS TURNING YOUR KIDS INTO KILLERS.
Moron. You're just as actively engaged in finger-pointing - and not at the perps themselves - as anyone else here. The parents didn't kill 13+ people any more than the media did.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
>This is a bit of a troll because you're talking about private schools though aren't you? I was asking for a comparison of like with like - public schools in the US and state schools in the UK.
Sorry again. Yes, I went to private schools, but my brother went to a public one; as near as I can tell, his school was both more stratified and more cliquish than mine. Fistfights were rare at my school, and nobody expected their friends to join in, but at his school "gang warfare" seemed fairly common.
We're straying pretty far from the topic, though, and plenty of others have provided accounts closer to home of cliquishness in UK schools.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
Exactly. The real racism is that shootings in
black neighborhoods do not receive equal coverage.
Regards,
proclus
That said, when I was in high school (10 years ago), I was also one of the "outcasts". I laugh now because time is a sweet reward. I make over 100K a year right now while some of my former high school tormentors still work at Wendys.
Yea, you make more money than them. You're better than them. Let you're kids know that they are better than their peers whose parents make less money than you. Complete the circle.
Sigh.
Money is everything. Fight your way to the top. If you aren't the best you're nothing. Don't question the system, just do everything you can to make it work for you.
This is the sickness folks.
No, it's not our government, our economic structure, any of that.
It goes deeper.
Who are you, and why are you writing about my life?
-russ
p.s. actually I knew right where to find my Dad's captured Japanese 9mm pistol.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Sorry, Kestrel, but it's obvious that we can't keep drugs out of our country. How do you think we could keep guns out?
Equally obvious (I'm surprised you missed it) is that criminals only need to be to be better-armed than the people around them. Gun control helps criminals by disarming their victims.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the obvious solution: drop out and teach yourself. Yes, it's legal in all 50 states. Yes, you don't have to worry about socialization (in-school socialization is called "talking in class", and it's discouraged.) No, you don't have to worry about getting into college. Home-schoolers are typically more self-possessed and confident. They have the time to develop expertise in subjects far beyond that taught in school.
My 13yo daughter is being encouraged to take a test equivalent to that given to piano majors entering college. She's the NY state champion at identifying plants. She's very good at art. And she's typically the leader of any group she's in.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
FAQ #1 of homeschooling is "is it legal?"
FAQ #2 of homeschooling is "what about socialization?"
The answer, simply enough, is that you get socialized by being out in society, not by being in school. School is a very unnatural environment. Knowledge on how to deal with it is useless once you graduate. Avoiding bullies? Useless -- I was never bullied after high school. Learning how to pass the test? Employers don't care about tests -- they want to know if you can do the work. Being the teacher's pet? Kissing the jock's asses? Spending 50% of your waking hours solely interacting with people within one year of your own age? This is socialization??
To the extent that a home-schooling child uses the time gained to be out in society, they will be better socialized.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Well, government schooling obviously has its disadvantages, but it also has more subtle disadvantages.
If you spend most of your life at school, with teachers, and with a few close friends, you don't learn how to deal with other people. That could be a serious problem.
Also, leaving the education of children up to the teachers only works if the teachers are themselves responsible enough to teach the children.
-russ
p.s. the problem with government schooling is that the intellectual model underlying them does not work. You cannot teach the same thing at the same time of day at the same time in history in the same manner to a group of randomly-selected children whose sole common characteristics are geography and age.
As we try to tell people, GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
You homeschool them until they homeschool themselves. Do you really think the school can supply an entire high-school education? How many people do you think actually remember the deeper meanings of Shakespeare beyond the day of the test? (test have been done, and the answer is: pitifully few).
How are they going to cope with going to school? Poorly. How would you cope with going to jail, and missing all the interactions with the real world that you usually get?
The answer is that you have a blinkered idea of what homeschooling represents. "Confines of their own home" indeed! My daughter has the whole world to learn in! Schooled children only have what they are allowed to see and learn.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I have two sons who got their GED certificates after suffering through various school systems. If I'd have thought about it earlier, I would have encouraged their sister (who made it all the way through graduation in a school where she wasn't happy) to do the same, and have all three of them do it sooner.
:)
If you're of high school age, sit back and discuss this honestly with yourself and maybe with others you trust. Are you really getting anything out of school? Does it facilitate your education or interfere with it? Don't factor friends into the discussion -- you can stay friends with people even if you decide to leave school.
If the plusses for school outweigh the negatives, by all means stay. Maybe you have an awesome math teacher, or you're heavy into things like drama that you can't get outside school (assuming schools still have drama -- that was my escape in high school). But if it's intolerable, you're miserable, you're going to school out of a sense of duty or because your parents are forcing you to go -- quit. Get your GED. Don't walk, run. Don't wait. Then you can start taking classes at the local community college, or learn to hack, or flip burgers or rebuild engines or hitchhike through South America if that's what you want to do.
As one poster said earlier, high school is not the real world. Come on out. And I guaran-dam-tee you, after about 10 years you'll be in much better shape than the kids in the "popular" crowd. Occasionally I look back on my high school days, 25 or so years ago, and think about all those people who tormented me -- and I just sort of smile and give them a little wave.*
Caw caw
* Babylon 5 fans will recognize the reference
i hated high school so much i dropped out...i'm doing a hell of a lot better then i was.
"The world only exists in your eyes. You can make it as big or as small as you want." - F Scott Fitzgerald
For this crowd I suppose I'm an old fart - pushing 32 years old. When I was in school I too was set apart from the others and ridiculed. I and my friends fit in with NO group and often received the scorn of others. The biggest thing that bound us together was our being different. Some of us were into D&D, some of us built homemade bombs for fun, most all of us had IQs that would shame the popular people.
:-P
I'll never forget NOT going to the senior prom. A couple of weeks before that date one of the popular girls asked me to go with her, I turned her down because I thought it was a setup for a joke - I've always wondered. I once lost a good friend who was one of the popular girls after a mistaken comment overheard by someone else. This after she and I managed to get pretty friendly one evening but not THAT friendly. She told me that even if she could believe I wasn't telling people things that she could no longer be seen with me - that hurt.
I graduated high school with low grades and lower self esteem. I worked in a drug store for a year full time before going to a local tech school to learn computer repair. I landed a halfway decent job that was a foot in the door and worked two jobs to afford my own apt. away from home. Times were pretty tough but I had a computer and 2400baud modem at home. I owned no TV and spent ALL of my time on BBS and learned a great deal. All of my equipment was second hand and it was a wonderous day when I got a HD and 286 CPU.
It wasn't long before it was realized by my supervisors that no one else in the shop knew shit about software. Everyone knew hardware fine but I was the only one in the shop who could diagnose software problems and before long I was the one going on the really tough service calls.
I left that company just after trying to learn a bit about DbaseIV - I'd never done any real programming before and had failed a FORTAN class years before on a CP/M machine in high school. My first day on the new job I was introduced as the "new DbaseIV expert" and had 30 days overlap with the guy I was replacing to learn it!
I learned well and before long made more than my supervisor. That was several companies ago and I've busted my ass sucking up knowledge as fast as I can. I never got a degree but nearly everyone I work with these days has a Bachelors and is working on a Masters or two. Where they spend a bit of time learning computer "things" I spend hours and it shows when the rubber meets the road. I'll gross a bit over 80K this year not including bonuses and I own my own home along with a couple of cars I like to play\tinker\modify. Not only that but I've found a good Girl who was interested in me because I had a mind and when SHE calls me a geek it's with affection. She doesn't have my computer skills but she's got a brain and I can respect her as much as she does me.
I still remember high school. I most remember the first reunion I went to with an ex-girlfriend who graduated one year ahead of me. I bumped into a teacher who now saw me more as a peer. The other punks there were just getting out of college, heavy in debt. I was living on my own and doing okay at the time. The teacher, she looked at me, smiled, and said "you're doing pretty damned good!". I looked arond, saw the other for what they were and just nodded. The next year it was my reunion and I felt great pride looking at all th elosers who used to be so popular. Few of them got anywhere but some of my friends did. Two own their own companies and one actually dumped one of the most popular girls in our class. When I asked him how they met I found out they worked in the same building and had met in an elevator. She'd never have talked to him in school but she dated him in the real world. He dumped her because she wasn't too bright and couldn't hold a conversation - I just had to laugh. My hat's off to you Lee B. - you know who you are - send me some mail.
Anyway, trust me gang life gets better. Slough off the jerks, work hard, catch a break. Want to feel better? Get a good job and let them eat your dust!
I play every one of the games mentioned in various news reports. I blast people like nobody's business and love every minute of it. I'd never go postal like those kids did but I can understand where they came from. I was ridiculed for being different and I watched my friends suffer too. We had the capability to do what those kids did back then but why bother? We weren't happy but we weren't that unhappy either. We all felt confident that when push came to shove we'd wind up ahead, with the exception of the few who got deep into drugs we all did. I almost shit my pants when one friend brought a gun to school and showed me, thank god he never used it. Funny thing was, I never worried that he would nor did I tell anyone about it at the time. I don't know why...
If you identify with those kids, take heart. Eventually you'll be away from the jerks and in the real world where your achievements get you ahead and people care far less about what you wear. FWIW I too got interrogated once or twice for things I didn't do and each time they finally gave up. Had I known then what I know now there would've a lawsuit or two (sigh). When the going gets real tough simply ask them to charge you or get you a lawyer. Discuss it with your folks before you're ever questioned and get their backing to pick you up out front if you have to walk out of school. Hope that it never gets that bad but it might and it did for me at least once. I was lucky enough to have parents that supported me like that may they RIP, I hope you do too.
Hang in there!
BLKMGK
P.S. GeekGirls? Where were you when I was that age? There still aren't enough of you out there but I've found mine
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Yeah, no shooting but how many geeks can watch that and not see some of themselves in each of the characters? That movie came out when I was in high school - me and my outcast friends cried at the end and got stinking drunk - Keith Merrifield where are you now?
Sad to say, I actually remember those days fondly now but back then life was a real bitch...
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
I too got into fights in school - all the way up from elementary school through high school. I got my ass kicked on a regular basis mostly but by the time I reached high school I was doing a bit of damage myself. Sure, you get your butt kicked, but let a jock walk away with a bloody nose a time or two and people stop trying to fight you.
I was small (6'2 now) and weaker but when I fought there were no rules. Bite one of those jerks, pull their hair out - they'll think you're crazy. By the time you hit high school everyone is big enough to hurt one another so make sure that you're not the only one walking away hurt. Even the victor bears scars when you get big enough.
Always walk away when you can (others have said that), don't run, and stand your ground even when it means getting a bit beat up. If you must fight school is the best place, witnesses abound and there are people around to stop it from getting really bad. Never throw the first punch - that's all my parents ever cared about. Let them swing first and try to have witnesses.
Eventually you'll get older and this kind of petty crap ought to stop. I may never have won a fight in school but I always made sure I wasn't an easy target to swing at either - hurt 'em back.
Ya' know - it's truly sad this crap still goes on...
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Dude, you're making it through, not taking it too seriously, and are getting something out of it to boot. Why do you think anyone would flame you for that?
:-)
If you can get through high school and get something out of it, bonus! If you can't because you're too bright and are bored to tears in class just suffer through - it'll get better. There's no reason to flame someone who's managed to make the best of it - I reserve my flames for idiots instead
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
After high school one of the punks that used to pick on me spotted me driving down the road. He in a jeep full of jocks me in my late model Mustang. When we pulled up to a light I was first in line and he was just behind me while cars whizzed by just ahead of me in the intersection. Sure enough the dork contacts my bumper and tries to PUSH my car into traffic! He wasn't successful and was soon pounding on my window threatening me. When the light turned green he followed me to my friend's home, nearly hitting a pedestrian. We called the cops from his phone and he left before they arrived.
The next day I was in the magistrate's office with the cop swearing a warrant - the cop it seems had examined his record and found it "interesting".
He didn't show up in traffic court but he did try to appeal after being found guilty. I had witnesses and he was again found guilty - and his fine more than doubled. what fun it was riding the elevator down with him and a balif as he set off to pay his hefty fee. I and my friend just chuckled...
Use the law when you can and when it's on your side. Don't hesitate but do be aware when you might be crossing the line. You're no better than they are if you cross the line, do so at your own risk. It's much better to simply get past high school and move on than get stupid and get caught trying to get your revenge.....
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Hey geeks, no matter where you are, no matter how old you are! I know of one way to fight back against these people that try to control your life. Sick the law on 'em! Lemme explain.
I of course was your typical tormented teen back in high school. I always had everybody else pushing me around because they could, and would insult me because of my views, which often didn't conform. Well, my freshman year in college I put up on my old webpage all my gripes about high school, and it was basically a rant that I had about me growing up in my high school. Turns out some guys from my high school found that webpage, and emailed me threatening me to change my views or get my ass kicked, same old thing that happened in high school all the time. On advice from some friends, I looked up the law, and it turns out what they did (threatening me in a serious manner) is ILLEGAL (at least here in Texas). So I told the university police about them, got them to apologize, and guess what, I haven't heard from them since. Goes to show that high school aggression tactics just don't work out here in the real world.
We're all smart here, everybody that reads /.. Find ways to fight back intelligently, and remember to use the man in your struggle! As long as you have some form of proof that they are violating your rights (right to happiness, which having serious threats against you violates), your aggressors are fsck'd. As one of my favorite bands, Machine Head, states, BOW DOWN TO NONE. Don't bemoan your state, take action! If I had known to fight back like this back in high school, I might have had an easier time.
Jack
Demona's Law - "User data expands to exceed available bandwidth." ("User data" being pr0n, mp3's, vob's,
I havent been online in the past few days... as school is done and I'm in the process of moving, but now I've made it to /. to check things out and I will be merely one of 600 posts...
HOLY SHIT SLASHDOT thats all I can say... I've had so much respect for this website... i tell everyone about it... ummm.. NOT ANY MORE
I can't belive you have posted all those emails for everyone to read... like we're supposed to read them and feel so sorry for all these lame dorks that think they are being treated so cruel in school. All you kids want my pity? screw that. Its life, get over it, and here's a little tip... the "cool" preople get treated cruel too. You just don't see it because you don't have the guts to hang out with them. Everyone gets treated cruel... so I THINK I"VE HEARD ENOUGH ABOUT WAAA WAAAA EVERYONE HATES ME I HAVE NO FRIENDS.
as for the whole point of slashdot's thread... that this whole media thing over littleton has caused all these geeks to be discriminated against in the past week, well you know what... thats their own problem. To the people who wrote in emails about being dragged into offices because they play doom and quake, and they don't like the fact that they are being pulled in to be talked to.... deal with it. Use some communication skills and simply tell them that you understand their concern but that you are not a threat and you want to make that clear. Don't jump on the "I have rights, I'm gonna fight you on this one" bandwagon... don't be so $^%#ing dramatic.
As for the email sent in about the girl who showed up at school in a trenchcoat and whined over her rights being violated because they told her she couldn't wear it.... ARE YOU STUPID OR SOMETHING?
HELLO PEOPLE.... 13 STUDENTS WERE KILLED LAST WEEK while they were in the "safest" place possible. Don't be stupid and wear your trenchcoat to school the next day just to be dramatic and prove some kind of point... have some %$#^ing respect.
I can't belive some of the crap I'm reading. You "understand" the killer's feelings? Give me a break... the are murderers... case CLOSED. I can't belive how many people are justifying what they did. People are dead... DEAD... as in never coming back.
THE COUNTRY HAS A RIGHT TO BE $##@ING PARANOID... if you play quake and people around you are paranoid because of it, sit them down and talk to them... don't get so defensive... jeezus
NO ONE... NOTHING is to blame except for those parents that didn't notice the 30 some bombs and guns in the house or the fact that their child was depressed. IF YOU ARE A PARENT.. FOR GODS SAKE, TALK TO YOUR KIDS.
now go ahead an moderate me slashdot
-mad cebe
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and another thing... I can't belive how many "geeks" are actual outcasts. Just like that stupid article in Rolling Stone.... my god... will us geeks that have a sense of style, and happened to be popular in high school ever get some representation? Am I the only computer geek that isnt an outcast and has friends?
Go get involved in someting... mazke some friends for crying out loud... go to bush parties and drink underage (responsibly), have some fun... you're missing out on the best time of your life.
HIGH SCHOOL RULED
-cebe
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exactly
:)
you said that much better than I did, I kinda flew off the handle... nice job
-cebe
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Everyone keeps comparing high school and the trajedy at Littleton to displaying this world in a '1984' type setting. However, there is a reason authorities have found 'Catcher in the Rye' in the home's of some this centuries most fearsome killers.
"I always knew there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe." -- Arthur Dent
I'm glad I'm not in high school anymore, but I know that if I were, I would be one of the many being sent home for displaying "anti-social" behavior. Yeah, I was "anti-social" because I hated the way the "normal" people treated me, and preferred to avoid it alltogether.
If being "normal" means being a shallow conformist, who thrives on putting down and belittleing others, then I think I would prefer being labled a freak or psycho.
Maybe this sytemic view isn't the way. I mean if it works, roll with it.
If it doesn't, get a different paradigm. Maybe it's better to see many systems. Maybe it's better to see no systems. What, even, is meant by system?
Back down to the ground here with a proposal:
It may be easier, instead of looking at a 'system' with you [the reader] possibly defining yourself as 'outside the system', to look as yourself as part of things whether anyone else likes it or not;
you are a citizen of this universe and everyone else just has to deal with it;
not being a part of the system is no one's option, and it does _not_ mean you have to compromise your individuality, and it does _not_ mean that every part of the system gets along with the rest -
it just means things a few small things you've already learned; you can affect others - maybe a little, maybe a lot, maybe many, maybe a few, but you probably will never know for sure (I don't)
- and such is life.
I can think of some side-effects of this view that have direct positive impact to the matters at hand.
This view, too, won't work for everyone.
I'm a perl hacker, in some ways. I'm all for using whatever works.
--
Ok, I am not a nerd, I have never been one and should even add that I have been cruel to some. Yeah I read slashdot, am I weirdo then?
Nope, I loved school, I loved the way I laughed at some people. There always was someone to laugh at. Of course later, you do understand that it was easy to do so. Those people were nerds, socially disfunctional folks, who are usually smart but never the smartest. I am sorry, but Einstein or Poincare, or any other real big shot scientists were never nerds.
I however came to the understanding that it was cruel to do that, to make fun of them or of some nerdish teachers who couldn't get their students to respect them!
But hey, it's life! Killing for that means only ONE THING. You are sick!
Yes, society is sometimes stupid, cruel, or just plain clueless! Most of us were that too when we were kids, nerds included!
Any solution. Well, I don't know. But I just keep wondering how come no student will ever kill anyone in a lot of other countries. I mean look at France, or Italy or Third World countries! I am not saying they don't have horrors of their own.
But anyone asked why, here in the US, people tend to go shoot down other people then commit suicide?
I think part of the answer is the availability of guns. Another part is the sickening politically correct climate we live in. Hell, those kids should have seriously been shaken up by their parents, and talked too even more seriously a long time ago! I am not talking about stupid pseudo-rational and useless counselling, I am talking about real parental care! Care here is of course love but also listening, punishing, rewarding, hitting, hugging, talking...
I think, a lot of today's parents aren't doing their job. Why? I don't know!
I know my parents were sometimes tough with me, sometimes nice, sometimes caring, sometimes hateful. But in truth, they were always here! And for that I am more than thankful!
Be there for your kids, REALLY there! And get those guns out of this country. And for the folks who want to hunt and to be real men! BE REAL MEN, and HUNT those animals you hunt with a hunting knife, or your bare hands like REAL MEN used to do in the past! I'd love to see that, instead of watching impotent males hiding and waiting for a little deer to pop up, to fill its head with bullets from a safe distant!
Kill Microsoft? No! Just hire their GUI guys!
How do you protect your kids? I'm not sure. I know how it ended for me. I got lucky, and went to an all geek HS. No one got picked on, so it ended with Junior HS.
Grades 4-8, as well as the first half of 9 (last year of JHS) were a living hell. I got beat up at least once, and usually twice a week, and was stabbed with a compass point (a hole about 2 inches deep) once. Nothing was done. What finally ended THAT was I learned to FIGHT. Not clean, but dirty (VERY DIRTY) - I was taught by a real OSS guy (WWII special forces). I creamed the 2 biggest bullies is the school, at the same time, twice in one week. It stopped.
Thing is, I thought about the gun option, but said, "My parent would kill me". I guess it does come down to the parents being involved
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
i know i didn't have the worst high school experances, but even if it was average it still desearved the name hell school
i had a lot of good teachers, and if it was left to them, it would have been a great place to learn, but (there is always a but) our prinsipal was a glorified PR man, his main consern was keeping the parents happy, which meant of cource to keep a strangle hold on the student body
(banning weapons: good; banning big johnson t-shirts: just stupid)
from what i remember of high school, we had three choices, fit-in, withdraw, of explode
i didn't fit in, so i withdrew into books. Izzac Azimov proibibly kept me sane (i know i'm streching the term)
if i hadn't found an outlet like that i probibly would have ripped someone's head off before i escaped (escape is the most approprate word)
i accually started getting teased and jeared way before high school, and by the time i got to high school i had built up a rather sturdy wall and discovered that if you laugh at the jears, that your assalents would get board and leave you alone. (it's no fun if no one is hurt)
proibibly the best thing that happened to me in those years is when my best friend beat me up. it was getting roudy in the locker room, everybody was picking on everybody else, it was getting to me, and i blew up at the most convent person, my friend (sounds crule, but keep in mind that he was build like a dwarf, shorter than me and about twice my weight, and on top of all that a vell versed A-hole) i hit him, he hit me, but better (only black eye i got). for a little while after that i got swoned over by the girls in the class for standing up for my-self.
all in all high school was a rather supid experance
(mother(you) -> hamster) and (smelt(father) = smelt(elderberries))
(warning in advance: VERY LONG article. Also much of my trauma has caused me to forget about 75% of my past, so much of what is written here is what has surfaced over time)
I've been there, to hell and back.
It all started in kindergarten, at Panther Lake Elementary School in Kent, Washington. It was obvious from the start that I was brighter than the other students; I got simple exercises done quickly, and was a good friend of the teachers. The other kids didn't like this.
In first grade I was transfered to Spring Glen Elementary in nearby Renton, the Kent School District's supposed "gifted" school. I blew through the first through third grades' math books in about four months and was up to the fourth grade level of spelling. However, it was soon evident that even in the "gifted" schools there are still vicious circles. I was still picked on, teased, even given Ritalin to correct my supposed "deficiencies" (but was only on it for three weeks when my parents discovered the truth behind it and yanked me from it. Nonetheless, even to this day my sleep patterns have been permanently messed up because of it.) At one point near the end of the year, I lashed out at my tormentors. Not only did they get off without any punishment, I was denied participation in Field Day! Needless to say, summer was the best time of the year for me.
I consciously decided to return to Panther Lake because I decided that I would probably be better off there. I'm still trying to decide whether or not that was true. Nonetheless, when I returned, people remembered me, and still harbored the same hatreds - because I was smarter, because I was less physically able. I always excelled at the proficiencies - reading, writing, arithmetic. "Recess" periods were especially horrible, because we couldn't stay inside the buildings during those times; I tried to play, but when I was beaten (which happened often) I was mocked not only for being weaker, but because of who I was.
During this time (second through fourth grade) there was a particular book from the library which I checked out constantly. It was called the "Super-Colossal Book of Puzzles, Tricks, and Games". I apparently was the only person ever checking out the book, because I never received complaints from the librarians about other kids wanting to check it out. I always dutifully returned it and checked it out immediately again. I loved the book to death. Apparently, midway through the fourth grade, though, the librarians decided arbitrarily that I had checked out the book "too much". I was never allowed to check out that book, ever again, for the rest of my life. Not under any circumstances. When I was told this, I was (of course) outraged. But I couldn't do anything about it because I had no influence over anything. I, after all, was "just" another student.
Someone else brought up the issue of swearing. I also tried my hardest not to cuss, not to sink to their level. (I eventually abandoned this precept in the 10th grade.) This also set me apart as an outcast since I wasn't "blending in".
Fifth grade for me was one of the low points of my life. My teacher was a total sycophant. She literaly did not dare raise a finger against the students. By this time the class was taunting me when the teacher was out of the room for whatever reason; on one such occasion near December, it had gotten to the point where I had completely broken down in class and was crying my ass off when the teacher walked back in. (Keep in mind by now that even the GIRLS had no respect for me and had joined in the vicious circle). I begged the teacher for help, and over winter break apparently the scene laid out before her had affected her in some way; she quit teaching altogether. This turned out ironically bringing in one Mr. Helgeson (I oddly can't remember his first name), which turned out to be a blessing as he was one of the best goddamned teachers I've ever had in my life. He set the class straight and was very fun asides.
Sixth grade, things were starting to swing up a bit - I made my first few friends - but still, I got the distinct feeling that I was now being used as opposed to abused when I ended up doing all the work for a *group* project on one occasion (this has a lot to do with my hating group cooperation). Additionally, some very cruel students had taken to taking my words and using them against me, when I had said them with the best of intentions.
Then something else happened that really contributed to my hatred of people in general.
Over the past three years, I had excelled at the spelling bee competition (this would eventually end up being the last year those bastards at the Seattle Times stopped supporting the spelling bee). The past three years, I had won the school title (in fourth grade I made the district semifinals; the year before I made the district finals; this year I would ultimately make the Regionals). This gave me the bizarre air of an outcast who nonetheless was looked up to for being so dominant in this field. Unfortunately, this day would cause everything to flipflop to hell.
The previous week, I had the misfortune of reading a book in which a typo slipped by; "unanimous" had been spelled "unanymous". How this typo had slipped by me is beyond me. Anyway, it had gotten dowm from a field of 30 to just me and another person (who happened to be one of my friends); we were both advancing to the district semis anyway, but were now squaring off for the school title. Keep in mind that the entire school was in the audience in the gym at that time. We kept trading off for about 6 or 7 words. Then he screwed up something. I got it right, and in Spelling Bee rules you must spell one more word to be declared the winner.
Well, the judge then asked me to spell "unanimous".
I smiled, thought that this was in the bag. Spelled it the way it had been typoed in the book above.
When the judge rung the bell, the ENTIRE SCHOOL started cheering before he even began saying "That is incorrect"!
I was shocked, but calmly sat down, hoping my friend would misspell it. He didn't. The crowd cheered AGAIN. (I had received no such fanfare when I had capitalized on his mistake.) Then he was given a realy easy word, which he spelled, and the crowd literally went into a frenzy, carrying him out of the gymnasium on his back. I was completely humiliated; I locked myself in the gym instructor's office for a while, completely believing that I had spelled the word right.
Now, some of you may say "no, the crowd was getting fed up, they wanted it to end sometime". First, I point you to the crowd's cheering patterns above. And then, afterwards, for YEARS (many of these students would end up following me to the same junior high and high school), beginning that day, people would call out to me with "Hey, Frank! U~n~a~n~i~m~o~u~s!" in the most sadistic, mocking tone. I rushed a few of them. I didn't deserve that kind of shit.
Throughout this time, second to sixth grade, I was continually refered to the school counselor to try to figure out what was going wrong. These were not very competent counselors. By the time I was about to graduate from elementary school, these same counselors had told my parents, point blank (with me in the room), that *I* was at fault for what was happening to me. What the bloody fuck? Because I was smarter, meek, and not that hot at P.E., I was bringing the plague upon myself? To the shithole with that.
Additionally, certain teachers were actualy offended with my technological prowess. I remember the days when computer labs were rows and rows of Mac Plusses chained together with a Mac SEx (um, oops, I mean SE/30) as the server. At one point I really got good with HyperCard, developing a stack for something I can't remember now that eventually outgrew the floppy disk (which at the time, the max possible on a Mac was 800k; however, we had to cram the system files on those disks as well, so it was more like over 500k). I found my way to a part of the fileserver where I could save my file, and continued to fiddle away on it. Well, eventually, the administrator discovered the file. Instead of being impressed with my HyperCard skills, she chastised me for "wasting server space" (which was bullshit) and forced me to delete the file. Needless to say, I was not happy for being trod upon just because I kmew my ins and outs of the system better than most of the others.
Seventh grade. New school (Kent Junior High), new atmosphere, better teachers (for the most part; see below), unfortunately most of the same students who had been tormenting me in the sixth grade followed me to the school. Life was not much better. I still remained a straight-A student, increasing my proficiency with computer ops and not cursing. This of course did not help me any because I was absolutely lousy in P.E.
Once again, arrogant network admins crashed down on me hard. In December of my 7th grade year, I was called out of my fifth period class to see the network administrator. (He was about to retire and therefore I feel he needed to take out all his mounting frustration on somebody.) He forced me to produce several floppy disks, with which I had been collecting games on. SHAREWARE games, for crying out loud. (He adamantly believed they were pirated.) For that, he formatted the disks and banned me from using the network until February. What the bloody hell? Not only that, but I was forced to delete ANOTHER HyperCard stack I had been storing away due to size problems. This is ultimately the reason I gave up on HyperCard; why make them if they're going to be deleted anyway? (I couldn't even take them home, since until 1993 my father had insisted on sticking with an old Atari 1040 ST.)
From the end of my 6th grade year, I had began to write. I was constantly writing, writing, writing. A big enthusiast of video games, I had started writing something because I didn't like that particular game's ending. If anybody is interested, I effected a partial rewrite, and you can check it out on my website, in the section called "Why I Dislike Self-Insertion". Sitting on my shelf here in college, I still have all 5 folders (entailing 500+ pages hand-written with pencil), two folders of profiles which read more like RPG stat sheets (I have never tabletop-RPGed in my life, but the King County Library System is as far as I know the only one in the country which carries large amounts of TSR and other RPG companies' materials, meaning I have extensively studied the game systems), and a folder containing the materials for the sequel, which I started writing before I even finished the original, which incidentally was unfinished. Why do I keep them despite their laughable awfulness? In a way, writing is what kept me alive until the 11th grade; I had aspirations to publish the story, and I still have aspirations to publish at least one book in my life. Thus they stay with me.
Just as an aside, alluding to the teacher comment from earlier: my 8th grade English Honors teacher was probably the worst teacher I've ever had in my life. First day, she lays down the law: no fantasy (except for what she picked out, which ultimately amounted to be the poem Jabberwocky), no science fiction (this was hardline; she hated science fiction like nobody else). There was one girl who actually spoke out against her one day, in the midst of the oppression; the next day, she had been ejected from school. This only reinforced this class's hatred of this teacher. But that wasn't the worst thing she did. Oh, no. One of the students was an American/Vietnamese who had been brought up in America. At one point, she had been having trouble with a particular paper. This teacher, easily frustrated, eventually threw up her hands and told the student point blank, "Well, maybe this wouldn't be so hard for you if English were your first language." (Which it was.) As far as I know, she is still teaching today (but is slipping more and more into senility). It wasn't just bad students, it was bad teachers.
Well, this is getting long enough anyway, but to make a long story short, the cycle didn't end until I reached Kent-Meridian High School; more specifically, the eleventh grade. Once I was there, I had enrolled in Running Start (junior college, to put it euphemistically), and ended up not even being physically at school half the time; in my senior year, I was only at school once every two days (more Running Start). People only began to respect me then; since I wasn't constantly in their presence, I guess they found me more likable. Which I found odd, but at least the cycle had finally ended. Hell, by graduation time, half of the student body knew me and fully respected me. The day I graduated was one of the best days of my life.
Now, I sit here at Washington State University only ten months later, just two weeks on the verge of completing my first year in college. At last, I am in control; few people know me (and the students who did follow me here are very friendly to me), and I am in control. How sweet it is.
And that's my story.
Navaash
What I'm about to say has already been identified in this very forum, but due to the enormity of the situation bears repeating: to the myriad high schoolers out there that can so readily identify with why the two boys in Colorado finally went over the edge, HANG ON. Your lifelong journey is a _long_ road stretching off into the distance before you, and you've only seen a tiny bit of it so far. HANG ON. College will be better as you encounter more people that are intelligent, understanding, and feel as you do. HANG ON. Employment after college will be even better still as you launch a career that will leave your former peers gasping in your dust. HANG ON. Believe me, I've experienced what you're going through. I applaud those with the courage to stand up for both their rights and beliefs in the face of such adversity. HANG ON. High school ultimately consumes a minute amount of your overall time. HANG ON. It's going to get better.
Those that Can, Do. Those that Can't, Teach. Those that can't Teach, Administrate. Those that can't Administrate, Counsel. {With my apologies to the few individuals actually capable of Teaching, Administrating, and Counseling. You are in the minority.}
Adam
mandatory counseling after just expressing different views?
expelling and exclusion for a trench coat?, there's gonna be a trench coat wave all over and they'll panic..
inquisition about video games?
Letters sent to the parent asking to report/act on kid's strange behavior?
And they want to make me believe that it is the freedom country...
Pheww.... I don't live there :)
P.S.: To all geeks and nerds; come to Montreal we have a long winter so you won't need any excuse to stay late in front of your CPU in the winter and in the summer the big bunch of friends you'll make here will succeed in convincing you to go out and party for having fun. You won't feel rejected and actually you'll be cool
I agree with the general sentiment here at slashdot, namely: Those who wonder where the blame lies should turn their accusing fingers around to themselves. The net is not to blame, Doom is not to blame, Marilyn Manson is certainly not to blame. Indeed, "wholesome family values" are more to blame than anything, specifically the intolerance that accompanies the conformity with said values.
When I was a freshman, I got thrown down a flight of stairs by the star running back. He didn't think I should be smoking, and politely tossed me. He got a detention. I had shoulder pain for three weeks. Nice.
My advice: Avoid Mesquite, Texas at all costs. Oh yeah, and fuck da man. Be different. Somebody with more skill than me needs to come up with a clever fake headline and hack the NYTimes or something...
I wrote some more detailed comments at
http://www.ultranet.com/~bem/colorado.txt
I hope some of you will take the time to read it.
Basically, I agree that there's a lot wrong with high school, but i don't think that's why these guys cracked. Sometimes I think it just comes down to there being something wrong with the individuals involved. I do know that crackdowns such as banning trenchcoats and such are just plain misguided, though. Going into a school and killing a bunch of people is not about their choice in fashion.
I just wish people would stop looking for the simple answer. Sometimes, there is none. We may never know why exactly this happened, and there's a pretty good chance that nothing we could have done would have prevented it.
--
'I love it when somebody's own sig describes how much they suck so much
more concisely and elegantly than I possibly ever could.'
hot foreign sheep.
Hellish nightmare doesn't quite describe what I went through. I am almost 22 myself, and some of the things that were said/done to me still affect me today. My life has gotten a hell of a lot better since then, and those days have passed, but not too many fond memories will come out of school, especially elementary school and junior high. Those were by far the worst.
:)
For all the kids that are still in school and go through this, hang in there. It does eventually end
I don't think that many would disagree with you that these kids were not merely geeks, nerds, or outcasts that played Quake. There was something sick about these kids and Quake and the internet ain't it. But that's not the point. The point is, that kids who are outcasts already in schools are now subject to a whole new level of persecution and exclusion as a result of these killings and the media creating the Geek Profile. Here in Ohio, everyday there are new stories about kids that are suspended, expelled, and/or arrested for saying something as innocent as "I understand how this could happen" or wearing trenchcoats. It's ludicrous. Everyone is now on the hunt for kids that are outcasts. They were before this happened, but now it is at a whole new dangerous level. This is the tragedy that we are talking about today. I hated school. I did excellently in school. I am so thankful that I am now out of there. No one is comfortable in school. Everyone is looking to point out other's flaws to conceal their own. When I got out of school, I left my little po-dunk town to go to the city to go to college (a freaks paradise!). I loved it and never returned. I am so glad that I'm not there anymore and feel horribly for those there now that are getting pushed more into the dark and made to feel even smaller. For those in this situation now... just make it out... it gets better. Go somewhere where there are fellow freaks and it gets WAY better. doja PS. I think this thread seems to be slashdotting the slashdot.
Wow, this article just blew my mind away.
Completely independently of anything that was posted here, my high school friends and I (some of whom I hadn't spoken to for five years..ever since graduation) came to the same conclusions you draw here. We knew the truth...that there was absolutely nothing "wrong" with these kids. These weren't fringe lunatics finally shoved over the edge by Marilyn Manson and Doom. These weren't racist facists looking to destroy American society...
These kids were NORMAL, and there are hundreds of thousands of other kids out there that feel what they felt, who truly understand the underlying message of their desperate actions.
Should they be treated as conquering heroes? As striking back at oppressors the rest of us could never truly over-throw? No. They committed acts of unimaginable violence that took human life, human life that was for all intents and purposes innocent.
But we shouldn't, we CAN'T, overlook the years of torment and abuse that finally allowed them to justify their actions... Not in a furious rage... Not in a drug/rocknroll-induced haze... Not as part of a plan to sabotage our faith in God and do the work of the devil...
These were kids that wanted to strike back, in some way leave a mark on a society that didn't want them. They wanted to break-down the cold concrete walls of social isolation they had been subjected to. They did not disregard the social values their parents, community, and pastor tried to force upon them... they REJECTED it because the living hell of every-day existence proved these same values as a fallacious lie! Why be kind and respect others... why behave yourself... why work hard... why, when the promised results of happiness never materialized.
Be afraid America, not because of computers, not because of games, not because of music, not because of moral decay in our youth... Be afraid because these kids are normal, their problems are normal, and their reactions are normal.
I'm utterly convinced that actions like this are only the first in a series. Until our society can re-create ourselves, much like the civil rights movement freed the blacks, and the equal rights movement freed women... those with the least invested in this country, the socially isolated teens, will continue to strike back blindly and angrily: as I knew I wanted.
Facts:
One black teenager was killed. One girl heard them call him a "n*gger". Considering what-else they were doing that day, this might've been nothing more than them enjoying their ability to disregard all of society's rules, rather than a set goal of hunting down african-americans.
Racist/Hitler undertones: These have been brought up the same "popular" kids they were gunning for. Their friends within the "Trench Coat Mafia" that have been quoted in the media discount these stories. They insist the two were not racist. Frankly, I find these stories that they cheered "Heil Hitler" after every strike in bowling class hard to believe.
I will wait to see what evidence the sheriff has for his allegations that they purposely chose 4/20 for their killing spree because it was Hitler's birthday. Here's a news-flash for everyone who's older than the age of 25, 4:20 is also a euphamism for smoking marijuana.
Maybe it's just an urban myth, but supposedly 4-20 is the "police code" used in some California police departments in pot-related incidents. I do know, however, that there's often a well-attended smoke-out in Berkeley on April 20th, and I assure you it's not a Hitler/Nazi-Germany induced event. "4-20" is often heard in pot-related conversations.
Got it now?
Read the comments below. You are part of the ignorant minority, and you've proven your idiocy by opening your mouth when you should've been listening.
Sure, of course we should feel sympathy for their innocent victims. When does the rest of American have sympathy for the others just like these kids who under-go emotional abuse/torture on a daily basis that might be no worse than being shot dead? How many kids commit suicide as a result of the abuse they face in school every day? Are the people who tortured them into it any less guilty than these that actually pulled the trigger?
No one is underscoring ANYTHING. But you are wrong if you think this is an isolated event by isolated people. If there's one thing you need to be aware of, that is the simple fact as long as the level of abuse that persists in high school systems continue, these massacres will continue and repeat themselves. Get the picture?
Hell yeah. Reminds me of Pump up the Volume too, except he was more constructive and the ending was a lot more fairy tale. But imagine if his station got shut down and Christian Slater had access to fire-arms...
Maybe you could give me something convincing to prove that these kids were "obsessed" with Hitler. Ironically, the only ones that have maintained these kids were racist Nazi's were those who taunted them mercilessly. Their friends have spoken to the media and denied the allegations. The media keeps repeating allegations that they spoke German to each other, or wore T-Shirts with German writing on them. I knew many, many people who fit that description in high school (mostly German industrial music fans), and none of them were racist neo-Nazis.
As far as the selection of the date as Hitler's birthday, I still consider that bullshit until I see convincing evidence from the sheriff. He's come out and announced information from a document (the diary) he has no doubt not even seen or examined in detail. Yes, 4/20 is Hitler's birthday. 4:20 is also a euphamism for smoking pot and all things pot related. Considering the context of a suburban high school, I'd imagine the pot connection is closer to the truth.
I think they fit the "profile" here to a T. They just lost all hope and perspective on their lives, and finally lost their humanity, which had been taken from them by force on a frequent basis by those who tortured and emotionally abused them.
Are you listening here?
You seriously disgust me. Right now, if I had you or the killers in front of me... I'd look them in the face and tell them they did a horrible, horrible thing. I'd just smack you.
What does that do, exactly.. put off the situation until tomorrow, when he and his friends jump you with a lead pipe?
And are you supposed to physically attack someone with martial arts if they spit you in the face? What if they call you a name?
I doubt this guy was seriously goin to kill the original poster... the point is the jock was a fuck-head, and it's people like him that incited the ones in Colorado to go out in a ball of flame.
I don't know how long ago you were in high school, but that's not really realistic.
If you're pegged for humiliation by a group of kids, all you can do is try to stay out of sight. Yeah, that's cowardly, but what's the result of what you just said above? You get a gang of kids *out* for blood. They might never push it to the level of assault again, but I don't know how much fun it'd be to get up every morning to find your house tee-peed, to find your bike destroyed, to find your car keyed, to find your backpack stolen after every lunch period...
No, the support system for what you're talking about doesn't exist.
Best of luck to the original poster. I hate to sound cliche, but just "walk away". You should inform someone in authority so that if it ever gets more serious, you have someone to go to...
Do you want to know what would happen? Thank god I wasn't in this situation, but I saw it around me enough to know the facts of how the high school world really worked.
If you were fortunate enough to find a counselor or vice principle that felt for you, or that was interested in doing the right thing (instead of just shushing you up)...
He'd probably first find the other kid and talk to him.. "Why'd you do this? Don't you know it's wrong? You shouldn't be abusing people. I might have to suspect/punish you next time." He might even give the kid an hour of detention. Whee.
The next step, if the kid is completely unapologetic, he might sit both of you down... tell you guys to shake hands.. tell you guys to try to get along.
What else CAN he do? Get a security guard and follow you around? Make him love you? Plan a Hollywood setting where you save the bully's life so that he appreciates you for your true value? Nope. This is it as far as the "help" goes.
What can you expect as a result of this? Well, if we're talking about the real assholes that stalk these halls... You can look forward to having him bump into you every other day (as in..bump into you HARD). You can look forward to pencils or erasers being thrown at you from across the room...coincidentally where he's sitting. You can look forward to constant verbal taunts walking down the halls. You can look forward to having to always look over your shoulder, because leaving your backpack, your jacket, or your books in any place out of sight is just invitation for it to be stolen and destroyed. You better lock up your bike well, because its tires are as good as slashed. You better get a nice car alarm, because you shouldn't be surprised to find the windows bashed in or whatever else. You better get some friends quick to walk home with, unless you want him to jump you with his friends half-way home where no one can provide evidence of what he does to you. You better give up any thoughts of going to a high-school social event. Do you really want your prom date ridiculed? Punch poured on her? Do you really want to go to a football game where the fun is in taunting and laughing at you?
Give it up. Did you notice how you had to resort to a solution (pretending to be a guerrilla fighter) that was very similar to what the kids in Colorado did? Only a matter of degree, dude... a matter of degree and time.
If you can, yeah, you should stand up. Some of these bullies really do persist on nothing beyond intimidation and the need to feel power over you. If you don't give that to him, he can't win and he might give up. But I understand how hard that can be sometimes... I understand the steps they TAKE it. The kind of inner strength it takes to step up and take this kind of abuse and fight back is not something easily found. The real solution is to solve the riddle of our society. To somehow find a way of blurring these clear antagonistic and hierarchal lines that separate us so greatly.
I think you're trying your hardest to ignore this event as an isolated one... as if somehow these kids were different... as if all of the people on this board don't understand and shouldn't admit we relate to them on some deep emotional level.
DON'T YOU GET IT?? IT'S NOT TRUE!
Read the posts here. Are you actually listening to what people are saying? The fact these people admit they DO relate to them (and I do as well) shows that this is a deeper, more wide-spread situation than the one you'd like to believe. A bunch of "posturing opportunists"? I'm glad you'd like to generalize us all away, but believe it or not, (and if you read some of the heart-breaking torture experiences some of the posters here have shared, you WOULD believe it), we actually feel this way.
Do you think its normal social behavior to "be a meathead"? Don't you think there's an incredible prevalence of meatheads through-out the generations, and through-out the nation? Are you HEARING people say that we relate to each other's experiences? Don't you know, that when you talk about the kid you punched in the arm, that we KNOW what it felt like? That we KNOW what he was thinking? That we KNOW the kind of deep burning humiliation he felt everyday?
This isn't about "changing yourself". I don't think it's hard to admit that every teen in the world wants to be the most popular guy in school, or the prettiest girl at the ball. How? Why ARE there social outcasts? Why don't everybody just..get along..party together..love each other..accept each other? You're telling me the strict social hierarchy that made these two (and the hundreds of thousands of other victims like them) outcasts and prey to constant taunting, bashing... isn't a problem with the system?
There IS a system. It's the system of high school athletes dominating the school. It's the system of student council gaining the attention that every kid dreams of. It's the system of prom and social acceptance that so many are shut out of. And it's finally the system of these kids torturing and abusing others (like you did, intentionally or not) because they saw their older brothers do it..because they saw it on TV.. because they saw it in the movies.. because the cliques that infest our schools have been around since the Happy Days era... because this is A habit..a horrible self-reinforcing loop that means you'll probably teach your kids to be meatheads unknowingly.
Close your eyes if you want to. Close your mind to the hurt that the people here are reflecting, just like you closed your mind to the hurt you yourself was inflicting on the kid you used to punch every day. Think about it; that kid wanted to fight you. If we knew you, we'd want to fight you too.
If you don't see the difference between calling someone a nazi and a homo, you really are a loser.
As far as asking you to "join in"... I couldn't care less. I don't remember asking you to share your stories about how you were going to blow up your school or shoot everyone else around you. The point is for those of us who DID feel that level of rejection and emotional abuse to share our feelings, and for you to understand them.
Good for you your personal experiences aren't like ours. Does that mean you don't believe rape victims should "whine" because you've never been raped?
We're acting intolerant toward you because you're sitting here dismissing our personal experiences and feelings. You're telling us, "What you're feeling is wrong. You ARE either a) insane or b) a loser or c) a homo to feel this way." It'll be a cold day in hell because I sit here and accept that from you.
How do you feel about a rape victim, or a child who had to face physical abuse from their parent... taking up a gun and killing their tormentor? Is it still wrong? Obviously. Do you sympathesize? I know I do...and it's the exact same situation and feeling here.
I found it HIGHLY suspicious... that when asked who's room the diary was found in... as well as other minor details about the investigation, the sheriff department's spokesman responded with... "It's an ongoing investigation. And we really can't comment about any aspect of it."
Yet others are walking around claiming that they already know the date was selected based on Hitler's birthday? This is merely hours after finding the document.
I'm sure you've heard the "racist killing" issue has been tossed out the window and discounted now. I think the Hitler issue will follow in the next few weeks.
i wasn't extremely unpopular in h.s.. but i certainly wasn't a part of the "popular" crowd. i didn't really go to many parties or date the football players. i have been on the internet since i was ten (i'm almost 19 now) and i am a poster child for female geeks. i only had two boyfriends in h.s. and neither relationship lasted long. i wasn't very attractive, and was picked on by the more popular kids. and as a result of such redicule, i can sypathize somewhat w/the killers.. they slowly grew to hate the other kids, and obviously their parents did not care much for them, because they failed to notice that their children were suffering so much. but now i am in college. and i have changed a lot sinch h.s. i have cut my hair, and learned more about make up, and bought new clothes.. i am quite a bit more attractive now then i was then. i have a wonderful boyfriend whom i love and several friends. i go to a huge school (texas a&m) yet i do not feel small and insignificant, as i once did in h.s. i was one in 1200, now i am 1 in 43,000. i really believe that those two boys had some serious issues. and while the internet and t.v. and video games are not entirely responsible for what happened in littleton, i believe that the news industry needs to be more careful just what they broadcast. i'm pretty sure that if the media didn't focus so much attention on school shotings this past year, those two boys would never had thought to kill their classmates like that. and while quake itself does not necissarily promote violence, do you really think that the kids would have known exactly what weapons to purchase to get the effect they wanted? you learn quite a bit about guns and shooting from games like quake, as an old userfriendly comic strip pointed out. i don't think that games like quake should be taken off the market, but i do believe that parents need to talk to their children and be sure that they are stable, and that they understand that what goes on in that quake game needs to stay there. and i feel that the news industry should stop sensationalizing things. it's silly to think that the internet had more to do w/those shootings than nbc and abc...
~*~*~*~*~*~ Amy R. Dawson amy@anticipate.org http://anticipate.org
There is an organization devoted to eliminating compulsory, state-funded / run education.
The participants come from a wide range of backgrounds, but most expressing a preference are religious, specifically Christian. I'm not religious myself, but I see no conflict of interest.
See www.sepschool.org to check it out, just be warned that the mailing list is full of folks more into their logical arguments than formatting text nicely (to say the least!)
Timothy Lord
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
>Meanwhile, when the jocks and popular kids grow >up, they take their places in the leader-caste >of society
I ran into one of the popular jock guys I went to high school with just last week. He was behind a bullet proof glass case at an Exxon I stopped at to get some gas. I laughed for 20 minutes...
Skip ------ See the latest from http://www.anArchyFortWorth.com
And if a family is Mormon, Hindi, Muslim, Jewish, Shinto, Buddhist, Aetheist or Taoist where do these kids go?
The public school system, and consequently the public, needs to take proper responsibility for education. Public school systems were based on an industrial (assembly line) model. The US has been moving away from this model in the adult world for years, but the school systems haven't caught up yet.
While radical changes may be necessary, including perhaps the *cough* eloquent notion to "scrap it" and start over, the proposed solution of switching over to private schools stinks of dogma that believes that if enough money is thrown at a problem, the problem will go away.
We all need to take responsibility and stop treating our kids like poor performing stocks. Passing the educational problems this country has solely on parents', teachers' and/or politicians' shoulders and whining about the piss poor results so far is counter-productive.
How many of the critics of the public education system, the TCM, the various school administrations, et al have EVER volunteered their time at a local school or one of its functions (on purpose) since they graduated high school?
Stop blaming everyone else and ignoring everyone else's kid. Put up or shut up.
To the teenagers listening: I can't offer any quick fixes or apparent all-encompasing solutions for you. The only consolation I can give is that it eventually gets better.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
And if a family is Mormon, Hindi, Muslim, Jewish, Shinto, Buddhist, Aetheist or Taoist where do these kids go?
The public school system, and consequently the public, needs to take proper responsibility for education. Public school systems were based on an industrial (assembly line) model. The US has been moving away from this model in the adult world for years, but the school systems haven't caught up yet.
While radical changes may be necessary, including perhaps the *cough* eloquent notion to "scrap it" and start over, the proposed solution of switching over to private schools stinks of dogma that believes that if enough money is thrown at a problem, the problem will go away.
We all need to take responsibility and stop treating our kids like poor performing stocks. Passing the educational problems this country has solely on parents', teachers' and/or politicians' shoulders and whining about the piss poor results so far is counter-productive.
How many of the critics of the public education system, the TCM, the various school administrations, et al have EVER volunteered their time at a local school or one of its functions (on purpose) since they graduated high school?
Stop blaming everyone else and ignoring everyone else's kid. Put up or shut up.
To the teenagers listening: I can't offer any quick fixes or apparent all-encompasing solutions for you. The only consolation I can give is that it eventually gets better.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
Strange.
Am I the only nerd out there who actually
fit in at their high school? Maybe it was because
my high school is in a college town, there were actually a number of separate _groups_ of nerds there, enough for an elaborate caste system to evolve. Yes, there were jocks and cheerleaders, but there were WAY more of us, and we actually
were COOL.
Strange.
I seem to have the exact opposite in college. There aren't any groups of nerds to really hang out with, there are no geek girls, no nothing, and here, I am outcast.
Perhaps this event comments more on the nature of human society in general than on the individual, that given the opportunity, ANY of us can become the ones tormenting the smaller group. I, too, fell prey to this at one point, tormenting (with a group of fellow nerds) the jocks in our class. I enjoyed getting back at them for elementary and middle school, but then I felt horribly guilty that I could sink to their level.
-Jaac (Just Another Anonymous Coward)
First, there are about 600M people in the US, and if about 10% are teenagers, then that makes 60M. To profile 60M people based on the extreme psychotic behavior of a very few is stupid.
Second, what's coming out about the guys in Colorado is that they were heavily into Nazism and only occasionally hung out with the TCM. They also built bombs and managed to get hold of illegal firearms. The profile to watch for is hate for racist/religious/political reasons, and disrespect for life. Kids playing video games and wearing unusual clothing, etc. don't match that profile.
To the kids that sent Jon the EMails: don't think that the experiences you have had suddenly started a few years ago. I am in my 40s, and these EMails brought back memories of my high school experience that I had swept under the rug. However, let me give you some hope and some alternatives.
In the first place, developing friendships in high school is like shopping at 7-Eleven: there isn't much choice, and you don't get much value for what you put into it. If you have 1 or 2 friends there, you're lucky. So try to expand your territory. Find organizations outside of school that accept you as you are (my Linux user's group would probably welcome you with open arms). Also, keep your eyes on the future. College is totally different from high school, and you will very likely meet several people there that you can relate with.
For those who survived high school without any major emotional bruises, let's try to give these kids an outlet. Sponsor a geek club of some sort (write some new video games and make a bunch of money--then you'll have the mainstream singing your praises!)
But for the time being, you might as well accept the fact that the mainstream is going to flail around trying to DO something and after this passes from the nightly news, we can get on with our weird lives.
OK, I stand corrected. I thought we had broken 0.5G at some point. But I looked it up, and we're at about 280M. The point is that there is a tiny minority of teenagers that are going beserk, while the rest (around 30M) are basically trying to get a handle on this crazy world. Some of them look and act strange by mainstream standards, but hey, it's America. Deal with it!
Everyone describes exactly what all of us "different" geeks, nerds, outcasts felt; absolute rejection, the feeling of "me against the world". As a geekchick who hated public school so much I fought the system--and won--I can understand the feeling. I managed to fight to NOT go to high school, though every counselor, teacher and administrator tried to force me to go. They wanted one more in their headcount for cash. I ended up going straight to college instead.
...loooong... two cents worth.
However, I still managed to experience an amazing amount of what I see everyone describing. I began to feel like it was me against everyone.
Now, having been away from public school for years, in the adult world with a high paying geek job, I can sometimes hardly WAIT to see some of the people who tormented me in public school so I can show off my nice car, my hot husband (a geek like myself) and my high paying geeky job. Most of these morons are still partying, drinking to get drunk, going to sports games to be seen, and strapped for cash...and crying to their parents for help.
I don't really care WHO it is, whether it was someone I admired or someone I hated, I just want to thumb my nose at SOMEONE, because I felt persecuted by EVERYONE. It gets to be a paranoia, a feeling like everyone's torturing you, everyone's laughing at you, everyone is thinking, "what a nerd she is!"
I can without doubt see how those two kids would want to blow up the entire school, to kill (or at least injure) everyone in it. They felt like it was them against the whole world... and unfortunately, they didn't understand that high school isn't the whole world, and didn't see any way out of it.
So I have no problem seeing how they were indiscriminate about who they hurt. Nobody was on their side, so why BE discriminate? When I was being tormented, nobody helped me... silence is as much as agreement. Nobody stood up for them except their equally geeky friends... and they told them to leave. So they WERE discriminate. They told the only people in their world that ever stood up for them, stood up with them and supported them, to leave.
So that's just my two cents. I've tried to block out those years for a while... I was suicidal, angry, depressed... but I lied to everyone, and I conformed to most of the system. Now, looking back, I can see exactly what kind of mindframe, as sick and terrible as it is, those kids would have been in.
It's such a complex combination of factors that caused these two youths to go over the edge. If it were just parental ignorance, peer torment and administratorial neglect alone, it may have been different. As stated by one very astute ex-military person previously, humans have an innate resistance to killing. I believe that the combination of hopelessness, helplessness, and the breakdown of the aversion we naturally have for killing really contributed to the snapping of the mentality in these two. Yes, I do believe that DOOM or Quake or any game that let you target practice on human targets will desensitize you to killing a human. I think that goes without saying. You can't be SHOCKED by seeing anything that you've seen so many times. You can't shock yourself by doing something you've done so many times before. Why should they have any aversion to killing when they practice it so much?
(Note to gamers: that is not any sort of flame. I do not believe everyone who games in the same way will kill in the same way. I simply believe the desensitization would make it easier for hatred in the heart to lead to action of the hands)
Things seem to make more sense to me now. At first, I was shocked and asked "why?" But now I don't. I remember what it was like. I wanted to commit suicide! It was immature, of course, but I remember it. In their minds, if their problems seemed to stem from other people, if they were going to kill themselves anyways, why not take everyone who led them to it with them? Armed with the desensitization to and graphic fantasies of mass killing, it's no problem.
I really am not surprised by any of it anymore. I wish I could say "they were just sick", and not "how did their parents NOT KNOW? How did NOBODY NOTICE??!"
My
Julie
Your argument would have a lot more weight if the gunmen hadn't already broken a dozen other laws. Do you think they wouldn't have broken into a gun store to steal guns, if they couldn't get them through other means? Are you ready to criminalize millions of law-abiding citizens by attempting to close all gun stores?
And even an absolute gun control law wouldn't have stopped them from building bombs using household materials. Or chemical weapons. Or even biological weapons, if anyone recalls that "Mr Wizard Ecology Kit" from a few weeks ago where it was suggested that the student collect molds from the garbage.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Your response is like the old joke about not thinking about pink elephants. Us survivors are answering questions posed by teens in the hell that is high school... and now you claim that our discussion somehow "proves" that we've carried the trauma with us.
Sorry, but in the past 20 years I've thought about HS exactly twice. The past week, since the Littleton shooting is local news, and a year ago when an intense exercise program started bringing up flashbacks to HS track practice. (And I don't fully understand the connection there, but am wise enough to listen.) Other than that I don't think about HS or what happened to the losers who thought it was the best time of their life.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I was dating a former "popular" girl when "Heathers" came out; she strongly identified with it, but I was confused. (Amused, but confused). Then "Pump Up The Volume" came out and even though all of the details were different, it struck me as very real. It was her turn to be confused. :-)
We were close to the same age. Is it any wonder that so many administrators and parents are clueless?
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I agree that the kids need to talk to people, but Jon Katz is reporting incidences where the kids were invited to speak their mind... then told that they must undergo therapy or be suspended/expelled.
Had the students in question said "I plan to shoot Joe Smith with my father's gun after gym class on Thursday" (specific, credible threats) this would be understandable. But these kids did nothing other than say that they had an inkling of what the shooters felt.
Not only are the individual kids now punished for opening up to an adult, the other kids have also seen what happens. The administrators have heard the pressure kettle start to whistle... and responded by clamping down on the safety vent. Another blowup is looking more and more likely... and despite what the media will say it won't be due to a "copycat" killer, but the sour harvest of the administrators' own incompetence.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
The "freaks" may be hazed more than others, but every coworker I have discussed this with had HS horror stories. Actions routinely go on in high schools which would result in criminal prosecution anywhere else -- and the penalties often apply only to people acting in self defense... then the authorities act shocked when someone snaps.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
It depends on the school and the era. When I was in HS the drinking age was 18, and I knew a few of the jocks who ran cross-country in the spring. Their idea of a party was to get drunk. This is also a popular party with south suburban Denver HS students, judging from the rather high death toll of drunk driving accidents in the paper, only in this case nobody there legally bought the booze.
As for jocks being interesting in computers, perhaps. Or perhaps not. We didn't have computers in the dark ages, but I saw very few of the hardcore jocks in my advanced math, science, or foreign language classes. I did see a most of the other runners, though. In fact, most of the few juniors picked for the Nat'l Honor Society were active in track or cross-country; I don't recall any team sports players so honored.
Are you prepared to claim that I it was somehow unhealthy for me to pass on drinking parties and non-academic courses? Before you answer that, remember that I got out of a 3-year HS (10-12) in only two years by taking summer courses and applying a college class for the last half credit.
P.S., I, and many others, loathe team sports because of the clique mindset they inevitably develop. Individual sports (track, swimming, even wrestling) develop strong individuals; team sports (football, baseball, basketball) develop a herd mentality.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
That's what the anti-gun people don't understand. They have 2 choices, live with the fact that we have guns or kill us.
Is this clear? Remember when they came to get the guns from some people in Waco Texas? Remember? If you want more violence, just keep pushing and pushing and pushing on people.
(And BTW, I don't even own a gun, but someday I will.)
That's serious, BTW. I knew a lot of kids in school, but the one that was best off was a kid who only came to school for Calculus class. He was otherwise home schooled. He was extremely smart, and he was a nice guy, and people liked him.
And home schooling only takes 2-3 hours a day, and can work around your schedule.
And most importantly, it teaches your kids that you care about them.
Seriously check it out. It works.
You must know others who've had home schooling. If they had it to do over again, would they home school their kids?
I made this point above. We're keeping the guns. End of discussion.
Don't like it? 2 choices:
1) lump it
or 2) Send guys to my house and kill me.
You gun control nuts need to figure this out someday and learn to mind your own business.
I'm minding mine. (And BTW, I don't even own a gun yet.)
I would encourage everyone to SERIOUSLY consider dropping out/leaving for a better future life. But if you can make it 'til May 19, why not 2 more weeks 'til the end of the year? Then get your GED over the summer. What can your parents say to this? You just want to try the test. If you pass, you'll have more options. It's hard to argue with options. Perhaps you'll go to college a year early? It'll be cheaper this year than next. Maybe you'll work for a year to help pay for college yourself? Hard to argue with that. Consider skipping college too. Write some software (in Java) that works and demos well. You'll find a job.
You just did it yourself. Sure the "get tough on crime" stuff is BS. But so is the "get tough on guns" stuff. And the "native peoples" stuff is BS too.
1. Violence happens.
2. Crime happens.
3. We're keeping the guns.
4. Peoples fight over land.
5. Societies can't be engineered.
6. Freedom is better than safety.
7. We get it, mostly. Your descriptions of Canada are useful. Your 'solutions' are not. (Neither are anyone else's.)
Problems are solved by people taking actions in their own lives or the lives of people they know well, not by making policies for other people to live by.
He didn't condone the murders.
He pointed out that people are blaming the wrong things.
I have not personally seen any of the memorials, but I have seen them on television. I grew up in Littleton. What happened there makes me sick. But for people to ignorantly attack every person who does not fit in with their view of normalacy is also a sort of tragedy.
To whom it may concern:
I have been watching with great sadness the events of the previous days. The actions of the two young men, and any who may have assisted them, cannot be explained or justified. There is nothing that I, or anyone, can say to help those affected by this tragedy. For what it is worth, I am truly sorry for what has happened.
However, I have noticed that in the aftermath of this tragedy there have been a number of responses which I feel are both inappropriate and ineffective.
Many schools have banned trench coats. Others have singled out certain activities, such as computer games or role-playing games, as causes of this type of attack. Students who do not "fit in" with the majority have always been harrassed both by other students and sometimes even the administration. Now this has intensified, as these students are being threatened with suspensions, mandatory counseling, and even verbal and physical abuse, simply based on how they look or dress.
Such harrassment is nothing new. In fact, during my time in high school, I myself was one of the outcasts. I was often verbally abused, and sometimes physically. I know for a fact that my experiences were relativly mild compared to the abuse some of my fellow classmates recieved.
There exist, in every school, those who are popular and those who are not. Typically, people become outcasts because they happen to enjoy intellectual pursuits instead of physical ones. In some cases they are simply shy or reclusive. The high school environment is not friendly to this type of person. Often times members of the "popular" crowd attack the "outcasts", in order to feel better about themselves or to impress their peers. I speak from experience when I say a large amount of resentment builds up in those who are affected by this kind of treatment.
Sadly, in my case, most of the administration appeared to be against us as well. My friends and I did not feel that we could go to them with our problems, because they seemed to be "out to get us", instead of trying to help us. I fear that this rift between "fringe" students and the administration has only worsened in light of the response of some schools to this tragedy.
I do not write this to condone the actions of the murderers, or even to try to reduce their accountability. Ultimatly, the blame for this act rests on their shoulders. However, I would like to ask you, as the administration, to dig deeper into the circumstances surrounding this horrific event. Please don't believe that by placing the blame on video games, rock music, or the internet, you can make the problem go away. The problem is much more difficult than a person's choice of clothing or how well they conform to social norms.
The problem is a few children are persecuted by everyone else, and everyone else gets away with it. The problem is that students do not always treat other students with respect or even decency. The problem is that these school-yard bullies get away with their actions.
Attacking the outcasts is not a viable solution. It will only serve to increase the bitterness that they already hold toward their school. Calling out "witch-hunts" on those who do not fit in will certainly not increase school solidarity or improve relations between the students.
The mainstream media has barely hinted at this deeper cause, despite the notes left by the killers themselves. I would like to point out two articles which I have found on the internet regarding the potential effects of high school on children. These articles are much more eloquent then what I have written here.
Colorado Denver Post
Jonathan Katz article
Those who have been labeled by society as "outcasts", "misfits", or "fringe", are not evil people. Although the attack on Columbine was perpetrated by a pair of students who fit these descriptions, most of us who were not popular in high school simply did not want to interact with those who did not like us. Please take the initiative to examine all of the aspects of this problem. Please act constructivly to prevent such occurences from happening again, instead of simply repeating the superficial and self-defeating actions that many schools have already taken.
Thank you very much for your time,
Sincerely,
Robert Dillon
Heritage High School, Littleton, CO
Class of 1995
foxfire10@hotmail.com
If it appears that I am being disrespectful, then I apologize. I have no intention of making light of this situation or these devestating events. However, what I believe is the point of most of these posts is that the problem is much deeper than the media is making it out to be. In addition, most of the posting I have read has very explicitly stated that what the killers did was an act of evil, and that no excuse will suffice. In addition, no one is saying that these two were motivated solely by ostracism in their school. No doubt we will never understand all of the reasons why this happened.
You do have a good point that none of us here could imagine what those people went through.
No one can change what has happened. An terrible tragedy has occured. All we can do now is try to heal and try to keep such things from happening again.
We have to ask ourselves why these people were "angry...ready and willing to kill". And then do something about it.
PS No one has yet proved the allegations that the pair was homosexual.
Okay, first of all, perhaps you didn't read all of the news articles where people were gunned down at RANDOM. RANDOM means that specific targets were not attacked, but that anyone who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time became a victim. The additional placement of explosives proves that the two, even if motiviated by the abuse of their peers, did not really care who they hurt.
Secondly, I'm sorry that you were abused, but you have NO PROOF of what sort of abuses those two killers suffered in their school. And any kind of juvenile harrassment is not now, then, or ever an excuse for the sick shit those two pulled.
Still, the use of explosives and the intent to kill 500 people does not strike me as against only jocks, etc, though I agree that these seem to be the primary targets.
As for the persecution in high school, I realize that they were treated poorly, so was I, so were you, so were most of use here. But that does not excuse gunning down unarmed and helpless students and teachers.
Just remember, for most jocks high school really is the best part of their lives. After that all the have is memories of their glory days to keep them going.
I was a nerd in High School, as were my friends. And you know what? We grew up to be good-looking interesting people leading lives without compromise.
I do what I love for a living, I am very well paid. I'm much better looking than I was in HS.
Life is good.
To all the young geeks, hang in there. It will get better! I promise!
Remember, you are the future. With out geeks we'd still be living in caves, eating raw meat and dying befor we turned 30.
True story, a few years ago I ran into a Jock who used to pick on me. He was in his mid twentys, he was fat and he was working in a gas station.
Revenge? I think I got mine.
The way I see it, if you enjoyed high school, you probably have a job pumping gas or doing data entry right now. The only people I can imagine enjoying high school are the creatines who used to beat us up and forcably exclude us from EVRYTHING. Adolecence is a time in our lives where we're so unsure of ourselves we need constant approval and attention to show that we are OK, that we're normal. I see absolutely no question as to why those kids went and killed their classmates. If people tell you you're worthless for 4 years, you start to believe it. Hang in there kids, trust me, it may sound bad, but the less popular you are at the bigining of life, the more successful you are at the end, and you can bet on those odds.
Don't Crease the Weasel!
i never really did fit in in high school. i went to a small school (about 500 people)... i was a girl... i was an over weight girl... i was an over weight girl who liked computers. i had no problem with who i was... but for some reason other people did. I was teased by the guys for being "fat"... and i was mocked by the girls because i knew about computers (i don't understand why... i was happy when they couldn't figure out how to get into the control panel during computer class, because there wasn't an icon on the desktop). sure, i had friends, they weren't the "coolest" people in the world, but i still love them to this day.
i played wolfenstein, i played doom, and duke and quake, and quake 2... i also went on the internet.. i have a webpage... i would not consider myself disturbed, or anything like that. i didn't not think about killing my fellow classmates. why?... i'm not that sure. i think because most people can seperate the difference between a game and reality. my webpage doesn't contain shit about hate stuff... i listened to marilyn manson (even though it made me want to kill the guy that produced the album because it sucked - but that shortly wore off when my friend changed cd's)...
okay.. i'm sorry.. i should get to my point..
my point being... yes, i do "nerdy" stuff, but that doesn't mean that i'm going to blow up things and kill people. what happened in colorado is an isoloated incided.... and i don't think the fact that they played quake n' stuff did this. do you remember the game "commander keen"? well, you killed things in that game too! doesn't mean that you're gonna go shoot things, now does it?
for once, should stop trying to find scapegoats... the fact that someone played a game isn't going to throw them over the edge, it's the people around them who do (parents, teachers, friends, classmates)..
thanx
sabrina@wwdg.com
It's pretty sad.. To fit in society today you have to be a swallow dumbass who is basically a clone of whoever happens to be the most popular kid in school. I can see why they did it, I don't think they shoul'dve, but I understand. Everyday we get this shit, people hate us because we don't conform, we are curious, and intuitive. And we actually keep an open mind about things. And games and the internet are the only thing keeping us from killing everyone. Games relieve our stress, and talking to other people helps because we can express ourselves and find people who are actually like us, and we aren't stereotyped for anything. In that the internet is better than so-called reallife, for me it is real life. We need to come together and give the government, the media, and the system a big fuck you.
ransom
You said it!
You also failed to mention the theft aspect of the 'public' school system, whereby my hard-earned money is taken in the name of taxation and poured into a failing educational system that alienates some students and gets others killed.
I'm somewhat odd (OK, I'm quite odd), and undoubtably would have been through the same sort of thing these kids described. Luckily, my parents took responsibility for my education and did it themselves at home, so highschool horror stories are not a part of my adolescent memories.
I guess I'm one of the lucky ones. So far two years into high school and no real horror stories. I'm one of the few who straddle the fence between outcast and popular. Not really one with any of the groups, but not shunned either. My saving grace: humor. If you can look at something and laugh (assuming that something isn't an oncoming bullet) you can probably survive it. Being the "wonderkid" of my peers makes isolation inevitable, but at least it's not physical isolation. I'm a loner, yes, but not alone. We don't have (as far as I have spotted) a "geek" group at our school, so I hang out mostly with the "metalheads" (God forbid I hang with those Magic: The Gathering dorks :-) ). As far as "the other guys" go, well it turns out that humor is a pretty much universal language. If you can make them laugh (and supply them with answers :-), they probably won't punch you in the face. Sure they poke at my differences (I follow a somewhat stricter moral standard than the majority of my peers, aside from being vastly superior to them [did I say that outloud?] :-) ), but I turn it around, and everyone laughs. :-) Oh, and it doesn't to hurt to be taller than about 95% of your school and in good physical shape. :-)
:-) ) with the way my school's handling the situation. I understand concern and increased awareness and all that stough, but you gotta draw the line somewhere. They're starting to dust-off the old evacation procedures. The day after, my school essentially banned trenchcoats ("unless it's raining") and took them away from people who have worn them just about every day for years. It's bad enough we have to wear uniforms everyday, jackets were the one loop-hole most people were able to easily expliot. I think for a school to succumb to that level of paranioa is ridiculous.
:-) ). Does that mean I'm gonna kill everybody I know? Of course not. Then again, if I'm stockpiling a weapon arsenal that'd prepare me for Armegeddon, and watch the scene in Basket Ball Diaries where Leonardo DiCaprio (who, BTW, probably should be shot ;-) ) goes in a trenchcoat and shoots people with a shotgun over & over again, pointing at the screen going "Gee, that looks like fun." Then I'd say that's good cause for alarm, not listen to Metallica's "Seek and Destroy".
:-)
So, my equation for a happy high school is just supply people with the three H's (Humor, Humility, and Homework).
As far as the Littleton aftermath goes, I must say I'm rather disappointed (can we expect anything less?
I totally agree that the media is pointing their fingers in the wrong places. If I spent everyday watching Natural Born Killers, does that mean I'm a whack-o. Maybe (there's only so much of one movie a person can take
The only thing that keeps me from spending my time blowing people up in Quake is my lack of income, not my sanity.
I think Heat.Net put it best when they said:
Cyberbullets cause no pain.
That's my 2 pesos
-------------------------------------------
I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.
-- Dr. Seuss
Me too man, welcome to the club! :-) I wonder how many more of us there are... :-) I used to be on ridalin (spellcheck) and am quite loony my self (as if my gratutious use of smileys didn't make it painfully evident). :-)
-------------------------------------------
I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.
-- Dr. Seuss
Tim,
Regardless of the suffering of those two boys, or even the morality of their actions, we geeks cannot condone their actions for the simple reason that they lost: by choosing violence they let the jocks win and justified every insult they ever suffered.
I know. Personally, I think the only thing that kept me from crossing that same line was my refusal to let the jocks win.
Was it worth it? I guess so: as a teenager I completely expected to grow up to be another Charles Manson, but I made it through and ended up as Fred McMurray instead. Not as glamourous as life on death row, but, hey, the food's better out here.
This morning my son asked me how many friends I had when I was his age (7 years). I constantly worry that he's going to go thru the same shit I did. All I can do is watch over him and support him.
--
Clear, Dark Skies
You're kidding, right? I've visited European capitals, and I've seen the tank traps and razor wire that surround your public buildings. We have children with guns, true - but you have nail bombs going off in your capital cities. It seems to me that you people live with a lot more fear than Americans do.
--
Clear, Dark Skies
Someone asked me once if I had life to live over again, what would I do? I responded that I wouldn't do it, there would be no way in hell I would go through grammar school and high school again. he didn't understand, being from a more popular crowd. He never had to deal with having to find a new route home from school every day so the local bullies wouldn't catch up with you. Finding someone emptied a bucket of water into your locker. I now find myself in an interseting predicament. My five year old is following in my footsteps in a way that's scary. I can sit there and pick out every abnormality that will brand him once he gets in school. From what I understand from watching the local news, there are now proceedings to hold parents accountable for their children's actions. My predicament is how do I ensure that my child will not be ostracized at school, causing him to go off the deep end, killing himself and others. Should I get him plastic surgery to remove any potential physical attributes that may result in instances of name calling? Should I pump him up with steroids so he can be a jock if he so desires? Should I get another job so I can send him to school with 100 bucks every day as pocket change so he won't be ostracized as being poor? To blame what happened solely on the parents is totally unacceptable and assinine. There are a number of kids every year that take their own lives for precisely the same reason the two youths in Colorado did. The only reason that this got any media attention was that they took their 'tormentors' with them. To put all the blame on the parents would be relieving the school of any responsibility of instilling morals and ethics into our children. As having experienced this sort of brutality first hand, I am also guessing that the youths problems didn't start in high school, it's more likely that it started in grammar school and had been festering for quite some time. My persecution started in third grade and didn't stop until 10 years later when I went to college. Until the school steps in and recognizes the true source of the problem (the ostracizing, and the bullying) I'm afraid we've only seen the start of a very bad trend.
I have already talked to a few people about this, but may as well get this posted here:
www.secureshell.com/~zarquon/
is the soon to be website dedicated to keep the communication between the ostracized groups and the schools open. Right now it is intended for groups (Strategy Clubs, etc.) but that is because it is only in its infancy.
-Chris
zarquon@nospam.secureshell.com
I have an odd situation.
I was and still am an outcast in highschool.
But it has changed, now, BECAUSE i wear a trenchcoat, dark clothes, people come up to me and ask me about it, i get to explain things, the way i dress etc. It really has to do with the fact that my school has already been shocked with two "diversity problems" once last year, when they tried to enforce a dress code, and one 3 years before, where some seniors hide the line "Kill All N*ggers" in the yearbook. So now my school has a diversity awareness club and the such. That is what needs to be done, something instead of fear, which leads to anger, which leads to hate, hate leads to suffering (thanks yoda).
Right now, I am not enrolled in school, because I did have way too many problems with the conformity it (still) produced in my students.
But i feel that me not being in school these last few weeks has helped me understand the problems, from an outsiders perspective.
I am currently trying to put together a junior year work program, for future students like myself, and also trying to put together a website.
The website is mean to emphasize that there are more groups of people other than black and white, rich and poor, and that there are those (geeks, nerds, etc.) who need to be given the same respect as any other group in this nation.
www.secureshell.com/~zarquon
Also, i doubt that if the TCM was a group of racially different people, there would have been a completely different reaction. People would be saying "how could they have been led to such a rampage, the school must not have diverse"
-Chris
I have an odd situation.
I was and still am an outcast in highschool.
But it has changed, now, BECAUSE i wear a trenchcoat, dark clothes, people come up to me and ask me about it, i get to explain things, the way i dress etc. It really has to do with the fact that my school has already been shocked with two "diversity problems" once last year, when they tried to enforce a dress code, and one 3 years before, where some seniors hide the line "Kill All N*ggers" in the yearbook. So now my school has a diversity awareness club and the such. That is what needs to be done, something instead of fear, which leads to anger, which leads to hate, hate leads to suffering (thanks yoda).
Right now, I am not enrolled in school, because I did have way too many problems with the conformity it (still) produced in my students.
But i feel that me not being in school these last few weeks has helped me understand the problems, from an outsiders perspective.
I am currently trying to put together a junior year work program, for future students like myself, and also trying to put together a website.
The website is mean to emphasize that there are more groups of people other than black and white, rich and poor, and that there are those (geeks, nerds, etc.) who need to be given the same respect as any other group in this nation.
www.secureshell.com/~zarquon
Also, i doubt that if the TCM was a group of racially different people, there would have been a completely different reaction. People would be saying "how could they have been led to such a rampage, the school must not have diverse"
-Chris
http://www.secureshell.com/~zarquon
Anyone who says "I'm a pretty hardcore libertarian, but..."
Isn't.
This is pretty much the first I've heard of the colorado shootings, and I imagine they were pretty terrible (We in britain have had classroom massacres, and child-killers - though not in the same instance). But that it should have resulted in such victimisation against people who are slightly "different" is an added tragedy.
No guesses which country is one of only two UN members that haven't signed up to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
I was never more glad to be British. I think that because britain is a less litigious society - people don't sue as often - schools and other institutions are less paranoid about possible lawsuits, and so would be less likely to react in such a totalitarian fashion, at least i hope so..
I can't believe that any school authority would so discriminate against the rights of it's pupils...
BeezleBug
Ahh that most wonderful of oxymorons
_______________________ I am the eggman, wooo! _______________________
I agree totally... I graduated High School early just to get away from bs like what happened... Now I'm a Systems Administrator for an ISP.. Geeks shall rule the world without violence! (maybe just a little violence? No, no violence! Oh c'mon let me go back in there and face the violence... No it's to violent)
---The proceeding comments were not paid for by the following advertisers.
It's interesting hearing the guy perspective on this, and I think it explains why the people shooting their classmates are guys (although the future could prove me wrong). As an outcast girl, I was never slammed against lockers, spit on, punched, hit with rocks, or "accidentally" pushed over. I was just whispered about (there were rumors that I was on drugs, or that I was part of a cult) and shunned, so that I eventually spent my lunches working in the darkroom or on the computers because I had no one to eat lunch with. And isn't that one of the worst things? At lunch, the entire school can see whether you're cool enough to have people to eat lunch with, or whether you're like me, and you have to find an empty table if you want to sit down. If I had been ignored, that would have been one thing--I could have handled that. But it was the active dislike of the other students that upset me so much because I had never done anything to them. I was miserable and suicidal and all that. It sucked, and I still shudder when I think back--I can't believe I survived it, and it took me several years to work through all the shit--but now I'm happy and I'm doing well.
/.ers are very shocked that this happened. The people who are shocked are the people who *did* the teasing when they were in high school, and they can't possibly imagine that something THEY DID could have this result. G*d forbid they take the blame. I've heard some of the self-proclaimed Littleton jocks saying "Of course we made fun of them--they asked for it dressing and acting like that. If they don't want to be teased, they should be like everyone else" ... and therein lies the problem.
But here's my point. When girls get shunned, it's not physical, just psychological, so our responses are all psychological. When guys are shunned, the torture takes a very physical form, and the logical thing to do is respond in kind. So, quite frankly, it only makes sense that if outcast kids have access to guns, that's how they're going to respond (obviously they wouldn't have much luck with only their fists).
I don't think any of us
To any high school students out there, stick with your individuality, because it will get you much further in life than whatever the popular people have going for them right now. Also, college is much better: you're actually *rewarded* for being smart and different.
Just to let it be known that your voices are being heard by few, and ignored by many. In my physics class, all the characteristics the media and normal teens speaks of as abnormal are the traits you need to do well in my class. It is obvious that many students lack this drive to be different and to think creatively. Many of my students hate the class because it is not "fill in the blank" or "every one gets the same answer." Very few teachers and parents realize that creativity and free-thinking are the human traits in our damn DNA and that we are trying to go against the human grain. Free thinking is the only way out of a closed box. Pursue this and success is near.
On the other side, I defend the many teachers in the system. We are as much products of the system as our students are. Our curriculum is set by God-Only-Only-knows-who, and if not that, then the books we are forced to use. So what if i don't want to teach a subject. Or, better yet, I want to teach something not in the book. I have to get departmental approval and prinicipal approval before i can addrees the topic. And, i will leave you all to guess the number of hoops to jump through to get that approval. Equvivalent of 10 hours of work for a 45 minute discussion. Becuase, as teachers, we are not supposed to inspirecontroversy or questioning what is set down. "The world would be chaos." Well, i have news for all the $#%^#^%3 who made the rules. the world is Chaos, and i am trying to do everything in my power to prepare my students for this chaos.
My last comment is this. I want you to count how many students are in your class, if you are in high school, or how many students are in your child's class. Then multiply that number by five. I teach on average 150 students, three diffeent subjects (all physics related thankfully), and each of the five classes i teach is unique. Now, repeat this five times a week. Do it creatively 25 times a week, for 150 different and unique individuals. Teachers push for some conformity, because they have to. Sit in YOUR seat. All the factors thrown in make for a mental break down. If the teacher can limit a few of the factors, than they usually go for it. And i admit, i am guilty of this myself. I ask you to instead of witch hunting and scapegoating, to look up the stairs. Find the school board, mayor, governor, or whoever, and make things better in education. To teach 60 people or 80 people in one day gives a lot more freedom for all, and i guarantee the US would be a better place. And if all this happens to fall on deaf ears, then at least take note that if you do your homework:) and well, a world of possibilities does open. If you know your material well, you can be creative.
Peace.
Sig-"Out beyond fields of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there." Jelaluddin Rumi
Far from being idyllic, happy communities, high schools (including the one in question) are hellish social pressure cookers. High school society is strictly regimented into rigid hierarchies; at the top there are the athletes, the cheerleaders and the kids with rich parents; the alpha primates. At the very bottom of the food chain are those who do not fit in. The environment is a closed system; there is only one hierarchy, and nowhere to run. And failure to conform is relentlessly punished, not by the indifferent authorities but by the system itself...
Yeah, I think I remember being rather sympathetic to certain characters in Brave New World when I read it in English class senior year...
--- this comment is presented in WIDE SCREEN STEREO!!!
I grieve for the dead in Colorado and for their family. It could have been me! (Either the shooters and the shot) And it could be my children dead, should I choose to send my children to an American high school, some day.
I am eternally grateful that I have not experienced High School in the US of A, having moved here to Denmark before then. I've wondered,
though: would I have been a jock or a nerd, a geek or something else? Thats not to say there are no such groupings i this (dare I say more civilised?) country, they are simply not solidified by institutions, such as school football teams and cheerleaders groups. We don't have 'em. We have gym class, where I was forced guard the goal when we played soccer. Had to participate, though I would rather have read Heinlein. Makes me a nerd I guess?
It is not the disorganised effects of all things odd that make people like the shooters go crazy. It's the well-organised institutions, creating outsiders from free thinkers, rejects from rebels. What ever happened to "The Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave"?
Are there enough free-thinkers at any high school to start a rally? Write up some signs, have a demonstration? Don't forget those old stooges sitting on school boards probably have been out demonstrating for free hash in their youth.
Demonstrate for free thought!
/RicRoc
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Eric Werk
"The Earth Is But One Country" - Baha'u'llah
Who?
I'm a 43-year-old nerd. It's been 25 years since I left high school. I can still remember dreading school each day; I can still remember which halls I learned to avoid at what times of the day. I wasn't a radical (I missed that by about 10 years), or someone who dressed in non-mainstream clothes, or listed to "unusual" music; there wasn't a whole lot of that going on in my part of Kansas in the mid-1970's. If we'd had computers, I'm sure I'd have been into them then, but the Apple II wasn't even out then, and mainframes were a little hard to come by....
So, I wasn't in any of the classic groups that everyone seems to think of when the word "alienation" comes up. My crimes were being smart, and being fat. I had one really good friend in high school, and about five sort-of good friends; everyone else was either indifferent, or picked on me and my friends because we were smart, or ridiculed me for being fat. "Different" comes in lots of boxes, and these were mine.
High school is an incredibly scary time of your life. It's a time when you should be able to explore ideas, and your own changing thought processes, and develop your social and intellectual skills; why are so many exceptional kids forced to learn survival skills instead? I got lucky - I found friends and teachers who really cared, and I had support at home, and I got through. Why is it so hard to get these ideas across to the people who can actually make a difference?
Today, I send my kids to a private school. My daughter (age 16) spent five years in the public schools, from second through sixth grade; two of them were actually of value. Her first week in second grade was a real eye-opener for her; one day, she came home and asked "What's a 'white cracker'?" - one of her 7-year-old classmates had walked up to her and called her that, out of the blue. We were lucky enough to get her into an "advanced students" program in fourth grade, but it disintegrated after sixth grade; she and her classmates were schedule to be moved to the advanced 7th grade program at one of the rowdier middle schools, but we were assured by the school district that the kids would be OK because the advanced students were segregated to a separate floor of the building.... Not wanting her (or my son, now age 12) to have the same exciting learning experiences I had ("here's how you can look around a corner before walking down the hall!"), we moved her to a private school.
I know I'm incredibly lucky; thanks to having the chance to survive high school, I was able to get a good college education, and now have a job which almost pays me enough to afford the private-school tuition I'm paying out for my kids. It saddens me to think how many kids get so abused and turned off by the system that they don't get the same chance.
Even before I read this Slashdot, hearing the news from Colorado took me back to my schooldays, which were a long time ago (I'm 34). I remember hearing myself described as "brilliant at computers but absolutely mongoloid at everything else". I remember being the one who nobody would pick for the football team. I remember discovering computers (8-bit era, folks; the Z80 was a dream machine) and spending 12 solid hours online playing the original fortran Adventure (Colossal Cave). And yes, I felt alienated, and angry, and an outsider. That was in Wales (UK), in the late 70s and early 80s. Plus ca change, plus c'est le meme chose.
Dropping out helped you to use proper punctuation, capitalization and grammar, huh? Do you don't think this doesn't matter, or that you have "artistic license" to write like a semi-literate cretin? The simple fact that someone recognizes these "inadequacies" in a relatively obscure list such as this just illustrates my point. You cannot expect your views to be seen as credible when you express them in a lackadaisical manner. Do you think the Constitution would be such a profound document had they used conversational slang? Furthermore, if you won't hold yourself to a higher standard, what standard will you hold your children to? Return("Rant_Over"); } //Loopus Maximus
Ach, Mein Gott!! "Do you don't think this doesn't matter..." I simply must learn to paste into this submitter from a word processor! Double-checking my own writing is still my nemesis!
//Loopus Humbleus
I must say that reading all these thoughts only reinforces for me the decision to home school my children. Kids need to be in an environment of learning that is best for them, and based upon my high school experiences and experiences of many of those who have responded here public education is just not the place. Home schooling is not for everyone that is true, but when it comes down to my responsibility to provide the best environment for my children, this is the decision I have made. I wish more parents would for the good of their children.
I find it very sad that kids are being put through these unnecessary situations only because of what happened in CO.
By the way this is not meant to be a switch of topics or an effort to slam public education or to suggest that home schooling is the only way, its just my opinion.
The simple and cruel fact about life is that about 10% of all people is in some way mentally defect.
Some of them becomes dangerous to other people, others dangerous to themselves and the rest isn't dangerous at all. What cathegory these people end up in is mostly based on pure luck/unluck. Anyhow their life is just a living hell to the very end.
(Most people do find the High School period in life a living hell but that has nothing to do with any mental disturbance. This has more to do with still being treated like a small kid)
Even disturbed people do engage themselves in different kind of activities, some of them very normal and others somewhat odd. It's among these activities that the so called experts finds the 'profile' when something real bad has happend.
These people are mentally disturbed (nutcases) from the beginning and when some of them goes over the edge society tries to find a "simple reason" for this, ignoring the 10% human reproduction error rate.
This 10% thing is a hard fact of life and we have big difficulties to accept that some of our relatives or dear ones is the victim of lifes own cruel random number games. We try desperatly to find a logical reason for these mental problems and this escalates in situations like mass murders that gets lots of attention.
But even more cruel seems this witchhount now performed in the schools on youngsters that fits into some kind of 'profile' for a possible mass murderer. This is just horrible.
--- Linux or FreeBSD, it's like blondes or brunettes. I like both. ---
Yeah, let me guess -- you were later suspended for fighting, right? And the guy who beat on you wasn't even sent home, I bet.
I hope these kids can know that there are adults who know what they're going through. I'm thirty now and I can still remember my high school times. They sucked, but now they're just memories and the jocks and cheerleaders who were so popular and peeked in high school are mostly losers now. Time will swing to your side kids you just have to keep your wits until then. High scool is itself a lesson. It's a lesson in socialization, in endurance, in tolerance. If you can deal successfully with the assholes and bureaucratic b.s. in high school, you'll be set for life and things will be easier to take.
This may sound really lame, but it's the best advice I could think of. Your going through tough times and there are people who understand.
Paul
I went to a high school in Indiana. We had 2000 kids or so. I was the typical computer geek who broke into all the computers and was arrested for it. The teachers and such didn't give a shit about the "outcast" kid, but were scared to have me around. I was a 4.0 student, but was forced to drop like 4 classes (computer related of course) because I was a "threat to the normalcy." I'm 23 now, and have finally gotten over the bitterness of school. I'm in college and 4.0'ing my way thru with barely cracking a book. The disgusting thing to me, is probably what most of you feel. Why didn't they talk to me? Why did they just exclude me and treat me as a threat? I'm a pretty neat kid, and have a neat mind and am open to learning lots of things. They (the school) had my parents conviced that I was going to hurt them. What the hell? In MY humble opinion, schools neat to talk with students, not attempt to understand them. Hell, I can't understand high school students, and I'm only 6ish years older than they are! How can teachers 20 or more years older attempt to understand? Talk with your child! Easier said than done, I'm sure because I was a prick kid, but it has to be done.
hunterdw@purdue.edu
I certainly do not think there's any excuse for what those boys did. Reasons, yes...but no excuse. Nevertheless, I do feel empathy for them, knowing what it's like to sit perpetually on the outside looking in and facing persecution all the while. Life, too many times, is defined by humans at our moments of weakness. Those boys faced theirs, and nobody was there to help. They had no good input in making their tragically flawed decision. But it was their decision.
The reason for scapegoat-hunting is simple. We want solutions, easy solutions, now. Or more accurately, we want action. We also want to find a way to blame someone other than ourselves, and targets like "the Internet" and "violent games" that can't fight back are easily chosen, especially in the face of the (self-)righteous fury that always springs up in the face of these things.
Why? Because we as humans always want to believe that if we change this one thing, or do that one thing, we'll be happy. The "in crowd" figured if they could torment some geeks, they'd be happy. The TCM boys figured that if they could get their revenge, they'd be happy. Their parents figured that if they just let their kids do whatever, they'd be happy. The school administrators figure if they tighten the chains a few more notches, they'll be happy. The news media figures that if they exploit the sensationalism for a few bucks, they'll be happy. The politicians figure that if they can take the excuse to cram a few more rules down our throats to improve their own power, they'll be happy.
The blame for this starts with those boys, to be sure. But there's more than enough to go around, including for those who're taking the excuse to bathe in it for their own gain.
The reality is that none of them are going to be happy, at least not so easily. And some of them, and some innocents, ended up dead because of poor judgement by a whole lot of people. And a lot of the rest of us are going to be hurt as a by-product.
Stormhound DNRC Ombudsman for Induhvidual Affairs since 1995
Whatever else it was to us, especially the first-year students, the Academy was an experience that far exceeded anything our respective high schools could offer. We were a handful of generally dissatisfied high school geeks who jumped on the opportunity to escape to an environment where we would not be ridiculed for wanting to learn. Course, it wasn't as idyllic as it seemed at first, and we did meet with resistance from various sources (not least of all the Academy's director). So we were forced to become a close, cohesive group - what else was new?! Plans for our 5-year reunion are progressing at a wonderful pace, and everyone is excited about getting together again....besides that, I've kept in touch with several of my fellow Academy members over the years, and consider them more my family than my blood relatives. Far as I know, all thirty-odd of us original ultra-misfits are now basically happy, productive, independent-thinking adults, which is more than I can say for most people attending their 5-year high school reunions this year. We simply got what we needed five years ago, that being a supportive community of peers, not the ninth circle that is a typical high school. And, to any Academy member who comes across this post, I love you and I'll see you in August, if not sooner!
I too was not part of the "in crowd" of my high school. I tried my hand at sports however I was not that good at it. So a Jock i was not. I never excelled at school, really didn't care for what i was learning, no motivation. I would have been labelled a geek, a nerd, loser, whatever. however like many of you in the past and many of you now I had a couple of close friends to see me through the tough times. We kept to ourselves mingled when nessecary and while getting invited to all the cool parties might have been nice, in the end it did not matter. We all graduated and in the eleven years since graduating( has it been that long, god I'm getting old!) I have run into no more than ten people outside of my immediate circle of friends. In that time I had done more with my life, made more money and was better off in all aspects of life than them. Something that I learned very young in life and has kept me sane ever since.
In the end everybody is worm food. What matters is having fun along the way is you and your friends are having fun, screw what others think of you. Watch out for each other. My two best friends in high school are still my two best friends despite being on opposite side of the world. One in Manchester England, one in Redmond Washington( yes he works for the evil empire and I who lives in Toronto Canada. It is that bond that saw us through the worst of depressions that we all experienced at one time or another. That is what is important - a friend or two to watch you back.
One last thought, Everyone of us dressed different, thought different, listened to different music and had other priorities than did the "Mainstream". They will may never admit it to you, especially infront of their friends but the mainstream secretly admire us more than they fear us. You see we are not afraid to stand out. We are secure with our inner self.
So go forth and be happy with not who you are, but who you will some day be.
CC_kid signing off
outta here going a billion time the speed of light with my hair on fire.
BTW I'm now the president of an Australia Rules Football League, how's that for turning the tables.
What's particularly ironic is that KMFDM encourages non-violent protest in their music, not violence. With song titles like "A Drug Against War" and lyrics like "we shall use all peaceful means to overcome tyranny", it just shows that the idiot media reporters making such associations don't bother doing the most basic research about the things they're smearing. Then again, they know it's safe to do so, because no "normal" person would have the knowledge required to contradict their idiotic assertions...
If anyone else remarks negatively about your KMFDM shirt, just make them aware of their flagrant German bashing.
"Why don't you spout your xeno-phobic, hateful remarks to someone who gives a damn, McCarthy. Who the hell do you think you are to propagate the stereotype that German's are Nazis?", would do just fine, if the person was being a total asshole and you hated them to begin with. };-)
TSaNNIK
TSaNNIK
I can see your questions, and with regard to social interaction, school gets out between 2:00 and 4:00 (depending on region, grade, etc...) which leaves at least two hours (by the strictest standards) of social time. To illustrate this point, while growing up, almost all of my friends didn't attend the same schools as I did (I grew up on a district border) Yet I had plenty of social interaction. While at school, I didn't have much social interaction with anybody, yet after school, I played "broomstick baseball" rode bikes, etc, and developed necessary social skills for being a productive member of society. One of my best friends was home-taught and started teaching me physics while we were in the "sixth grade" age group. Last I heard, he was working on his second BS (He would be 23 now.) He is definitely an exception, but evidence of what can happen with homeschooling.
.02 USD.
Just my negotiable
I have a few comments. But first some background. I'm 40 and have 5 and 7 year old kids. I love them! I was once told "Freedom is not the right to do as you want, but the right to do as you should."
Now on to the good stuff.
I didn't have a PC when I was a kid in 1969, we played with toy guns outside. No one I knew then grew up to be a mass murder. But the war was in full force. I went to school and got punched in the face a few times. New kids always get tested. I went on to JR. and High School and we moved before my junior year. I got tested for ## (insert number) , but this time I came out on top and clowns left me alone.
Stand up for your selves, take karate classes and learn to protect yourself. It is your right to protect yourself.
No mater what the clowns said or did to me I know this "I make so much more money then they do now!" Cause I got skiltz, I got great skiltz. I know the captain of the football team now and he works so hard to make a buck. I make almost 3 times what he makes. I sit and watch my income go up and my investments grow. Remember, you could be in a position to hire the clown one day.
Smac.
The events of last week caused a lot of bitter
memories to come flooding back to me. Its been
20 years now since I graduated from high school,
but the anger, the fear, and the loathing are still very much with me.
I found some of the thoughts crossing my mind more
than a little frightening. I knew those kids, I knew their anger and I knew their pain. I have also known parents who lost a child, and I could never wish that sort of devastation upon anyone.
How could I possibly show any sympathy for a
pair of very cold blooded killers ??? The answer
might be something along the lines of "there but
for the grace of God go I", and that is the frightening part.
After thinking about things for a while I came up with the answer.
In retrospect I have been very fortunate. I now have a sucessful consulting business and I enjoy a comforable income. I have little to complain about now. I have done quite well in my own little niche.
So what was the answer ??
The things which set me apart where not the causes of my exclusion, they were the means of my escape.
After reading the messages left here and elsewhere
on the web I realized that I am not alone, and I
have not been alone. So many people asking the
same questions.
To the high school geeks, dorks, nerds et al. who
might be reading this: never let them get to you. In the end we always win by either by action or by attrition. If you should choose action, choose it carefully. Make sure that what you get is really
what you want. Those two poor bastards in Colorado wanted death and that is what they got.
And what changed.
I just to make a small comment here, living in the area:
;)
Houston is not the area we need. Austin, however, could be quite suitable...
Save our kids from High-school? It's mandatory, so unless you're a successful nerd who can afford private school, there's not much we can do about public education until we mobilize as a political group. I can see it now... the Nerd Party. Nah, too much a contradiction in terms
Arithon
"My schooling not only failed to teach me what it professed to be teaching, but prevented me from being educated to an extent which infuriates me when I think of all I might have learned at home by myself."
--George Bernard Shaw
For what it's worth to the many kids out there who are in the geek crowd, standing outside what's considered normal...
I was exactly that in high school. The dangerous nerd who knew about eight times as much as the people around me. I was hacking out the oldies while my peers were looking for the cheapest beer they could smuggle. I wasn't the one with the best looking girlfriend or the hordes of adoring followers. I was different in every imaginable way.
Well, I didn't bother assimilating. I didn't bother going mainstream or talking about my feelings or any of the New Age Warm Fuzzy stuff. I stuck to who I was, and even played it up a bit.
Where am I now? Well, nearly a decade later, I'm the youngest senior executive at the healthcare company I work at. I make ridiculous amounts of money doing what I love: technology. In fact, I would say I probably make about three times what those high school peers of mine now make. All of the jocks, all of the "in" crowd hit their peak. They peaked too early, and they're now tired, old souls in life. Me? What was once called "weird" in hallway whispers is now written as "innovative" on performance reviews. What was once called "nerdy" is now "fast track to success".
You may have to endure some awful things in the near future as the mainstream culture plays moral masturbation to make everyone feel better. Take the anger and the resentment you feel and direct it toward the goal I found: to best every single naysayer and insulter, to take their world and not destroy it, but own it. The path in the real world awaits you if you can fuel your motivation with every insult you've ever received.
Hi, I been reading the posting between the anti-gun and the pro-gun people (and believe, there are a lot of them, postings that is). We will never get rid of guns. There is no possible way that is ever going to happen (unless, the borg come down and assimilate all of us, and then that is the least of our problems). I don't like the idea of a police state either. I personally had a stroke way back when and can't fire a gun (I think). And I am not really all that interested in having a gun. And I believe that that is the feeling of a great many people that have posted. So, I this is what I propose (BTW, this is though off the top of my head. Very unrefined. And I will quote no statistics): For each gun that your family owns, you and your love ones must attend a safety course plus a real training course. And the course must be mandated by the federal government, and the course must be thought out in committee between the NRA and the gun-control people with a mediator (because you know that the gun control people and NRA will never agree). The federal mandate comes in because in different parts of the country there are different mentalities about guns, but if one gets shot by a gun, the damage is pretty much the same (unless you are Neo and can dodge bullets. And then I ask, can I sign up for that dodging high-speed projectiles course). Your children will be allowed to fire guns as soon as you believe that they are physically capable. But they must be under your supervision until they reach a certain age. At that age (let just say 16), they undergo a probationary period of 2 years at which time they undergo the same test that was administer to their parents. If they pass, they can use the gun that they were trained in. And if they fail, they can take the test again. After passing the test, you will be issued a gun license card authorizing you to carry the gun. If you are caught without a gun license and carrying a gun, you will be sentenced to mandatory felony jail time. If you son/daughter is caught assault somebody with a gun, you and your child will have to serve jail time. I know that there are a lot of logistics to be worked out and there are certain things that need to be fleshed out. To the pro-gun people, I say, you want to carry a gun, fine. You have to earn the right to carry this piece of metal. And to the gun-control people, I said, you don't want to carry a gun or have anything to do with a gun. Fine you can have it your way (like Burger King). /.'ers a favor and support it will some reasons. Thanks. BTW, I am engineer, I don't have a spell/grammar checker. If you find a misspelling or a grammar error, read on. Please don't waste Commander Taco's hard drive space by putting something about a spell checker.
I might get critism from one side, both sides, or no sides. But, please allow it to be contructive critism. If you want to call me an idiot, please do me and all the
My husband and I graduated from high school 25 years ago. We were considered outcasts and weird then. We often found that the "jocks" received preferential treatment, such as passing classes even though they didn't do the work, just because they were on the football team. My father told me it was the same way when he went to school, and my children have told me it's the same way now. Don't let them change you into round pegs! You're absolutely right in asserting your independence and being your own person. Remember, that which does not kill us makes us stronger. Watch the movie "The Breakfast Club." Even though it's an old movie, it's still relevant to today.
Just my 2 cents.
Geez, I went to school for 5 years, and I woke up every morning hating it - but, no longer! Homeschooled now, thank God! I went from pre-school to 3rd grade, and even then, I was beaten daily. I'm not talked slammed into a locker or whatever, I am talking about being BEATEN! I was picked on, humiliated publicly...and people wonder why these kids hated others? Quit looking at the media around and start looking at who they hated!
I am no longer abnormal, on the surface. In fact, I don't think I ever was! I wear baggy jeans, and t-shirts. I look like your every day skater (I'm not, I just look it.) But, in fact, i play guitar, play baseball (dang good I will say!), and I also happened to have gotten into programming back when I was 10 and have loved it ever since!
Yes still, I'm ridiculed by people supposedly of my own religion (Christianity), I'm hated by girls (I'm yet to figure out why, I'd die to save most of the girls I know, even though most of them wouldn't give up a drop of blood for me if I needed it!), and most of all, all the preppy little jocks hate me.
Do I know why? Heck yeah I know why. I'm smarter than they are, I'm not afraid of being an individual, I'm not afraid to think on my own, I'm not afraid to have morals, and I'm not afraid of NOT conforming!
Parents hate me, for not dressing like a "good young man." Well sorry! Suck my dick and call me a weirdo if you don't like it!
People don't like a guy who tells them they're screwing their own lives up, so I guess they hate me for that too...my apologies if I don't wanna go out, get drunk, drive a car illegally into a tree and kill myself in the fire that ensues. Sorry I don't wanna fry my brain cells with narcotics, sorry I don't wanna destroy my lungs with cigarettes.
Yet, with all the "violent" games I play (flight sims, quake 1 and 2, half-life, wolf 3d back in the day, doom 1 and 2...et cetera et cetera) I have NEVER EVER said that I hated anyone who hated me, I have NEVER EVER even thought about killing any of them. I've just kept my mouth shut about all the crap that has happened to me and held it all in all of my life. Believe me, the emotional pain and scars stick, and it got to the point where I attempted to kill myself (I'm seeing a shrink now...she's actually quite helpful.)
Yet these stupid, idiotic teachers and stuff would ask me why I held it all in...WELL DUUUUUUUH!!! I didn't at first, I told people, but, do you think anyone would believe me? Heck no!
Do I like being "the geek?" No, I hate not being able to get a date, I hate not having many friends, I hate have self-esteem that is a 0 on a 0-100 scale...but, I put up with it because I know one day when all these people who put me through a living hell, made fun of me all of my life, beat me up when I was younger (I'm big enough now that I don't attract a whole lot of fights), and hated me, will be working dead-end jobs make crap, and I can say hey f--- you! You treated me like crap so screw off!
Educators gets your heads out of your @$$3$ start teaching kids, stop looking up to dumb jocks and little slut fashion queens, and start doing somethin about these kids who's lives are hell!
Derek
P.S. - No, I do not condone what those punks did, it was sick, and wrong! My heart still rbeaks thinking about all the footage of those girls crying. But I do understand them.
Derek Greene
You hit the nail on the head. I'm a christian, but, I am by far not the right-wing FANATIC (I'm definitely right-of-center however :-), that most people here are. However, we now have alot of kids my age, plus, I play on a homeschooler baseball team (we kick alot of people's butts too...15-2 record. :-) I get alot of social interaction and heck I've always been kind of shy around kids (mainly because I find most of their subjects are stupid and boring, plus I'm afraid I'll say something and they'll ridicule me some more.) so I don't want as much as I get.
Hearing stuff like what you said reminds me of that line in Good Will Hunting...I'll paraphrase since I can't remember it exactly "Yeah man, so you're parents are dropping a hundred grand a year for an education you could get for 5 bucks in late feesat the local public library!"
Derek Greene
Derek Greene
I used to stop flipping channels and watch talkshows when their subject matter involved folks who were tormented as a kid facing their tormenters as adults. I used to think it would be interesting to see this human drama unfold. I used to identify with the idea of going back into your past and seeking closure. I don't stop on those shows anymore. I gave up on them.
Most often than not, the guest would talk a bit about their current success or life. Then they would delve into how their childhood was hell - usually at the hands of specific tormenters. After some tears and pity from the audience, the now-adult tormenter is introduced. The crowd hisses and boos. The tormenter sits down nervously. The tormented wipes away their tears. Then the host asks the tormenter about the incidents that left scars on the tormented's life. The tormenter usually sits there dumbfounded; they either can't remember or attach little significance to the events. What the hell kind of closure is this?
The lesson I've taken from these shows is that adult then-tormenters ('jocks', 'in crowd', 'beutiful people') tend to haze their memory of their past actions. Maybe as adults, they subconciously know what they did was horrible and bury it. Maybe they never understood the depths of anguish caused by their actions. Maybe they just never care. In any case, they certainly are rarely remorsefull.
So what's this got to do with school officials?
OK - big jump here. I'll make the assumption that those who return to the school environment as officials, administrators, teachers, etc. are those who enjoyed their childhood experience. Why would anyone who hated it the first time around return? If this is correct... we can assume that our schools are not ran by those who are, or once were, "misfits". Instead, school officials consist of those who never experienced being ostracized. And even more... they are also the ones who deny their own part in tormenting others as a child.
Is it now so hard to see these same officials as the ones who ignore, if not contribute to, actions that generate such a rift in our schools? Faced with this rift... these actions of voilence and an all but impossible-to-judge group of "individual thinkers", "non-conformists", and "misfits"... they seek out other causes.
They refuse to address the root of their problems. There are no easy answers. So instead they latch onto what they don't themselves understand; media, digital communities, games, music. All are dangerous. Even the Texas Governer has called for school uniforms to combat dress that defines individuals. The power of the trenchcoat - nonconformity is dangerous.
Hahahah high school. One of the many utter failures of American society. You think that after all those friggen movies about how high school is hell for ANYONE, the media wouldn't dare take the position that outcasts are to blame (everyone is an outcast, by the way... I truly feel sorry for non-heinous athletes who have to be lashed at and called idiots because some of the other ones beat a few kids up).
I was afraid of getting stabbed to death on the first day of freshman year. It was a valid concern considering that I had already been in struggles with public school kids, and a potato-shaped kid from Catholic elementary school usually doesn't get a warm reception in a public high school on "Freshman Friday". I'm exaggerating on the "potato-shaped" description, since I've always been never more than vaguely "not-skinny", but it STILL gets me hell even though I'm rather normal-shaped now! But I digress... I got in a fight almost every other day of high school, which was something I grew accustomed to after a while. Sad, but true. Oh, did I mention I played football in high school and people STILL picked fights? I was blindsided at times, and I had to have the "real" football players cover my ass even though I would have rather handled things on my own and earned some pride. Also, I once had someone call me a nickname that includes the word "urine" right in front of my mother! I got my fair share of victories, but I would have preferred to have not been screwed with at all. That is always unavoidable though.
One victory that felt really good? My underground newspaper. I wrote some very good articles and always bested out the real school newspaper. The principal asked me to start writing articles for the real school newspaper, too bad that the clique club that does the newspaper and yearbook told me to take a hike! I would usually make a very good and relevant point while giving props to the people who were on my side and telling everyone else where to kiss. Of course, I got ROYALLY ABUSED by the immature blabbermouth teachers who didn't like it when I opened my mouth about their contract negotiations and their boycott of all extra help and school activities - "The teachers have let us know that if it's between us and the money, it's the money" Let's see, my part-time guidance counselor destroyed my college applications by being a complete twit, I was one of the top students in my class and was strictly denied all and any scholarships after having won many academic awards and medals for the school, I was falsely accused of cheating(with concrete proof in my favor) MULTIPLE TIMES by the vengeful faculty, I was banned from the library computers less than a month after they were opened just because the librarian FEARED ME (never EVER talked about or did anything CLOSE to hacking or illegal activities), I broke my back for that school doing extracirricular activities without any appreciation whatsoever, I was constantly in the vice principal's office having him apologize to me for having to fight with whichever thug decided to come after me on that particular day, I was publicly ridculed by teachers in front of other students BEHIND MY BACK at times in classes that I wasn't even in, and of course I had to deal with the lovely social system of high school and having to be ostracized as all "from the lowlife town" (two different towns went to my high school, and both are the exact same except mine is looked down upon by the other as scummy) "short", "fat", "geek", "annoying", "troublemaker", "violent", "jock", "fag", (I'm not even close to gay, but as Seinfeld said, "... not that there's anything wrong with that") "chump", "wiseass", "potentially dangerous", "weasel", and last but not least "waterboy". Truth is, none of it made sense because half of them contradict each other and most of them aren't true anyway unless 5'4" is considered "short". So I did what I wanted to do and made the most of the situation. And I had a lot of fun and good memories, even though I also had to deal with the above crap.
Best part? Last day of school, I published a "last edition" of my newspaper that thanked everyone, but gave a special highlighted sincere thanks to everyone who screwed me over! Then, at the end of the day, in a flurry of photocopies, I handed out the REAL last edition. I told the school that I was going to become very rich and successful, come back and buy my hometown, and burn everything to the ground in a fit of hysterical laughter - and then erect a thirty-story statue of myself on the barren landscape. (You know, because we were only a mile from NYC, it would be a rather obvious addition to the NJ skyline as viewed from NYC if I did it) The final words, in big bold letters filling the bottom half of the page? "I'll buy this town, and I'll burn it down!" Of course I wasn't serious (well, at worst metaphorical, considering that I could always try to come back and promote positive change through rebuilding without venagence) but it was satisfying to get it off my chest.
Now they're probably expecting for me to come back with a gun, ESPECIALLY since they're putting my brother through the same bull right now because he's graduating this year. I'm not like that though, and I would rather have all of them see me to become the well-adjusted, successful, happy kind of person that they wish they had all been. That's the best revenge.
Unfortunately, most people aren't like me. If I suddenly cracked one day and lost my aversion to homicide, then I'd be off to a good start by trying to do what those two nutjobs did out in Colorado. Teenagers are put through the same terroristic routine day after day, and they are also very capable of being effective mass murderers, so perhaps we shouldn't try to push them over the edge like that. Perhaps we should try to give some more personal and emotional attention to all the kids out there so that we don't have this problem again. Then again, I said that for the last 5 school shootings too. So, one day my kids will die at school because no one else wanted to listen to me.
Reality check people: today's teenagers and young adults are going to be seriously screwed up when they're running the world. This is as irresponsible to the future as having a nuclear war would be. If you don't start to change things now, there will be no one to help you when some 8-year old kid comes in the nursing home 30 years from now with an automatic rifle and takes you out execution style. I am AFRAID because we are leading the way for this type of violence to become COMMON in this country. You will make people snap, you will all be shocked when all of the taunting and hate and attacks and derision suddenly becomes enough to make people forget about not wanting to murder. Kids are expecially susceptible to making such ill-guided decisions, and yet we treat them the worst! The thing is, it's caused by our society, not by specific people, not by movies or music or video games. We must change society and fix a lot of other problems too... I'm sure that if we do, then this one won't haunt us anymore. But we still run like lemmings toward the cliff. We let the media create a state of panic and fear of computers and rock music, we allow kids to see inappropriate things WITHOUT ANY EXPLANATION OR DISCUSSION (which is the solution, not total censorship), we glamourize drug use, we romanticize violence and evil, we irresponsibly allow the unwatched distribution of powerful deadly weapons, we treat each other very badly, and we can't go more than 10 years without going to war with another country. Among other things. You know what needs to be fixed, stop rationalizing that taking away computers and banning black trenchcoats (I could have wept myself for that girl who cried in the principal's office) is gonna solve the problem. I could hate this country for what people are doing to each other BECAUSE of this tragedy. Like I could expect people to be motivated by this terrible massacre to stop being selfish and start being friendly and trustworthy for a change. Nope, and you will pay for it with the blood of our children. My children. You assholes.
My Freshman year was at a Jesuit High School. One
of the manditory classes was concerned with
spiritual matters. The class was designed to be
useful for all faiths (non-catholics and non-
Chritians were also students). It opened my eyes
to see other things besides math and science.
The public school system can not teach spitituality.
This is a shame because It was my growing interest
that gave me the tools I needed to deal with my
opressors. When I was in HS, my few friends and I
could have been destroyed by the "system" or we
could have tried to strike back. Instead we saw
things in a different light. We found constructive
outlets for our frustrations.
If those young men in Colorado understood Why
there is a difference between right and wrong, We
would not be writing these comments today.
On a diffrent track: One of the other things that
helped me survive High School, were a couple of
gifted teachers. They showed me that it was OK for
me to be who I am. They listened, understood, and
cared. They kept that spark alive that might have
otherwise been extinguished. And they gave me things
to think about that I still ponder today.
Please excuse the spelling.
You hit the nail on the head!
"Respect"
I am a single foster parent of a 16 year old boy.
His real Dad is a meth addict. He has been abused.
At times he can be a real hand full, but I always
treat him with respect. I let him know that his
feeling and opinions matter. He always responds
with respect. He has never been a "discipline
problem". He is open with me and receptive to
what I have to say.
Besides being a real pain at times, he also has
been a real blessing. All it took was respect.
UM,
We are talking about Teenagers here. Remember.
Teens are in between thinking only from their
perspective to thinking about other perspectives.
They are just starting to develope the social
skills to communicate.
What you so easily recommend probably took you
awhile to learn.
1. How do I see the world? Child
2. How do others see me? Teenager
3. How do others see the world? Young Adult
While in H.S. 22 years ago, I read alot. Science
fiction and Ayn Rand. I never totaly bought into
Objectivism, but it sure gave me something to
think about. Her writings helped develop in me
ideas that allowed me to servive the torment.
I had planed on bringing her up in another post
but never got to it. I guess I should not be
suprised that someone else did.
BTW, if you think being a computer nerd is strange
now, I was one in 1975, befor the Apple II. There
were maybe five of us who could really program,
out of a couple thousand.
I know what PsychoSpunk Means by wishing he was back in high school... I feel the same way. I would love to go back to high school knowing what I knew now.. I would make it my personal goal to make the administrators lives a living hell. I think I would do everything I could to force there hand (without crossing the line) to take action against me. I would wear black, die my hair, or whatever else it took to get my point across. But this would be adding to the problem not helping it.
When I was in High school I was an outcast, I didn't fit in anywhere, until I got to know the "Freaks". I wasn't one of them, I didn't dress differently or stand out in the crowd. I was just different, I didn't fit in. Because of that I was put down, made fun of, and occasional beaten. Now when I got to know the "Freaks" I didn't fit in with them, I wasn't like them accept that I was different. They didn't put me down, beat me up or exclude me. They Welcomed me to there group and treated me like and equal.
I learned from them that there was no need to try and be like everyone else. They liked who they were and wouldn't change that for the world. Be called a "FREAK" was a compliment to them. By acting different and dressing different they made there point, "We are Individuals!" "Freaks" got me through high school, with out them I would have probably ran a way from my pain or ended my life.
If a "FREAK" means that you are proud of who you are and don't want to be like everyone else then, "I AM A FREAK, AND PROUD OF IT!".
Don't punish people that are different, Accept them and understand where they come from. Everyone who goes to high school feels upset, sad, awkward or weird at some point, but that doesn't mean that you have to hurt others to make yourself feel better (And this goes for none freaks and freaks a like).
Let's not place blame on games, parents, school officials or politics, the blame needs to be placed on all of us, Every one of us in some way or another adds to the problem, weather we know it or not. And until we all realize that the problem isn't going to get better!
K.M.A and T.M.S.
It's not strange. Ever since this Colorado thing broke I've been telling people at work how much I hated high school...about how I still haven't recovered from it (I've been out since 1990). I was a major geek/nerd and on top of that I was two years younger than everyone else in my class, which made things even harder.
Nowadays, much like you the only thing that keeps me happy is my job. I'm a network admin for a medium-sized ISP and the only way I really get to express myself creatively is through the programs I write and the networks I build.
We need publicity. Maybe sending the URLs to this topic to as many mass media folks as possible would get a bit of attention. Email it to talk shows, news shows, newspapers, whatever. There has to be _someone_ out there that cares about the truth.
What I'd really like to see is some sort of geek talk show or forum, even if it's just a one-time thing related to the Colorado massacre. Shouldn't be hard to get something like that done on public TV...you wouldn't get coverage with it but you might attract enough attention to get the ball rolling more.
In the wake of the whole Colorado thing it seems there are some people going around the net, looking for "questionable" materials, and then complaining to ISPs to get them removed.
Today I get a call from my boss. Seems a page on our system (a friend's page) has pipebomb directions on it and somebody with a yahoo return address was complaining about it and threatening to inform the FBI. To be fair, the pages were hosted as a freebie, but I was also told that I was not allowed to move the pages to my personal servers either (specifically the pages weren't to traverse our network at all.) To make a long story short we got into an argument that ended with me slamming my phone down *hard* and proceeding to lock down the pages (actually the whole domain for that web page).
I read the complaint letter and it was obvious what the guy was doing. My friend is a goth/geek type too and this guy did _not_ seem like he just happened to be browsing when he found this stuff. No, he was explicitly looking for it, probably via search engine, and proceeding to erradicate it wherever he found it. He's just a self-appointed net censor. Better than a government-appointed one I suppose but a censor nonetheless.
I just wish someone would realize that the Internet, computers, video games and music aren't the cause of all our problems.
Heh, you think thats bad...how about a Linux distribution flame war. :) (And for the record, Red Hat. :))
I attended a party at a local university the other day, and as I sat there and watched everyone talking, drinking and "cajoling" I realised that I actally hated all those people in school and similar places, that made it so hard for me to socialy interact and express my feelings without the fear of being ridiculed. And hate is a damned strong feeling, thats not something I normaly do. But I hated them. Every single one. They probably don't even remember me..
And I hate them even more for their ignorance.
I could ask you the same question, but thats not the issue. the guns were obviosly readily available. Geez, look at most countries where gun control is much more rigid and you will see there is a difference. Personally I live in Norway (thats Scandinavia for those of you who didn't know) and all though there are more people in the states than there is in the whole of Scandinavia, there are a lot less guns per inhabitant. And belive me, these things don't happen as often here. In Norway, even the cops don't wear guns normaly (they still train with guns, and they are used, but they don't normaly wear'em). This is because of the theory that if the means are drastic, so will the response be. If the cops have guns so will the criminals and vice versa. It's an evil spiral.
This might not have saved the children that were killed, they might still have used som other means of killing, but you shouldn't ignore the fact that you guys need a debate about gun controll in you country, or it just might get worse..
(Pardon my english)
Surely we've heard all these arguments before? I can't speak for anyone else in my country (Britain), but I sure as hell feel a lot safer with our gun restrictions.
Gun controls *aren't* like cryptology restrictions. Neither are they like banning violent games. There are valid reasons for using cryptology, and games are entertaining. Guns have just one purpose - to kill things. You might argue that there's recreational shooting, but that's either killing things or shooting inanimate objects - and you can shoot inanimate objects with paint guns, laser-tagging guns, whatever.
I'm not saying that the real problem here isn't a social one, but having guns around doesn't help the situation. America (as far as I can remember), has only about 3 times our population - and all spread out in a big old space, not packed in like sardines like we are here. And yet there has only been one gun/school incident here in my entire life - in contrast, we seem to be getting reports of people being shot in school from America every other month. I know it's not exactly scientific proof, but I have to sympathise with people who say that gun control might have prevented this.
When the problem is sorted out, and western societies are happy and well-balanced, then perhaps we could let them play with guns again. Until then...
I couldn't agree more; The standard education is a danger to public health.
I hated both primary and secondary school (highschool). The last year at highschool I only attended the exams, completely skipping all classes (this was in the 70's when such a thing was still possible).
Being bullied for 10+ years is not without consequences. It causes serious psychological damage, something one can well do without.
Years after I left school I asked my parents why they did't have me educated at home. They replied that they thought I needed school to develop social skills (something I did years after leaving school).
Kids have the right to grow up in a non hostile enviroment. If you have kid that are `too bright for their own good', make shure that they have the education that meets their specific needs.
Rob
I had the best time during 82-86 but it was also horrible because I went to 3 different schools. Always the outsider. One school I stayed with friends because I didn't even live near the school.
/VANS (unusual for a girl at a white bread Catholic school) and got the dress code rewritten esp for me. I was "anti-social" to a point because the students idea of fun and mine were not the same. I didn't come from the rich background and doin the nasty in the back seat of a cramped car while smoking a joint was not my thing.
The way I dealt with it was being better than the others. Finding something I could do and they couldn't- writing. A couple times, girls got snooty with me and I just gave them a one liner and they left me alone. (Of course, that was pre-gun days.)
I hung with the nerds cause I liked it. I wore parachute pants/leather pants
Outsiders are more put upon because people are afraid of what they don't understand.
My revenge has just come. I am successful while many other populars arent.
I'm married to a Nerd. And he is far better at everything than anyone else could have been. :-)
Dad bein in the USAF, I went through 3 high schools in the 4 years of it. I had the 'new kid' thing down. I was a bit taller than average then, and skinny as a rail.. sharp in anything that interested me, and ignored most else.
..I was on my bike, and doin about 20mph.
..I got the crowbar outta the closet by the door.. I had every intention of breaking a few of his bones with it.
It got to be a routine.
First few days in a new school, there was always someone.
Always.
'Hey, new kid, '
In Belt Montana it was the captain of the frikkin Football team.
I introduced him to basic physics.
He stepped in front of me
When the dust cleared, I needed a new front rim.. he had 3 cracked ribs.. and dint make the 'game' for awhile. Ya.. I landed on him kinda hard.
Be damned if I was gonna let *him* pound *me*
My dad taught me there is *no* such thing as a fair fight.. he taught me how to punch, and told me never fight *their* fight.
I always made the first move. Why wait?
Afterward they left me alone. I could and did ask any others if they wanted some of what the Captain got when the shit got deep again.
John Marshall HIgh School, Portland Ore:
Yes.. I chased the captain of the wrestling team to his dad's car, where he locked himself in.. he came to my house, with two of his friends, said he was gonna 'beat me up'
Later that night one of his friends was involved in a car wreck, and was in a wheelchair for life.
Most of the school thought I had done it.
Suited me fine.
-Gray Eagle
http://www.zdrone.org
for a look at what I do.. click the Gray Eagle links (page is up courtesy of Zippo, a friend of mine)
(Hot tempered then, a bit milder now)
here here. you and me, Planet Hollywood, tomorrow :D
I have to admit that I myself thought it was the parrents to blame or it was society and the way people treated others. I think to some extent that is true but in all actuallity no one can be blamed for what happened. Society changes and society goes through radical changes. Someone said in a previous post that it came later than expected. It did. It was only a matter of time before something happened that society and the media got conserned. History repeats its self and there will be no way whatsoever to stop this event from happening again. Things in life will always happen. Hitler was not the first person to try to do a ethnic clensing. Throughout history we have had wars based on some sort of ethnic clensing. So I guess my post boils down to the point that we should not blame any group or parrent or anyone for what happened. It will only be a matter of time before something to this extent happens again. I think it is time that we recognized what happened in littleton and get on with our lives. There was nothing that I nor you nor anyone else that could have stoped what happened in littleton. Whether it was done by the kids that did it or by someone else. It will happen again. There is no way to stop it. Thats just my opinion.
darktech@darktech.net
http://www.darktech.net
As the Dead Kennedys rather appropriately put it
in 'California Uber Alles':
Now it is 1984,
Knock-knock at your front door.
It's the suede-denim secret police!
They have come for your uncool niece!
Theoretically, it makes sense to require literacy before you let somebody vote, and we all know how that worked in practice....
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
It's four in the morning and I can't sleep. It's a week after the Columbine shootings, and for the first time since the incident, I'm crying.
It has nothing to do with the fact that this tragedy occurred in the city where I live. Even a week ago as I watched the events unfold on live TV, I felt no more affected by this school shooting than I had by any of the others around the country in recent years. Tragic, yes. Horrific, sure. Appalling, of course. But nothing about them touched me personally. Including this one. Until now.
A week ago my husband and I traded stories of our own high school years, the torment and the pain of being outcasts. I tentatively admitted my own fear for all those other misfit kids, wondering how much unwarranted suspicion would now be turned on them. I didn't dare say my opinion too loudly. I was afraid people would misunderstand. I thought I was alone in feeling this way.
I'm crying now because I see how mistaken I was. I've learned that I'm not at all alone, but that the loneliness and alienation of countless others like me are far greater than I could have imagined, and that the suspicion and persecution promise only to make it more so by cutting them off from one another.
My husband printed out the "geek profiling" column for me, and after reading it I knew I had to join this forum just to add my reply. I had been afraid no one would share my opinion. I now learn that in just one day, this article has received hundreds of responses, horror stories from young people whose rights and dignity are being stripped away because of the games they play and the clothes they wear. My heart is breaking. These children are *me.*
My thoughts go out to Becky and Lisa and Paul and Gavin and Larry and all the other old friends I've long since lost touch with. I wonder if they're thinking of our high school days too. Sometimes knowing we could depend on one another was the only thing that made life bearable for us. We never got into trouble, never even partied. The wildest thing we were likely to do was stay out late drinking coffee at an all-night restaurant. But whenever someone received a crank phone call or a threatening note (the worst offenses I recall ever happening then), suspicion was turned on us, never mind the evidence to the contrary. We heard the rumors, the laughing and jeering in the halls. We were called freaks, weirdos and witches. We sometimes jokingly referred to ourselves as the "lunatic fringe." No one ever called us killers.
I don't know what to think. I don't know what to do. I feel so angry and so helpless. I want to scream and shake all these so-called authorities until they come to their senses and realize how badly they are hurting all these young people who hurt so much already. I want to reach out to these kids and let them know that some of us adults remember and understand what it's like to be feared, hated and falsely accused just for being different. I want to be able to tell them that there's a light at the end of the twisted tunnel that is high school - that there is more to life out there, and that there is hope. But in the face of this hysteria, I don't know if I believe that myself.
Katrin Luessenheide Salyers
Lakewood, Colorado
I am a 29 year old woman who recently attended her 10 year high school reunion. To those of you still stuck in high school's nightmarish society: there is light at the end of the tunnel. It was with great satisfaction that I walked into that reunion, only to see that no one had changed, except my group. I was the only girl in my school into Electronics and although I wasn't completely branded an outsider (girls typically weren't subjected to the same cruelties as our male counterparts), I certainly didn't fit with the cheerleader types. But we realized that for us to be even moderately happy, other like-minded individuals such as myself needed to seek each other out and gain the strength and security of _belonging_. I know from personal experience the pain of ostracism and the almost desperate urge to feel a part of something, anything! Even when kids say they don't want to belong to a group of friends, they know that it's a lie. If you believe in evolution (which I do) humans are a social species, evolved through generations of supportive relationships. It's natural to want to be with other people. And it's natural to feel pain when they hurt you.
But take heart! Trust in yourself that even though the oppressors of your individuality don't at this time see its incredible value, others will. And they will see it when it matters: in the real world. High school is not the end all, be all of life. It just feels like it right now because you are young, impressionable, and still finding yourself. The truly worthy people in this world though, are the ones who are continually finding themselves. It's the jocks, cheerleaders, and preppies who have said that this is who they are and always will be who are going to find the real world impossible to contribute to. And isn't that the key to our lives? The reason why we're here in the first place? To contribute? If you have something to give, give it. And to those who can't see its value? Go back to high school!
Obligatory "outsider" credentials: I got beaten up myself several times in junior high -- picture a shy, skinny girl getting punched and kicked by a group of guys and coming home with bruises the size of grapefruits on my body -- so I do know how terrible it is. I thank God the boys didn't think to gang-rape me instead. I was lucky.
That said, I have to say that something is deeply wrong here if we would rather blame the victims than the perpetrators.
Killing someone because of their non-lethal actions (e.g., taunting, social ostricism) is NOT proportional, NOT appropriate, and NOT justifiable. Someone who thinks it is has gone over the edge and needs some serious counseling. I would even venture to suggest that those who in their hearts felt happy that a bunch of "jocks" finally got what they deserved might want to take a long hard look at themselves as well.
You are powerless and trapped only if you allow yourself to be. That's as true in high school as it is anywhere else. It's also hard work to get there. But it is ultimately a better solution than hatred, blaming the victim, or giving up entirely.
I went from being an unhappy, unpopular loner in junior high to a happy high school student with friends who shared my interests by joining first my school's choir and then the theater group.
My high school had a lot of cliques, but there was a lot of cross-pollenization too. It wasn't Utopia, but it wasn't hell either.
What about that teacher they shot as he was trying to get kids to safety? Are you suggesting that he deserved to die for trying to protect the killers' targets?
Are you also willing to argue that Hitler was right to murder millions of Jews, because in his twisted mind he thought the Jewish people had wronged him in his younger days (as he claimed in 'Mein Kampf')?
It is never OK to kill people based on the group they belong to.
Being treated poorly is NOT justification for murder. If you think it is, you need some serious help.
How many times does it need to be said? Killing is NOT an appropriate response to being an outcast.
I was going to go on a long rant about eugenics but I decided not to.
Instead, I'll just point out that people who are in favor of eugenics always seem to think that it's those "OTHER" people who need to be sterilized, aborted, or killed.
Who would you choose to eliminate, "Anonymous Coward"?
>>To put all the blame on the parents would be relieving the school of any responsibility of instilling morals and ethics into our children.
It's not the school's responsibility to do that (except perhaps if the school is affiliated with a religious institution), it's the parent's.
If you truly believe that your child will suffer at school and that there is no school in your area, public, private or parochial that could possibly make a difference, then make plans now to homeschool him.
I can't agree with that. What is wrong with a parent teaching a child about his/her religion?
I'm a Jew. I celebrate the Jewish holidays in my home, I attend synagogue, I support the state of Israel. If I have kids I will raise them as Jews. If you have a problem with that, tough.
It is a tremendous fallacy to suggest that participation in an organized religion somehow is a form of brainwashing or intellectual laziness. It is just as much an active choice to stay with and practice your family's religion as it is to choose one of your own.
And to say that religous training will somehow get in the way of a child's intellectual development is an insult to the memory of such towering intellects as Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and Albert Einstein, to name just two handy examples.
>Heck, most Americans think that it's evil that China has a one child policy
Chin's one child policy has led to the killing or abandonment of an uncounted number of infant girls, because the Chinese culture values sons more than daughters.
Is that clearly needed as well?
Whiny children, hm? No comment on the lack of command of the English language here...tempting as that may be.
There's a lot of things to say on the Littleton topic -- these kids were monsters, true...but what *made* them monsters? Anything? Was it guns? Quake? Not eating their King Vitamin in the morning? What?
We're going to be asking that for years to come, if we're smart. Considering the audience here, I hope we are. I really do.
I'm just like you, just like a lot of you. 25, successful in the technical industry, got the living hell beat out of me for most of my public school life. The only times it stopped were when I either lost it, and ended up nearly hospitalizing the people who thought it was good fun (all part of 'growing up', you know) to beat the snot out of the smart guy, or when, like Shotgun there, I joined part of the system -- in my case, football. Wrecked one of my knees doing it, too. But that's neither here nor there.
Shotgun's right, in one respect -- embracing apathy and joining the system *is* a solution. It works, we can prove it. Look at 90 percent of the people on the street -- they're happy, or think they are. They get up, go to work, come home, watch TV, sleep. They might have hobbies, they might not. Doesn't matter, really...because people like that don't matter. When was the last time the 'average man' built a great monument, wrote a symphony, left any kind of mark on history's pages at all? Never. Because, my friends, they are part of the same system that isolates us, that keeps, through apathy and torment, people apart.
I feel for those kids in Colorado, I really do. I've felt what they're feeling right now, I've seen what happens when a person finally reaches the breaking point, and blows some poor motherfucker's brains out all over the Quickie Mart/library/Mcdonalnd's floor. I feel it, because I've *seen* it. Age 12, folks. Random violence, three people dead. I read the newspaper later -- guy angry at his girlfriend for leaving him, comes in, blows her, the new beau, then himself away. It didn't matter to me, because I spent that entire time hiding behind a cooler, praying to whatever gods might be listening that he wouldn't kill *me*. At 12.
I fit 3 out of 4 of the warning signs for serial criminals, according to John Douglas. So do most of us, I'd imagine. Harsh, but true. We walk the razor's edge every day, and some of us slip. Or is that pushed?
We're never going to know, truly know, until we stand up, and make Joe Average face the facts -- it wasn't guns, or Quake, or Jesus Christ speaking from a tortilla that made Littlefield a household name. It was the abdication of responsibility -- by the school, by the parents, by the students, and ultimately by the gunmen -- that made this tragedy possible.
Or, to put it more poetically -- the fault lies not in the stars, but in ourselves.
Hi!
I went to a public highschool for 2 years and to a private highschool for 3. It is my experience that the Geek/Jock gap is bigger there because most kids who are sent there are sent there because the parents don't want them around. Also because there is more money, you have a lot of people who think drug is cool because they can afford it. At my school about 1/3 of the students where constantly high!! I was a reject because I didn't listen in class, barely did my homeworks and passed with flying colors.
So private or public doesn't mean much. Its not the type of school you go to, its who is there. While I never had any violent actions myself, I do know that playing Quake or Tribe, or RPGs can help vent some frustration. Some say its an escape and that those who play are cowards. Of course those who say that vent their frustrations by picking on people who won't fight back or are unable to do so.
The teaching system needs a drastic change and soon. These days society's mind promotes dumbness. Kids who fail, can't concentrate are idolized. Smart kids are always depicted as small, mean and selfish. We need to break the hatred. From both sides.
Hellion
If you take this route you're going to have to find a way to deal with the rage you're going to feel because somebody thumped you and get clean away with it. If there were an easy answer there wouldn't be so many of us that understand why Littleton happened.
Ok, BeanThere. You have got it all wrong, i am 15 and that is exactly what i think and basically know. It's a fact that unless you are really good you do not make a lot of money playing footbal. Who the hell do you think pays the football players? Someone very richer who knows how to manage a business, not how to play football. It's a good message to kids because it gives them something to look forward to, and i can tell you that i am proud to be a nerd or a geek or anything they call me because it is much more fun laughing all the way to the bank then having your glory days when you were throwing a ball around and hitting people. In the "real world" suddenly teachers aren't that important anymore, nor parties, nor cheerleading or any of that sort. Sucess and smarts are, the two things that they outcasted you for.
:) See you 10 years from now, in a stretched limo, talking about which company we should by next, or what new and exciting hardware we can develop next... the limo being driven by that old football great who use to pick on you. Just keep on looking forward and smiling and hold your head up high. But, don't be arrogant and stuffy, be flamboyant and proud.
Mark Twain once said "I kept my schooling seperate from my education" or something of that sort.
My school does a little oppressing. It forces you to do sports, computer classes are weak, they also don't count as credits either. My teacher once told me that Im going to regret not going to parties and being on the computer all day. Im not, i love it and if he has a problem good, we'll see who is lauging at the end, I will be, because i like to have fun my own way, not getting cross-eyed drunk and passing out, whats the fun and productivity of that. I get called a geek because i like computers, i got friends, i think they use me a little, some of them.
Here is how it goes -
People label you, a geek.
You have restrictions, limits, borders that you can't do because you are a geek. A reputation.
That restricts you, you try to break the expectations and you are opressed.
So, when they blame me for the jocks trashing of the "quiet room" because I left my book in there. I just smile, think when I am an alumni and they are kissing up to me for me to give them money, i will come to the reunion with golden rings, lots of money, and a big bright smile. Revenge is not for now, don't kill kids, it's for later, reap the memories now, use them as ammunition for later because the things that they did will come to haunt them. Smile and be proud. The band they blamed, KMFDM, is a band about being proud, standing for what you belive in, disobedience, and all the things that are opressed by society. Funny that they have a song called a drug against war.
Im sorry that this is a little misorganized but, then again, so are thoughts. Thank you very much for this input i hope that disgruntled geeks like me do not kill and put shame on our name because of this. I know, it does get hard at some times but fuck up their computer, do whatever you can. For now, use your strengths to weaken them. They do the same to you, in a world becoming increasingly involved in computers, the world gets easier for us... to CONTROL!
I'm gonna wear my trenchcoat again, and whenever anyone asks me about it, I'll tell them about what's happening to all my friends.
--Adam
adamn@hotmail.com
Ohh..this is so familiar. and no..it isnt a US-specific thing either. I grew up in Hong Kong..and was (am??) a geek/outsider. I never fit inaltho I spent most of my teenage years trying hard and failing miserably. In those days there were very few of us and there was no internet..we were depressed most of the time..
To be "cool" you had to be super-model thin..an athlete..white or eurasian...
I was none of the above.
I hated school..and except for work I wouldnt have even bothered going..but Iloved my clasees...they were challenging and stimulating..
But I've been angry enough to want to kill..I've even had dreams where I imagined killing some of the people who humiliated me/gave me a hard time. ButI would have never done it..coz the anger never lasted..I moved on.
Its funny (ironic) when I seewhat those tormentors are doing today..supermarket checkout clerks and lifeguards..
I've coem a long way..thank god for that!!
But yes..this brings back a lot of painful memories..and I wish we could do somethign to spare other kids this sort of pain..
While nearly this whole post was BullShit, he made a point that I have heard in many places before that I want to point out.
I can't belive some of the crap I'm reading. You "understand" the killer's feelings? Give me a break... they are murderers... case CLOSED. I can't belive how many people are justifying what they did. People are dead... DEAD... as in never coming back.
Hello? You think the murderers are those weird people that no one knows, only in movies? NOPE! They are you and me, normal people. These particular ones were normal people like you and I, except they got pushed to the limit and probably had some influences elsewhere too. Understand the murderers? Hell yeah, they probably had the same problems we do. So the fact that they are murderers DOESNT mean they are some type of imbeciles that we should dismiss as having bizzare mentalities. Its important to recognize what made these RUN-OF-THE-MILL KIDS go berserk and shoot their classmates.
TookyCat
tookycat@bigfoot.com
The only way to change it is by changing the politico-economic system to one that emphasises fairness, equality, and respect for diversity.
Right now we have in the US a proto-fascist system. No, it's true -- my dictionary (Am. Herit. Dict.,New Coll. Ed., 1975) defines it, in essence, as right-wing, government in bed with business, and generally characterised by belligerent nationalism. Sound familiar? If we want a more fair system, we have to change it politically. To do that, we have to work together in ways that the Establishment cannot counter. There are a few ways to do that.
Get and read _Rules for Radicals_ by Saul Alinsky. Alinsky, dead now, was a real hell-raiser. He believed in equality, freedom, and a fair deal for everyone. Rather like Noam Chomsky, today. Alinsky explains in the book how to keep the Establishment off-balance, and take back our political power from the people who want us to sit in front of the TV when we're not at the mall giving them our money.
Making real changes would take a lot of hard work, but it can be done. And nerds are the best ones to do it because we think, we tend to be a little independent, and we can be very persistent in working on a problem that interests us.
Anyone interested?
Margaret
. . . is now up & running. Come by to discuss whatever it is you wish re:Littleton, CO . . .
This is important to me because I know how crucial it is to share your thoughts on such topics.
Littleton Tragedy Discussion
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I get knocked down, but I get up again;
You're never gonna keep me down
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I get knocked down, but I get up again;
You're never gonna
...feel free to email me.
What everyone is saying about life after high school is true - it gets better! Mebbe you won't become an instant millionaire immediately after HS, but one things for certain: geeks and nerds *don't* peak at age 18.
Loneliness and depression were my twin demons in high school. I was typed as a "talented-and-gifted" youngster in elementary school (spending a day a week in a special class), but the realization of just how different that makes you came a few years later, in junior high, where the social scene really begins to heat up. That's when I starting having mysterious illnesses and missing alot of class. I won't bore you with details, but 4 years and an ulcer later, I graduated.
Luckily, I escaped the physical abuse that some of you have experienced, but not the self-inflicted mental torture. I survived high school alive only through the encouragement of three teachers that took an interest in my plight and the few friends that I had: Judy (I was on a first name basis with my teachers, so sue me), the one who first gave me the idea that I was the type that withered in HS but thrived in college and real life; Tony, who encouraged self-expression without condemnation, something I never experienced at home or with most of my peers, who ratted me out to HS counselors; Chuck, who held me to a higher standard than I held myself, forcing me not to slack and rely on natural talents, darn him! and Nick, who put up with me even when I was an ass (and when I still am). Thanks everyone.
Hopefully, this hysteria against Quake, goth music, Manson and other "dark subculture elements" will blow over without the book/record burnings, bannings, boycotts or lawsuits that occurred with other McCarthite scares (comic books, Elvis, rock-n-roll, drugs, hippies, heavy metal, Dungeons and Dragons, Alice Cooper, punk music, Dead Kennedys, video games, voting Republican, "Married with Children", the Internet or Marilyn Manson, to name just a few! Notice a pattern, anyone?) - let's hope the courts honor the Bill of Rights before mob rule, but I have my doubts... If you're getting hassled or harassed by school administrators or counselors or other authorities, don't let "the man" get to you. Research your legal options! They're running scared and over-reacting (again), but don't just allow them to run you over.
To make a long story short (too late), if loneliness, depression and suicidal thoughts are your only friends and you need an sympathetic and survivor's ear for your troubles, email me at spsd@webgurus.com
timon
Zero tolerance equals zero intelligence
I dont believe that ridicule of nerds/ geeks/ whateveryoucallit in the mainstream is anything new. Read biographies of people like Feynman, Einstein. They were viewed as oddballs too.
In my view of the world, there is no free lunch. Either you conform (& die of crushing boredom) & be popular, else you do your own thing, & be ridiculed. Since I chose to (& still choose to) do my own thing, I accept that I'll never be Mr.Popularity. Thats how it is.
You may call it a defense mechanism, but in my view who cares what The Suit in the corner cube thinks of me, as long as I get my work done. Just as I didnt care what teachers thought of me, or the giggly (but pretty, oh-so-pretty) girls thought of me in school & college.
I have to agree with this! There is hope! Look at it this way....where are all those "haters" going to be without us Geeks of the world to take care of them? Who is going to show them the way to find a job on the net, or even log onto the net for that matter! Face it, most of the Senior Management Teams out there can't do anything without a geek leading the way! Anyone in the business world KNOWS the Geeks have all the power!
I've been a geek for more years than I care to tell, I married a geek and have a geek daughter! I couldn't be happier! Of course it took me a while to find my geek and I did find him on the internet!
So my advice to all the kids...hang in there, don't let them get you down, Geeks always come out on top!
:)
PrincessGeek
I hated High School. I know others that did as well. The hope of living just long enough to get out was a lofty goal. But in undergraduate school, I considered being a teacher. I wanted to make High School better for those that hated it as much as I did. I foolishly became some thing else, but I love and miss teaching!
In one of my undergraduate classes on teaching, the instructor said that most everyone had a positive, healthy memory of High School. Why did I feel bad when she said that? Perhaps it was not like that for the outcasts, the unclean, the different. I graduated 19 years ago from a Magnet school in Houston. I will not be invited to the 20 year reunion. But the nice people, the kind people are the only positive memory I have. And those people I miss.
It is hard for me not to identify with the 2 young men that shot and killed their classmates. Not because I too, killed, I have not. But instead, I can feel the pains of 20 years ago. In a time when being a computer Geek was really out there.
I don't know what could have pushed me over the edge at that age. But, I know today that I was on that path.
On that path, I did not know that everyone else was as frightened and ashamed as I was. That they all had fears and concerns about how they felt and who they were, even the jocks and the cheerleaders.
It scares me, that it is the same today for many. That youth today have the same reaction to the things people still fear at thirty, forty, and even sixty. But there is hope. After we get done believing we could have stopped this, we could have saved those boys damnation on Earth and after. When we are done Banning Jackets and thoughts. We will look at each other and say it can't happen again. We are safe.
But we are not safe. We will all die. Some people will die young. But how we live is important. How we limit our feelings and expressions in the most controlled environment we will ever live in, and I served in the Army, is where we should be looking. My daughter is limited in what she can do and say in school. She is 10. She will have more limits on what she can say and do in 5 years. She will find repression from above and from the sides. She will learn that you can torment those around you and be In or you can be caring and loving and be Out. But she may learn that if you are caring, loving, and alone, you can snap. You can lose track of who you are and what you believe. It is not very far from alone.
As a High School student, I sucked. I was irreverent, outraged, and angry. One day I snapped. Walking up the stairs I saw another Out being harassed, manhandled and finally threatened. He was too proud, still, to show he was scared. After all, people were watching.
I intervened. I threw one down the stairwell and grabbed the other one. I started to hit him. But I was no longer Out. Everyone I knew was there. I knew every face. Most had never smiled at me before, unless I was in pain. I heard, "hit him", "do it", "come on!" But then I saw a peacemaker. I saw her face and heard her voice. I think I remember her name, none of the others stick. She whispered, "let him go." I don't know how to this day, how I heard her voice in the din of fifty. But I did let him go. I was shaking so bad it made me more afraid.
The next moment, I was leading 100 magnet school students down to the regular school. But she had gotten the principal. She did not care that I would lose face and be Out if I backed down now. She wanted this to stop, so she got the Cavalry, our principal. The principal walked with me. She asked me where I was going. I said down stairs. She asked me why and I started to cry. I said I didn't know.
She never let anyone see I was crying as I am now. I have never remembered the next hours in her office. I do remember the compliments from my fellow students. The pats on the back (really) from people I swore hated me yesterday.
I got beaten up later in front of my friends. I flunked my classes because I was too ashamed to return to school. I never graduated from the Magnet school. I finished English, the only class I needed to graduate, in the summer. A class that was made for people who found regular school English difficult.
I never planned on going to any school ever again. I hid from my friends. I got a job in a metal shop. But I could not escape. I never escaped that shame. Today I am trying.
I did go to college because my Mom and Dad asked me too. They forgave me. Neither had graduated from High School in their teens. They were proud of me. They told me it would be a new start. A new beginning was ahead of me. But my irreverent, outraged, and angry attitude never died. My problems with authority stuck. And I never admitted why I hated High School to anyone except my wife and friend Bob, until today.
For some reason, what happened feels cathartic. Perhaps it is because I don't feel as bad as two kids from Colorado must have felt. Perhaps, finally, someone will look at what really happens in High School and not what they want to remember.
But they will ban coats, suggest uniforms, discuss ways to demoralize and belittle teenagers. Will they start teaching non-violent communication? Will they put Science Fiction on the High School course list? Will they demand reverence of our youth by those older than they are? Perhaps not, but perhaps they may listen and read and care, long enough to know that "Saved By The Bell" is not a real picture of High School. I think "Carrie" is much closer.
As stage two of the crisis/tragedy is woven in the paper/electronic web we read and watch, we will understand that it is Human Nature to be afraid, angry, and find fault. We are all afraid for our children and our friends' children. We are all angry that this happened at all. It interrupted many other really cool things. (I am not making light of all this, people just don't want to deal with pain and suffering.) Finally, we all want vengeance (or at least a solution). But like so many social engineers, we have our own pet peeves, beliefs, and understandings of the Human Psyche. Who is Responsible and what must be done?
I am afraid that you will be angry because it is my fault. I don't do enough for those in need around me. I get angry in front of children. I lash out. I fail to be tolerant. I often make responses to those that trespass against me. I can not forgive easily. I can not tell God, "I don't understand why, but that is ok!" I play Quake 2 all the time (with my wife and daughter.) I loved The Matrix. I had premarital sex with beautiful young women! But I did not pull the trigger. I did not kill anyone.
But like everyone, I want to know why. I want to point the finger and fix what ever is broken. But I do not want to look in the mirror. I do not want to say, "Did I miss a signal?" "Did I cut that guy off?" "Is this my fault?"
No! It can't be your fault you live in Maine! You live in Dallas! You live in Boulder! When is blame not related to pain and suffering? When I admit, as the principal of a school, that I made a mistake, the school board will fire me. They will distance themselves from me. You can bet that I will be sued and possibly put in jail! Why, because I made a mistake and foolishly admitted it.
"Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right." Mohandas Gandhi
In the country that first saw Gandhi's response to discrimination, they are healing. They are doing an unbelievable thing. They are asking for the truth and offering forgiveness. Imagine for one full 60 second period, that President Clinton pardoned all those associated with this massacre! The villains are dead along with the innocent, what will punishment gain us? Imagine if no one could sue anyone about this horrible act! Imagine that all you had to do to avoid prosecution was to come forward and tell all of us what you did wrong! Then simply apologize to the survivors. I fear some would rather face death row. We all need someone to blame and none of us wants to be IT!
I asked my Sunday School Class to understand why they needed someone to blame for what happened. Then I asked them how would their lives be different and the lives of the dead in Columbine, if they as Christians had attended High School at Columbine.
Why did I torture these young adults with these questions? I am asked these questions often when I read that I should turn the other cheek, help those in need without question, and love my neighbor as I do myself.
But the one thing God taught us well was to forgive each other. No one wants to stand up and ask forgiveness, because they will be sued and punished for their act. Which will we do: what God asks us to do or what we need to do to feel safer and more secure?
I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; I will not refuse to do the something I can do. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature. Helen Keller
A blind women could see that we will never be safe or secure. Why must we have this pretense of safety before us? How will you treat those around you? How will you answer for your indiscretions?
The best index to a person's character is (a) how he treats people who can't do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can't fight back. Abigail Van Buren
How will you respond? How will you answer the question, "What should happen to your best friend? You know the one. Her 18 year old son killed 12 people?"
Are you done imagining the injustice and outrage it would take to get the truth and offer forgiveness? Injustice because these parents (all of them) need someone to blame for this horror. Outrage, because this country still can't get over that O.J. was found not guilty! So how will we handle these kids being dead and we can't prosecute them? We will find another scapegoat. Another patsy will be discovered! Video games, the Internet, movies, Nazis, Hitler, some one must be blamed.
Who will suffer for this outrage? Who will ask you to look in your soul and ask really tough questions like: "What if this happened to you?"
Your school age children, as they loose more and more freedoms to safety, will suffer for our fear. As more of them make light of shocking and horrible things, we will have other kids turning them in and sending them to jail. Why? Because they handle their fear with humor? Because they sought attention?
We can forgive. A few that have already lost their lives and loved ones can help us all better answer the question HOW? And perhaps Why? They will not get money from their help, but that would not have brought back their loved one. Can you set aside your need for anger and hate, to forgive those that would trespass against you?
It is very hard to imagine. But vengeance is not ours, except in the fantasies we create. Two young men murdered 13 others. They got away with it. They did this by agreeing to kill themselves when they had accomplished their gruesome task. We don't want to imagine that we can live in a society where any single human being can trade their life for another. Ask Kennedy, Gandhi, or King. You can seek your vengeance. But understand you can not stop what happened. It happened. Now how do we heal?
Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" Vanity asks the question, "Is it popular?" But conscience asks the question, "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular -- but one must take it because it's right. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
Tell me it is not right to Forgive. Tell me it is not right to seek the Truth. Better yet, tell your neighbor, your friends, and your family!
-------------------------------------
I wrote this days after the shootings, but i had not found a forum I felt comfortable in releasing it to until my friend Bob sent me this link.
Many Thanks to JonKatz,
PaGeN
When a Ball Dreams, It Dreams it's a Frisbee.
"and by the end of middle school, 15 had been arrested (mostly for misdemeanor drug use, a few for resale), and, to the surprise to everyone, several pregnancies occurred."
#scarcasm mode ON
Obviously, all of these kids played D&D and listened to Metallica, right? What else could explain this kind of behavior?
censorship is a form of noise, which actively seeks to drown out content with silence - Crash Culligan
"I'm quite glad I'm in college right now and missing the witchhunt... "
Interesting double entandra(sp?), 'specially from a geekgrrrl. We would all do well to notice this...
censorship is a form of noise, which actively seeks to drown out content with silence - Crash Culligan
"well, if you're thinking what I think you're thinking, I agree with you... :-) "
;-)
Damn straight!
"I think the girls have it a bit worse. reminds me of the witch trials in europe a few centuries back..."
Exactly my point! Call it what you will, but this is (probably) a call to an all out witch-hunt.
Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it...
censorship is a form of noise, which actively seeks to drown out content with silence - Crash Culligan
Only if the teachers in your school were smart enough to understand what you were saying. Most of mine would have responded with blank stares. 'Course, you could have blown a hole in the person's head in front of you, and they still would have responded with blank stares (and this is in _private_ school).
censorship is a form of noise, which actively seeks to drown out content with silence - Crash Culligan
Well.. yes that happened, and it was really tragic.. but it was an isolated and increadibly rare incident.
Statisticaly (per capita)the US is a much more dangerous place, especially from Gun Deaths.
Saying that we should fear the government is just plain silly, maybe that one public servant who screwed up and let him get his gun, but if you can tell me that no employee in the US ever screws up, then maybe you will have a case.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Why don't you fight back? You think I never got harrassed at school? You think I never had to deal with jerks who wanted to verbally and physically hurt me? You think I put up with it? I have two words for you:
Haell no!
(That is Hoosier for Hell no)
Jr. High, and after gym I find someone urinating on my locker. Think I put up with it? Haell no! Someone ended up with their face in the urinal and it sure wasn't me.
Freshman year in High School and I was in Mrs. Burrell's drawing class. Conversation around the table got a little bit off topic and into making fun of me. How I dressed, acted, who my friends were, and why I was such a loser. Think I put up with it? Haell no! Someone ended up with their ass on the floor and it sure wasn't me.
Sophomore year and I was just closing my locker door getting ready to run out to catch my bus when a couple of Juniors wanting to throw their weight around marched down the Sophomore hall throwing kids into their lockers - including myself. Think I am going to put up with it? Haell no! I had been taking some Karate classes (Kempo and Kung Fu mix - thank god for The Karate Kid movies) and I retaliated. I ran after them, yelling like a madman jumped into the air and executed a perfect flying side kick into the middle of the chest of the kid who threw me into the locker - and he went down hard. I landed, turned to face his buddy when lights out. He hit me in my mouth, and the only reason I still have all the teeth in my mouth is because I had braces. Afterwards, I found my braces sticking out of the wrong side of my lips, and he had a cut up hand. But that took the fight out of both of us. The second Junior helped his friend up, and they limped out of the hall while I went and got some stiches in my lip.
So why do you put up with that kind of crap? Why don't you take things into your own hands? Sure, I spent quite a bit of time waiting to see the Vice Principal, and even more time in detention and taking a day off of school, but you know what? I consider myself lucky since those were the only three incidents when things escalated to a point where I had to get violent. I don't know if word spread about me, or if I started walking down the halls with a strut born of a confidence that I wasn't going to take crap from anybody or anything -- especailly from that damned Pascal program that was due in 3rd period!
While I agree that restricting access to video games and the internet is FAR from the solution, i do not think you are entirely right.
The jocks will not become members of the leader-caste, neither will the nerds, or the immigrants. I know, and being both an nerd and an immigrant was doubly hard. It's like being black and female - two strikes against you.
The truth is, without Any group to take over social control, this country will soon end up Leaderless, like Russia has, with robber barons taking all the political seats, and crime and corruption at a peak. Then, any group will have it's niche, but all of them will be in equally deep shitt.
The only solution is to reintegrate the social structure, to remove division into castes, and into locals vs foreigners, but this does not look very likely.
The fact is High School and Junior High sucks. Its a place where the non-conformists get their dignity stripped away because they try something different. Geeks need to start to realize that it is just High School, you go and get your 4.0gpa, and while you're doing it you tell yourself "I'm a geek, and I'm proud of it", and whatever anyone says to you, you'll still know that you're better than them and that you'll always be better than them and nothing much else matters. Because when you own the company and they are still working for minimum wage as a janitor...you'll both know who really won.
dude, get a hold of yourself. first of all, it's "rammstein". second, that's not "goth" music. there are kids that go around listening to marilyn manson and rammstein and whatever other bands like that there are; those are the manson kiddies. the "goths" are more likely to listen to the cure or the swans, or other more underground bands that i don't know about (i'm a raver, not a goth :P). and they tend to be some of the most open minded, accepting people i've met. ridiculed "with good cause"?? get your head out of your ass! respect everyone for what they are; i really can't stand most of what the "jock culture" stands for, but unless they're actually hurting anyone, they're fine doing whatever they want...
it really pains me to hear people talk like you do; the world really needs so more tolerance.
erik
Some people went through high school, others just got by. I hated high school. 9th grade was ok, but I was made fun of, because I was a little different, and was talking mostly overclassman classes. So the next year, I was who I wanted to be. I was barked at. Food was thrown at me. People would yell out freak in the hallway, with teacher standing there, and they would say nothing. The administration hated me and another who was like me. I have seen my friends given detention for frist addmenment rights. And you are trying to tell me that I should "quit being such a damn geek"? What if I was just trying to be myself. Which was not a geek, nor a nerd. What then? should I have just given in, and gotten myself a boyfriend, and watch tv? Some how that thought I could not deal with. So what happened? I left public school hell, and went away. And things got much much better. You are not offerning a solutionm, you are masking a problem to make an even bigger one.
The Kid who Can not Spell
This comment will, no doubt, be lost amid the deluge of comments that already exist. But I've looked, and no one seems to be talking about this particular tangent.
IMHO, one of the more striking things about this tragedy is the differences between how society reacts to these events depending on the group membership of those involved.
That is to say, an attack from the minority (or fringe, or outcast, or oppressed) on the majority is treated vastly different from attacks from the majority on the minority. I know, not a very big surprise, but consider the example of Matthew Shepard. When a group of students killed him because of his sexual orientation, no one stopped to accuse and question and hunt for scapegoats about why they had done it, what they had experienced to turn them into such brutal murderers - rather it was just accepted, from a motivational level. No one needed to question why - the fact that Matthew was gay was good enough for the media. There was no crack down on frat houses, light beer, no profiling of suspects because they play football and wear Hilfiger (or however that's spelt) and the only thing they were punished for was the crime which they were guilty of.
In the Littleton case, to be sure there are differences, especially since some suggest racial hatred for some of the motivation, but it can't be ignored that the essential issue is that these murderers are being cast as members of a minority, and different sorts of questions are being asked that would never come up in the reverse situation.
My too-scents.
Mike
Well this thread hooked me enough to comment on it. The media thinks that because they were once in highschool they are qualified to report on it. Perhaps fresh-out-of-college reporters are, but even then they've hopefully/typically forgotten much of the daily life of highschool. I've gone to a city (public) school, a suburban (public) school, and now a private (independent) school. It is no coincidence that I had the worst time in the suburbs. I have my own sense of style (*gasp*) and really didn't like wearing all the latest nikes and $30 t-shirts. I played the violin (not cool), and read a lot. I really didn't know jack about computers. To make a long story short, the rich bitch kids in the suburbs (to generalize slightly) can and will be malicious to students who veer off of the "norm".
Part Deux. I was watching FOX Files 2 nights ago because it had a piece on the effots of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a great organization. I kept watching when it had a piece on Littleton... mistake. They juxtaposed Hitler with Marylin Manson by showing a video clip of a Hitler rally with Marylin Manson playing in the background. If I were Manson, I would sue FOX for everything they're worth. I listen to many, many types of music, and to equate someone (or their music) who is himself "eccentric" or "different" with Nazi-ism is absolutely horrid.
Closing Thoughts. By now I still feel extreme sadness and continued near-disbelief at the events. At this point in time I am getting sick of talking about it, continuing to feed the media frenzy by passing on trivial facts with classmates. We discussed this for over 2 hours, which is good, but there is a point where we need to meditate on it.
Finally, I'd like to thank Katz for informing us with a different spin on the mass hysteria which I hope will not turn into a witchhunt for stereotypes.
My mother got the children's division of the ACLU to come down like the wrath of the goddess on my Junior High School. By then I'd been set on fire, along with the usual horrors. Suburban NY in 1980. So I have some idea of what these kids go through. I would suggest going to
http://aclu.org/issues/student/hmes.html
if you haven't already.
For me the biggest irony/nightmare here is: The shooters were supposed to be Nazi wannabes, right? Advocates of Aryan conformity? Stamp out the different and the physically weak? Remove from society those who disagree with the party line, or differ from a physical ideal? Censorship? Children made into spies & informants? As I see it, the reaction of mainstream society is precisely in line.
So, if mainstream society reacts this way every time, then it would be very much in the interest of totalitarian fringe groups to encourage this kind of shooting spree.
The hard part of staffing a totalitarian movement is getting people accustomed to having no rights, no privacy and taking orders unquestioningly. The other good way to raise participation in violent hate groups is to increase the number of people who feel they have no place in society and therefore have nothing to lose and everything to gain. It seems to me the schools are working hard at both.
I was lucky; I had supportive parents & graduated early.
Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!
Unfortunately the only forum you'll find for the geeks and trenchcoat wearers and the 'different' people are shows like Rikki Lake and Jenny Jones, where you're allowed to be different as long as the sheep known as the studio audience get to think they're psychiatrists and know what's better for your life when they're life is probably messed up worst than the guests. It doesn't matter what stories they're doing for that particular show. If your different, you are to be rejected. That's the moral.
Now, let's take a little look at the media and how they're playing this up. Yes, they've been following people who look diferent than that pesky 'norm' and saying that video games and the internet are the culprets and are morally wrong with this society. Here's another angle, however.
For the past two weeks for what little news I do watch all I've been hearing about are two girls, which only one I can remember is Rachel Scott. From a media point of view, her last words make a good 'soundbite' so to speak. It appeals to the masses because her belief in god was strong that she died in her faith. Therefore, she makes for good news because it reinforces how 'we all need to bring back God into the family and young kids so that they can all be saved'. Amazing how that little piece of info is branded subconsciously into heads. Now, for a fun experiment, go to school tomorrow and tell everyone you're pagan. Watch how quickly you'll be watched over or sent to the principal's office.
This and many, if not all, societies are built on people who think the same frame of mind as the masses. Anyone who is different is to be ousted, or at least made fun of. Anything in between is ok too, just as long as the person making fun of you is feeling fine about him/herself. This killing has been more interesting, however, in which case the lines have now been more clearly drawn as to who is to be labeled different. So finding a forum to speak out about how being different is for the time being impobable to impossible, because the only people who will care about how different we are will be the ones who try to convert us to being more towards the 'norm' of society. Kinda defeats the purpose, doesn't it?
E
Based on some of the posts and articles read some of you are stereotyping other groups of people. You say parents are willing to believe anything that's shoved in front of them by experts and the media, and that all the fancy psychologists don't know crap. Some even go as far as saying jocks are big, dumb, and shallow. That's just a point I'd like to mention, I can't make any assumptions about it, or I'd be stereotyping.
I think one factor that caused the Colorado kid's to go over the edge (from what i've seen and heard, which still isn't a clear picture on what happened accurately) is society as a whole. I mean, people just keep blaming and pointing at the media, the movies, the games, the internet, the parents, or how we should go back to Christianity, and all those things. Everyone has some blame in this. Either that or perhaps what some of what people are saying are right.
Another thing, why do people always have to point out what's different between them. Rich, poor, Atheist, Christian,Muslim,Buddhist,Jewish,Hindu(sorry for any religion i haven't named; oh ya, let's not forget agnostic; my belief!), popular, geeky, tall, short, fat, thin. I mean we are all human beings. (I know this is kind of an assumption) .
I used to get picked on alot, and one time I got into a fight, but now in high school i don't get picked on much. I mean sure I still get insulted because of my weight, and my uncanny ability to annoy people, but I don't do anything. Why? For one thing, I'm a pacifist. Also, sometimes I think to myself: Maybe this person's blowing off steam after a bad incident, and this is his way of venting anger. If I react in what he perceives in a negative way I might be in a worse situation that I am now.
My views might not be valid, because I've never experienced the some of the bad stuff some go through. That's why I can't say I'll back these ideas, but I'll always try.
Five comments, five "no sympathy" responses. As if , enemy #1 had written these posts.
Now, I will go on the assumption Jon did not fake any of these letters. If he did, my judgement would be pleasant compared to those who "supposedly" represents.
Three years of my life will go down as the worst ever: 1987-1990 (7th-10th grades). During this time I eschewed the social game of life, was excluded from practically every party/event (even some classes for which I was considered "too curious"). I aimed for perfection, and, given the skill level required for things, quite often met it...with disasterous results. I thought (and was constantly taught) that success and perfection was the goal. Yet everytime I did well, it was yet another "beating", another time my books were stolen and burned, another time I was locked in a bathroom. Why?! I was different. Due to a very healthy family life, I never was seen as different at home. I entrenched myself into computers, but my parents believed that this was where things were going and that it should always be encouraged. Lessee, I have a CS degree and am a working programmer...imagine that, encouragement and acceptance at home actually did something.
What really irritates me about these first few posts is that they do not see the obvious lack of acceptance and understanding these people deserve. Especially during this fearful and paranoid time when every parent worries for their child (I know, I have 2), it is a shame that the response be even more oppression, even more alienation. Not NERD news? This is NERD social studies. It's NERD history.
I want so hard not to lower myself to the level that so many of my classmates did. Call names. Tell people to get a life/clue. And I will succeed, because I learned to be accepting since I learned the lesson the hard way.
Age is supposed to grow experience, and experience wisdom. If people do not learn from this, we have lost all chance for wisdom...and will suffer its repetition.
Jesse
With the shooting in Littleton, it seems clear to everyone that there is a problem; what that problem is exactly isn't being addressed. The media is focusing on the law suits being filed against movie and video game companies, the type of students the kids were, and what they can do to stop the violence.
Based on several poles I have seen; most people believe that violence in games, music, and movies are affecting the children. While I don't think children who are not mature enough to handle the subjects in said medias, I think there's a bigger problem if people being exposed to this sort of thing can't seperate real violence and what they see on tv. Even though some people don't want to admit it, sex and violence have been around a lot longer than said video games. The entertainment industry is not the problem, the problem lies with the education and maturing of young kids.
The shooters have all been 'outsiders'. Is this such a surprise? People being put down and shut out of the high school social scene are the ones to snap. High School was horrible for me. The school administration doesn't like the smart kids who question the 'Because I said so' policies. The other students don't seem to like the kids who think for themselves and won't go along with everyone else. What happens to these kids who don't fit in and make life easy for everyone? They are shoved down and many sit there and brude. I'm not going to say the school society creates the violent people, but they do tend to ignore them or make them worst. Of all the kids that have faced the pain of being different, few have acted out, but no one looks at all the outcasts until one does.
When something like this happens, people suddenly realize that life can be horrible and unfair. Obviously they want to prevent it from ever happening again, but people want to eliminate the sources of the problems, not face them. Most news progrmas have commented on the shooters playing Doom(TM) or some similar game. Their answer, ban doom, cut off the internet, stop violent movies. Until they prove with out a doubt that these things cause 100% harm and do not help people in anyway I will disagree with this. These games, movies, and the internet are most people's outlets. We don't have to face violence in a real sense because there is an outlet for anger, fustration, and social needs.
The world doesn't need to shut out the outsiders. The problem isn't a them vs us situation where the jocks are the good guys and the losers are the bad guys. People need to face the world and think about humanity. Being picked on shouldn't be a 'part of growing up', but those mature enough to realize this aren't the one in a position to pick on people. Life isn't fair, but a little human compation for both sides would go along way. An ending note on Littleton. I do not hate the shooters, but I do hate what they did. It was wrong. Hopefully we won't have another shooting before students realize everyone's humanl but it probably won't happen...
-Kag
Hi, Just a comment on acb's statement that HS is not allowed in Australia ! It is, and we have been Homeschooling for over 2 years now. I live in Sydney, Australia, and even though the govt. doesn't like it much, you have the right to educate your own children. You can register with the govt., and prove to them you are serious about it(they inspect you !)- curriculums are widely available for you to follow - try aceaustralia.com.au or do a search.
Just as you are particular about what programs you put in your computer- for fear of virus etc. we have chosen what we want to allow into our kids. It is a BIG commitment, but we are a much closer family now ! And as far as socialization - my wife has joined with several other families and a HS network, and nearly every afternoon there is something on, sports days, public speaking, piano, french, excursions etc etc. They are not missing out. Even my 5 yr old will now happily stand in front of 20 adults and tell a joke or two confidently.It is great !
For most of my education I attended an all-girls private school in NYC. At age six, girls knew enough about social stratification to say I was half as good as them because I was skinny, knobby-kneed and in their world, poor. By junior high, they'd beat me up for getting a good part in the school play. And by eighth grade students and teachers alike screamed at me daily for being inappropriate because I would cry when students told me I was ugly and didn't deserve to exist. I was constantly thrown out of classrooms for standing up for myself, when the girls who started it would never be punished. There was an award the school gave out, ostensibly to the girl with the most community service. God, I wanted that stupid silver cup, and I was a shoe-in for it, but I didn't get it -- it was given instead to a student who had less achievement in this area than me but whose demeanor was deamed more representative of the school. Couldn't have an award winner who didn't smile just right in the school fundraising magazine I guess.
You've heard it all before, right? Miserable, lonely and not only did no one care, no one believed. They still don't.
My final years of high school were finished out at a specalized public school. I knew, maybe ten people, all nerds like me. But everyone knew me -- the girl with the funny clothes, the girl who must be anorexic she's so thin (I have a heart condition that affects my weight), the girl who tries to fit in with the goth kids but is too shy even to talk to them.
I can't tell you college was much different. People would call me and threaten to rape me because I was dating a woman. People hissed at me in the halls because of funny clothes I'd wear to clubs, or my gay friends, or the fact that I was the only non-Christian on my floor.
But by college I had a choice. I had a city to make friends in, not just a school. But aside from the city where I went to college, the Internet, unusual music and books were my refuge. I discovered that sometimes in books, emotions were something other than villified. We shouldn't be raising children in a world where this is a revelation.
But of course, the things that kept me alive are all demonized now. And the kids relying on those things for survival are about to be more alone than ever. Because the clothes that make them feel beautiful won't be allowed in schools or homes, the books that let their imaginations save them from the stupid tortures of high school will be banned, the music that feels the way they feel will be even harder to find, and the computer that lets them talk to people who are actually like them will be unplugged.
And we can all sit around here at slashdot and say "wow, isn't this cathartic!" or "isn't it meaningful that in the wake of such a disgusting crime at least we can start talking about these issues." Guess what? the only people listening are the people like us. And we're not the ones who need to be listening. We need to find the courage to keep talking, but we need to be talking to the people who weren't/aren't like us.
I am twenty-six years old. I have a cool job (yay professional geeks!) and a good life that has very little to do with my particular growing pains. That said, tonight, I'm going to take the time to write letters to the teachers I had growing up who did listen -- there were thankfully one or two -- and thank them. I'm also going to take time to write to the administrators at the schools I attended, not with a list of my particular bitter memories (that's for you folks), but just to remind them that in our hunt for potentially dangerous youth, we musn't destroy all the creative, intellectual or eccentric youth as well. I don't know what I'll say yet. I hope it's more coherent than this. But I also hope, if you've read this far, you'll do the same.
I won't argue about fraternities with you, as I was in a very small regional sorority in college that was quite a-typical, but I will say I graduated from GWU, and it was not a happy shiney place. I think the biggest downside to fraternities is that they often encourage people not to see what is going on in their community outside of the fraternity or sorority. GWU was a pretty hate-filled place when I was there ('90-'94) and I hope those years were an aberation - but I received one too many rape threats and saw one too many friends gay bashed not to say something.
I think that you people in the US need to take your teachers, journalists, polititians and those pathetic "counsellors" that people seem to insist that you need to remain a balanced person, outside and give them a good hard slap.
If you want to find the cause of the problem you're going to have to try harder that blaming the internet and violent games. How very conveniant is was that there were these two issues already out there, already fueling paranoia to pin the crux of the Blame on.
Oh - Why is it that that your Teachers etc have this fixation with sending you to counsellors? If I kept being counselled for every petty little problem I had that I really would start to think that something really was wrong, rather than that I was living real life.
Can't someone just grab some of these pathetic, sheltered fear mongers and tell them to get a grip.
I totally agree with all the comments that people have posted about how much they hated high school. Hell I don't even want to go back home this summer from college. I go to U of I which is top 3 in Computer Engineering which is what I am majoring in. In other words... its a haven for geeks. Sure there are still some 'cool' people, but all of my friends, my girlfriend, and all my my friends friends are geeks. I love it. Geek parties are kinda cool too in their own way. Mix quake and some beer and you get an interesting time. Anyway, for all of you people stuck out there that are having problems dealing with the social pressures of high school--just keep looking forward to college. Its a helluva better.
-Aerolith
Black trenchcoats do not kill people. TV does not kill people. Video games, even Quake, do not kill people. The Internet does not kill people. People kill people.
The shooters were obviously not entirely sane; I'd venture that they were psychotic and probably paranoid. But psychology theory indicates that while people are usually predisposed to some psychological condition, that condition is triggered by some stressor. Enough has been said here about the horrors of high school life (for me, it was Middle School) that I don't have to elaborate. Those nightmares would push anyone to the edge. The shooters, tragically, got pushed over the edge.
So where does the blame fall? Well, were these kids several years younger I'd have to blame the parents. But, the actions of someone in high school have to be attributed to that person and no one else.
So what made them do it? I'm guessing it had nothing whatsoever to do with the Internet or gaming, which actually help relieve stress in most of us who partake in such activities. I'm going to go out on a limb and venture that it probably wasn't the black outerwear either.
Most likely, they were already mentally disturbed, and instead of getting treatment they had to endure the trials of social life in high school. I'm in college now, and very thankful I didn't kill myself or end up in jail, because things are better. But while I was in middle school, I didn't think things would ever change. There was no end in sight for the torture I got every single day.
Bottom line- mix troubled people with a cruel, unforgiving, and nonunderstanding societal structure, make them think it will go on forever, and you get two psychotic suicidal killers. Sadly, I'm not at all surprised this happened.
My deepest sympathies go out to the friends and families of the deceased and injured.
My high school's social structure didn't seem to discriminate rich vs. poor, popular vs. unpopular, etc. Instead, it almost seemed more a matter of smart vs. not-so-smart. This was the idea perpetuated by the administration. Coming from one of the top high schools in the country (Blue Ribbon if that means anything to you), the school was obsessed with academic excellence. We offered tons of AP programs, and if you were good enough to get in, it was a great school. But if you weren't, well, don't expect any special treatment from administration.
But, I had all the experiences described here. I had them much earlier, from around 5th to 7th grade. I was asked about my sex life in terms I didn't yet understand, I was called a bitch by people who didn't even know me. People would steal my friend's purse and put it in my locker so everyone, including the teacher, thought I stole it. I was seldom physically abused but that too happened to me.
The teachers and administration didn't support this behavior directly. They didn't dislike me for not "fitting in". In fact, I think they liked me because I was a good student (at least until the social pressure got to me). But they never did anything about it. They saw what the other kids did to me and never said anything. No one stepped in until my parents called the police, claiming I was being harassed. Even then, not nearly enough was done, and it only got worse for me.
But here's the thing. All this didn't happen to me just because I was smart. It didn't happen because I wore weird clothes. It happened, I believe, for two reasons: one, I was more mature than most kids at my age, and two, I didn't have the right material things. My town is wealthy, and so were my parents, but in an attempt not to spoil me, they didn't buy me a new wardrobe every month. I didn't have the latest stereo or Nintendo system, I didn't watch the right TV shows all the time, etc.
I just didn't fit in. It wasn't because I was smart; a lot of popular and bitchy kids went on to great colleges and art schools, and spent just as much time in AP classes as I did. It was because I just couldn't understand how to fit in. I was shy, and that was perceived as being antisocial. I was mature, and couldn't figure out why things like idle gossip were so intriguing.
I think the horrors described here are very real. I don't think it's because we're smart or choose to be different (some of the most popular kids in my school were very strange). I think it's because we just weren't able to fit in and be accepted, possibly because we had our minds on other things, more important than popularity. And that is maturity in my book, not intelligence. (Money is also a factor- it's hard to be popular in middle school and high school years if you can't dress the part.)
I personally am in high school right now (I graduate in May). I am not an outcast - I am very much the mainstream (class president, all-state football player) and I do not make it a point to discriminate against anyone because of how they choose to dress. I am a big computer geek and have held a pair of well paying jobs at computer companies. That being said, high school has been one of the greatest experiences of my life. I would trade it for nothing else. Because of the experiences I had in high school and the time I put into making myself successful, I am heading to one of the most prestigious colleges in the nation (West Point). I feel that what these kids did in Colorado was in no way justified by the way they felt they were viewed. I feel that these kids are entirely responsible for their own actions. Sure the parents and the system messed up along the way but in the end, it was the kids who decided to pull the trigger. They are ultimately responsible for what they did - no one else but them. Sure the probably felt hated and felt like outcasts, but the responsibility ultimately lies in themselves. I am sure that I will get lots of mail and I welcome it - but I felt like something had to be said from what appears to be the minority makeup of slashdot readers.