Some of the most challenging moments in teaching teenagers is explaining horrifying events as they unfold. On September 11, 2001, I was in classes with dumbstruck students who expected their US History and Government teacher to be able to make sense of what had happened. Two years earlier I was in class on April 20, 1999 when Columbine High School was attacked, as I was four years before that on April 19, 1995 when the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed. I’ve been there to talk to students about the sudden, unexpected deaths of two teachers, and the murder of a recent graduate. They are the times that try one’s soul.
There is a disassociation during these times. You try to find an equilibrium within yourself, a balance where you can be open enough to gather and process as much information as you can, all the while closing down in an act of self-preservation. Doing this with an audience, trying to be honest, caring, and supportive to young people while your vestibular sense has taken a walk is, as a friend of mine says, a whole ‘nother Oprah.
The students (and you) want answers - answers that allow them (and you) to move to the next step, whatever that is. And the truth is that those answers will be a long time in coming, if they ever do. But the students (and you) need something now, something to use too understand, and so instead of answers, you try to move toward compassion, toward appreciation of responsibility, toward community.
Usually we know that these are good things, but in those horrible, horrible times, when we feel the impact of their loss, we can sense the centrality of these intangibles in our lives. We know, for a short time, exactly where they fit in our hierarchy of needs, and whatever was essential and all-consuming just a few minutes before fades back for just a little while.
These are important things to remember. Because as soon as our balance is restored we begin to insist on answers, and if there are no good answers to our questions we’ll come up with new questions - questions which are likely less important, but for which we think we have answers. And the real questions are lost.
This week a young man murdered a dozen strangers, wounded scores more, and left an apartment laden with explosive and incendiary traps, apparently intending to kill police and residents when the apartment was opened. Really, we will never know why. The killer doesn’t really know why, though at some point we may hear his explanation for his actions. Personally, I’m not going to give much credence to the explanations of a person who came to the conclusion that killing and maiming strangers was best thing that he could do with his time and talents. Don’t really trust his process.
What we will then do, what we have already begun to do, is to ask that different set of questions. How could he get the weapons? Why did he choose that time and place? Why didn’t someone spot this and report it to someone? Essentially, how can we keep this from happening again? And we know, deep down, that we can’t.
Americans have a long list of ideas in which we believe. Justice. Equality. Cheap food. First in line, however, is freedom. We love it. Especially OUR freedom to do what we want. We’re not generally as worked up about freedom for people whom we don’t know to do things that we don’t like. Shooting guns. Smoking pot. Marrying matching genitalia. If it’s our thing, it is obviously an aspect of freedom. If it’s not, well... .
The problem is that freedom is sometimes really scarey, and sometimes really inconvenient, and sometimes it seems like there are obvious exceptions and limitations. Children should not be free to use alcohol or explosives. People should not be free to take other persons’ property. People should not be free to damage and belittle the helpless. These seem obvious, and we believe that all right thinking people would agree with us. And yet sometimes they don’t.
It is important to recognize that freedom implies vulnerability, and that we cannot have both freedom and protection from its exercise. People will sometimes do bad things. Sometimes these bad things will affect us deeply. And we must endure.
Soon we will be hearing more and more about the movie theater killer. Anybody who knew him will be asked about him. These questions will all be aimed at trying to determine what it was that we missed. In asking these questions we reveal an expectation that if someone had been paying attention, the murders could have been stopped.
Usually, in incidents like this, we find something, and then we try to find a way to not miss it again. This can be valuable, if it means being aware of the people around us, particularly if we have some specific responsibility for them. But the real issue, the thing that just stabs at us, is that these things happen, and that we know they will happen again. In the face of this, the only question that really needs answering is how will we let this change us.
I have taught teenagers for over twenty-five years, and I have to tell you, some of them are pretty strange. I love that about them, usually. Do I wonder if some of them might some day show up with a weapon? Of course. Have there been any specifically that I’ve been concerned about? Yes. Ones that were isolated, who had few friends and/or who were antagonized by other students. Have I talked with colleagues and the administration? Yes. Most of all, I’ve talked with the students. Talked to them, and listened to them. Have I been influential at all? I don’t know. Have I missed persons who needed more? I assume so. Have I ever thought I ought tell the police? Never.
These are kids who did not need another person in their lives telling them that they are inadequate, that they are different, that maybe we don't really want them around, and no matter how it is phrased, explained, or implemented, that is what they will hear.
I understand mandated reporting for child abuse. I have and will report any suspicions in a heartbeat. I am willing to risk being wrong about a parent or other adult in the interest of protecting the child. I am not willing to risk labeling a child as a threat in the interests of making us feel safer.
Freedom brings risks, and if we are really invested in freedom, then our safety lies not in examining our neighbors' indicators of possible deviance, but in being invested in those around us, not in labeling the “other” and isolating them, but in recognizing and respecting them. It will not be one hundred percent effective, but that is a risk I can live with.
So when you hear the reports of one person saying that the killer was this, and another saying that the killer was that, remember all the strange people that you have known, and perhaps even your own strangeness. Ask yourself if we want to create a society where the proper response to a person being different is to question, to fear, or to report as a threat. Decide if you want to decide to look at others for evidence or indicators of "otherness", or if you want to see them as people - as flawed and damaged as yourself - who are looking for ways to be safe, fulfilled, and at peace.
We’ve invested too much, bled too much, and sacrificed too much, to trade freedom for fear, or community for suspicion. I hope. Pax.
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