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 Virginia Tech Massacre and school violence 
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Wow. I have been glued to CNN for the past hour watching coverage of the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech. First of all , my heart goes out to all the families and friends of the VA Tech university community.... I can not even begin to imagine what a tragedy like that would be like on our own campus.

I was wondering, in lieu of these events, if you guys are at all worried about shool violence (anything from fist fights to massacres like this one) once you begin teaching in the schools. Events like the Amish school house killings several months ago, or Jonesboro AK and Columbine are becoming more and more prevelant. How safe do you guys feel in choosing such a public field to go into?

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-Allison Sawicki


Mon Apr 16, 2007 1:41 pm
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I also am praying for the families of the victims in the shootings yesterday. I feel that being an elementary education major safer than i might feel if i were teaching within the highschools. I feel that there is a much higher risk of a highschool student brining a weapon to school rather than a younger student. I feel however, that the schools are trying thier bests to make the learning environment a safter place.

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Amanda Nicole Ricketts


Tue Apr 17, 2007 12:12 pm
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I also watched CNN for awhile yesterday once I got home from campus. I can't even begin to image how the families effected by the massacre are feeling as well as the students at Virginia Tech. --- I am not to worried about this happening at whatever school I maybe teaching at in the future. -- I guess if it does happen - it was going to anyway -- I believe some schools might up the security systems or security guards they have in the future -

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Rachel Sigmon


Tue Apr 17, 2007 2:00 pm
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This morning, I became upset at myself for something. It was during my internship, and the class was attempting to differentiate between active verbs and prederite words and prepositional phrases and blah blah... I zoned out. My thoughts went to what happened yesterday at VA Tech.

When the shootings at Columbine occured, I was not in high school. I therefore did not directly identify with these students and the events did not have an emotional effect on me. When September 11th occured, I was sad and confused, but never feared for my individual safety. Even yesterday, I after hearing about what happened from a phone conversation, I was not afraid that someone would start a shooting spree in the following Media, Literacy, and Technology class.

It wasn't until I was sitting in 1st period Language Arts surrounded by eighth graders that I was actually in fear for my individual safety. I wanted to kick myself. I did not know if this was a rational emotion, if I was simply responding to the events yesterday. Thinking back about that moment now, a few hours later, I have some questions.

What happens when events like this occur and we becomed consumed by fear? This has only happened to me one other moment in my life, and it was right before I was leaving for Spain last semester (scared of a terrorist attack, or something). We all have our own way s of dealing with fear, but how to relate this in a classroom? Teachers have sooooooooooooooooooooooo many responsibilities, one of which is safety. How to we teach if we ourselves don't feel safe?

(Forgive me if I rambled, and I'm usually not this afraid, I guess online forums are a good way to sort out feelings)

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Mary M


Tue Apr 17, 2007 2:02 pm
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I feel pretty safe in our public school system. I say "pretty" because I know if a fight breaks out in school or some incident like that occurs then it is mostly likely going to be me, a male teacher, who is called to be involved. I believe that if we as teachers develop a trusting and communicative relationship with our students then we will have a pretty good heads up as to the morale of the school as well as each individual that passes through our class. It's usually the students that you don't know alot about or are ignored that fall into the "creepy/dangerous" category. I guess what i am saying is if we truely care about each of our students and make this a school wide effort, then we really shouldn't have to worry about our students causing problems such as this.

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Dustin Hull


Wed Apr 18, 2007 11:44 am
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All day Monday I was down the mountain for practicum. Towards the end of the day a received a message from my sister telling me there was a shooting at VT. Immediately, my mind began to race. VT is about a half hour away from my home and I drive right through Blacksburg every time I go to and from school. The faces of all of my friends that attend VT began running through my mind . . . Were they ok? As I began finding out more news I became petrified. In the buildings that the shootings occur were buildings some of my friends were in. These were the last people I found out about and their safely. Luckily, no one that I went to school with was injured but it was still hard to get over the shock.
Why didn't they figure out a way to tell the student body without causing chaos? Why did this guy decide to kill anyone? How could this happen so close to home?
I think that this is a great example of how important it is to tell your students what is going on in the world. They deserve to know! I think that this was so hard for me to get over because it really hit home. Injured students were attended to at the hospital I was born in and some of their families work with my families. They were friends of friends. It just makes me wonder how I can teach against this type of action. How can I protect my students?

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Charlene Leonard


Wed Apr 18, 2007 4:00 pm
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As an RA, this situation made me think about what I would have done if it had happend to one of my residents and truthfully I'm not sure. I think it's interesting that we did not get trained on how to deal with a shooting in the dorm...I just know that I wouldn't keep the real information fromt eh students.

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Susanne M Olson


Wed Apr 18, 2007 4:27 pm
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I feel fairly safe about teaching in public school. Small fights don't worry me, but of course an incident involving a student and a gun is much more frightening.

I feel the same as everyone else about the VT massacre, but I have a comment to make that applies to us as teachers. This entire incident could probably have been easily prevented. According to some articles I have read, the shooter was an english major and the teacher reported that his stories were always about someone murdering people, and that when she asked him why he wrote it he just shrugged and said "I dunno". I don't know about you, but that would be a pretty big warning flag for me. I don't know exactly what the teacher would have been able to do since it was a college student, but in High school or middle school, I would definitely call home or at least talk to someone about it.


Thu Apr 19, 2007 12:42 pm
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as we play the blame game after this tradgedy, i do to some extent agree with scott. teachers must be aware of when their students are becoming distrubed, especially when it is getting to the point of hostility. another point though is that there are only so many things you can do. i know that teacher reported and recomended that he should seek help, but someone cannot force another to attend. some police officers have said, "we can't arrest someone for thinking"

also it could have simply been theraputic to write it out. how many have written in their diaries, or whathaveyou, somewhat harsh comments about something negative in your life?

i agree though, that it will be a struggle to understand the line between expression and danger in the classroom. awareness and empathy is one of the biggest tools in responding to this tradgedy. the good thing that can come out of the media exploitation that surrounds events like this, is that we can realize and adjust things about ourselves and our society. pay attention!

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Mary M


Thu Apr 19, 2007 1:50 pm
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