1. The corrupt social political system we have in the schools is dependent on political loyalty. Such an orientation rewards opportunists and low achievers. Lesser teachers necessarily must pledge loyalty, cooperate with gangs, and spend their valuable time socializing to gain acceptance. Competent staffers are seldom rewarded by this flawed system; the worst people rise to the top. The novel Injury describes a Chicago high school principal, who once served as lieutenant superintendent for the entire city school system in the ‘80’s. He stepped down to a principalship after a new superintendent was hired from outside the district. In his new position as high school principal, the former "second in command of all Chicago public education" continued to loudly proclaim his loyalty to the system as he sexually violated high school students behind the locked doors of his principal’s office. He offered them good grades, money, drugs, and apartments for favors. True Story! Yes, he went to prison.
2. Oust the mindless loyalty-based control system in the American society. Our society is suffering from a herd mentality that destroys individuals. The CIA reportedly conducted brainwashing experiments at one time in the not too distant past. Such experimenting proves where our society is headed: alienation and severe punishment for those who don't "fit in" with a social order. A short distance away from the democratic urban arena of Illinois are the republican suburbs of Chicago. They manage to behave more horrifically than even the democratic machine. Using pious, self righteous conformity, leaders (often affiliated with a religion) herd townspeople into hanging mobs. They are able to persuade large segments of the population to do social dirty work with religious fervor. Teachers and ally parents go after 5 year-olds to punish adults they don't like. They do it for one screwball reason or another; very often that well hidden reason is jealousy--belonging to one or a few leaders. The parents of the picked-on primary tots will deny the prejudicial treatment their children have suffered because they fear further torment for themselves and their young.
3. Establish community hotlines to handle harassment of students in the schools and neighborhoods. Professionals equipped to diffuse mobbing problems should be sent into schools and churches to find the problem and eliminate it. Schools and churches should lose accreditation over refusal to cooperate with hotline problem solvers. Keep in mind this is a societal problem, not the problem of an individual. Teachers and neighborhood gossips who claim the victim “asked for it” are denying their complicity with communal prejudice. There certainly are impossible students who are hard to reach. However, peer pressure to correct this problem hasn’t solved anything; this pressure has, instead, created a repeated violence that destroys young lives. The question to ask yourselves is who agitated these students into murderous rampages? And who is really behind the gang banging or ostracizing of individuals in our society?
4. Create accelerated academic schools for able students, where higher standards are expected and where higher test scores are required for enrollment. Set normal standards for all other public schools. This will allow children to be treated with better care: Teachers will not be pressured with the impossible—to make superior students of all—but will be required, instead, to allow some understanding for problem students. There are, again, alternative learning styles. There are also teachers who can reach anyone, but they’re few and far between. (I’ve seen teachers like this in the public schools; most were harassed by other teachers and pushed out.) Since teachers of this caliber are hard-to-find and keep, unhappy students should be allowed to select alternative schools that would appeal to their strengths. Federal grants should be distributed to alternative education allowing new theories to solve problems where institutions have failed.
Don't blame teachers, communities, or shooters. Blame the system. Teachers are expected to follow a top-down order and leaders (enforcers) connected to that order. Communities develop opinions based on hearsay. Hapless student shooters are provoked and pushed into insane acts by an out-of-control (insane) system within the social order which arbitrarily preys on individuals. Change the system!
