Two decades ago today, on April 20, 1999, 2 students went on a shooting rampage and placed bombs at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.
There were other school shootings that happened in the preceding years, in places like Jonesboro (Arkansas), Paducah (Kentucky), Pearl (Mississippi) and Springfield (Oregon).
However, it was Columbine that really captured the nation's attention, as it was a turning point that told the nation that violence in schools could no longer be ignored.
The incident led to a national discussion on school safety, bullying, gun control, violent entertainment and much more.
1) School responses
Schools have become much more vigilant in dealing with the variables that tend to lead to school shootings.
When the Columbine shooting happened, I was a high school student in the final quarter of my senior year. Whatever changes that were implemented in response to the Columbine shootings, it was too late for my generation.
For one thing, lockdowns (and drills to prepare for lockdowns) have since been implemented in every school.
As a student, not once have I experienced a lockdown, nor did I experience a lockdown drill.
However, by the time I started working in the education industry (6 years later, in 2005), every school had to have lockdown procedures in place.
As a substitute teacher, I had to be aware of lockdown procedures for every school I work at. However, in the 13 years, I was a substitute teacher, I only experienced 2 lockdown drills (one at a small private school, the other at a public middle school that happened during a period in which a teacher I subbed for didn't have a class). Being that I didn't have to work every day, I was lucky to not be at some of the schools I usually work at when they had their lockdowns.
However, this year, in my first semester working as a Library Assistant at a public middle school, we experienced a real-life lockdown during lunch recess. Students who were playing outside had to come inside the library, sit at the tables and be quiet while the lights were turned off and the doors were locked. All this due to a robbery that occurred a few blocks away.
Schools are now more vigilant in dealing with warning signs from troubled students. However, that is more easily said than done. Students don't always trust adults and may not confide with us about their problems. Students also don't want to be known as a "snitch" and will suffer in silence. Also, much of the bullying has moved online where school officials are less likely to monitor.
However, there is definitely a lot more counselors and other behavior-health specialists on campuses now than there were when I was a student.
There is also now more emphasis on socio-emotional education than there was when I was a student. One of the elementary schools I regularly subbed at now have a socio-emotional education session once a week. That's much more often than when I was in school.
Schools now regularly post signs about "being an upstander, not a bystander" when witnessing bullying. We didn't have that when I was in school.
Schools also now have signs noting the difference between "reporting" and "tattling". We didn't have that when I was in school.
Learn more at https://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2014/01/reporting-vs-tattling.html
However, there is a serious balancing act when dealing with bullying. Schools get held liable if we're not strict enough on bullying. However, when we get do strict on bullying, we get accused of perpetuating a "school-to-prison" pipeline, especially when we punish bullies who happen to be members of historically oppressed groups. It's the soft bigotry of low expectations.
When dealing with students with psychological problems, some schools only allow certain staff members to reprimand those students. But those staff members aren't always paying attention, and the other staff members who do witness and intervene get told to "stay in your lane".
This "stay in your lane" stuff bothered me when I was a part-time para-professional tutor at Niu Valley Middle School back in 2010-2011. I was there to assist a specific student but not allowed to intervene much if other students misbehave. That is especially a problem when the classroom teacher is too lenient.
Learn more at
https://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2013/08/my-time-at-nvms.html
At the next school that I worked as a part-time para-professional tutor, I was confronted by an angry parent who couldn't make up her mind if I was too strict or too lenient on her son. Some teachers wanted me to be more lenient, but the repulsive student-services coordinator Nadine Chun said I'm being a "patsy" for not being strict enough with the student in the same class with the same teacher who wanted me to be more lenient. An ultimate no-win situation.
Learn more at
https://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2013/03/my-battles-at-pes.html
Also, add in the fact that the adults in the school are dealing with their own socio-emotional issues. Many of us were raised pre-Columbine and didn't receive adequate socio-emotional education when we were growing up. We didn't have the best training in dealing with stress factors, and yet here we are, dealing with a high-stress environment guiding students into becoming well-adjusted adults.
As school staff, we are supposed to be the disciplinarians who can't show weakness. We are not given room to be vulnerable, because we know that any signs of vulnerability make us easy targets of the students that are supposed to be under our command. Give one person an inch, then everyone will demand miles!
It is stuff like this that leads to burnout. Already, several teachers in the school I work at quit during the school year. I'm sure more will leave the profession when the school year ends.
As for me, I found my niche working in the school library. That is a better match for me than in the classroom. Part of my time is supervising students visiting the library (usually in morning & lunch recess, though they sometimes come during classtime with their teacher). However, I also have time during the school day when the students aren't around when I can focus on organizing items for the library or the school in general (for example, our school's library staff organizes incoming textbooks that are headed for the classrooms). Plus, the union contract requires that I be allowed a 15 minute and a half-hour break 😃 This means there's a greatly reduced risk of me burning out in my current position.
My school library has student helpers who assist in the circulation desk. During downtime, some of those students would vent to me about what's happening on campus. I sometimes give advice, though in most cases, I think I benefit them more just being someone who they can talk to. In a world they already have many adults telling them what to do, it is an honor to be trusted as a sounding board for those students.
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So how has Columbine High School and the surrounding district (Jefferson County) adjusted how they deal with risk factors 2 decades later?
This article from the Washington Post describes all that and more, with the focus on the person who is in charge of that school district's security. That would be John McDonald
Jessica Contrera, “The Man Keeping Columbine Safe,” Washington Post, April 5, 2019
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2019/04/05/its-been-years-since-columbine-shooting-his-job-is-stop-next-attack/
In a nation always awaiting the news of another school shooting, no
community may be braced for that threat quite like the one surrounding
Columbine High, a place forever defined by the 1999 attack that killed
13 people, wounded 24 more and ushered in an Internet-fueled era of mass
violence. Twenty years later — the anniversary of the shooting is April
20 — Columbine is constantly invoked as the first name in the
ever-growing list of campuses turned into crime scenes. Columbine,
Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Santa Fe — each addition a reminder
that this could happen anywhere, any time. Almost as if it were
impossible to stop.
But all the while, Columbine has been figuring out how to do just that.
Here
in the Denver suburbs, the district has built what is likely the most
sophisticated school security system in the country: installing locks
that can be remotely controlled and cameras that track suspicious
people; setting up a 24-hour dispatch center and a team of armed patrol
officers; monitoring troubled students and their social media; getting
training from world-renowned psychologists and former SWAT commanders;
researching and investing, practicing and re-practicing, all to ensure
that when the next significant threat comes, it is stopped before the
worst happens again.
more
In the world of school safety, so many of the practices taught in 2019 have their origins here and in all that went wrong in this place in 1999.
The
spot where McDonald parked was not far from where law enforcement had
formed a perimeter around the school. Police did not go into the
building until a SWAT team arrived. Today, officers are trained to enter
immediately and take down the shooter, even if it means stepping over
bodies.
The radio McDonald was using to talk to dispatch also
connected to the area’s other first responders and law enforcement
agencies. Twenty years ago, schools, police and emergency medical
services had no single frequency on which they could all operate,
causing chaos.
They also didn’t have a blueprint of Columbine when they arrived,
meaning many had no sense of the layout inside. Now McDonald keeps
detailed floor plans of all 157 schools in his trunk, along with extra
ammunition, a bulletproof vest, a sledgehammer and an emergency stash of
Peanut M&Ms for his diabetes.
and for the survivors of Columbine shooting, 2 decades later
There will be a rally for current students, a public memorial service
for thousands and a private open house for survivors who want to visit
the building. Some who RSVP’d have not been inside the school since they
ran out of it on April 20, 1999.
The week is a chance for the
organizers to present Columbine as they see it: a community that came
back stronger, focused not on its past but on its dedication to help
others.
Those who lived through the attack went on to become
doctors, nurses, counselors and first responders. Five returned to
Columbine to teach alongside 13 educators who remain from those days.
2) Did bullying contribute to the Columbine shooting
It is a common belief that bullying contributed to many school shootings. That is understandable that people who have taken abuse all throughout their school years will explode and take revenge against all who done them wrong. Many of us who have been bullied might've harbored such violent revenge fantasies in our mind, even if we don't want to admit it.
Early reports mentioned that the Columbine shooters were outcasts.
But like many early reports, much of that has been exaggerated.
The first articles also indicated that Harris and Klebold sought revenge against classmates who had bullied them. The New York Times said Harris and Klebold appeared to target “peers who had poked fun at the group in the past.” The Post said students described them as “a constant target of derision for at least four years.” The Los Angeles Times said students considered the attack “lethal payback for old taunts and prejudices.”
But a look at police records and Harris’s and Klebold’s own writings paint a much more complex portrait, Langman said. Yes, Harris and Klebold were sometimes teased, but they were nowhere near the most bullied in the school and were much more frequently the bullies than the victims of bullies.
Most students are picked on at some point, Langman said, “so in the aftermath of a shooting, if reporters ask the students, ‘Was so-and-so ever picked on,’ the answer just on average is going to be yes. The significance of that though is completely unknown.”
In fact, Langman said, Harris’s personal writings show many “reasons” for his desire to kill: He wanted to see himself as “the law”; for sadistic pleasure; because the human race is “only worth killing”; and as revenge for being teased. Revenge was only one among many reasons. More often than not, Harris expressed a desire to kill complete strangers.
Harris and Klebold did not kill any of the students who had teased them; school shooters rarely do, Langman said. The two even said they knew that some of their friends might die in their attack.
Meanwhile, after the Parkland shooting, there were many memes pointing out that students who are female, LGBT and/or of Non-European ancestries also face bullying in schools but rarely respond by shooting at their schools.
3) Guns
Columbine shooting led to more demands for gun control.
There was the Million Moms March in 2000. One of the main speakers was actress Rosie O'Donnell. She was later exposed as someone who hired armed bodyguards.
learn more at
Joshua Grossberg, “Rosie Gets Her Gun,” E! Online, May 26, 2000,
And that's the thing. People of the US are not going to support gun bans because much of us view guns as a form of self-defense.
In the 2000 election, Al Gore lost a close election for many reasons. One of them is because he flip-flopped on many issues including gun control. He was against it when a senator representing Tennessee, then supported it as vice-president, then supported it some more when running for president, but when it looked liked he might lose Tennessee (and other southern states that voted fellow southerner Bill Clinton twice, as well as Midwestern states that have union workers who liked to hunt), Al Gore backed off on gun control.
Meanwhile, George W Bush had the endorsement of the National Rifle Association (NRA) which he happily accepted, even though his father left the NRA years earlier due to the organization's criticism of law enforcement. This endorsement helped him win the entire South (yeah, I know, Florida had their own election drama that year), Great Plains and Rocky Mountain states.
Meanwhile, the Midwest was still split between the two major parties, being that those states have high labor union membership (advantage: Democrats) but also have a socially conservative population that have a hunting tradition (advantage: Republicans).
But part of the message of 2000 elections (besides Florida couldn't manage elections properly) was that gun control alienated too many people from the Democrats.
So even long-time gun-control supporters like John Kerry and Barack Obama didn't pursue the issue much when they ran for president.
However, last year, when the Parkland school shootings happened last year, there were renewed demands for gun control. Much of it from students too young to remember Columbine or the 2000 elections.
While many on the Left admired the passion of the young anti-gun activists, their self-righteousness alienated many in the general population.
One of the Parkland students called the idea of "good guy with a gun gets stopped by a bad guy with a gun" as bull****.
Actually, that is real ****, as about a month later, a school resource officer in Maryland used a gun to stop a school shooter.
Steve Hendrix and Theresa Vargas, “School Resource Officer Blaine Gaskill Rushed to Stop Gunman at Maryland High School,” Washington Post, March 20, 2018
And more real-life stories of good guys with guns
Paul Hsieh, “Any Study of 'gun violence' Should Include How Guns Save Lives,” Forbes, March 20, 2018
Unlike the people of Europe, Australia, or Canada, the people of the United States have real-life experience with guns and are usually trained to use them in a self-defense situation. They will never support gun bans no matter how loud the anti-gun activists scream.
The anti-gun activists claim that the NRA has too much money. But what the NRA has in money is chump change in comparison to the fossil fuel industry. But what the NRA has is tons of supporters who believe in their message. It's not the money, it's the message.
Meanwhile, more people die due to cars every year. If you want to save lives, it's better to give more people bus passes than to ban guns.
4) Violent entertainment
Violent entertainment also became part of the discussion post-Columbine. The 2 shooters were fascinated by violent video games and they were also fans of heavy metal musician Marilyn Manson.
It is easy to blame video games for school shootings. Video games give people an opportunity to re-enact their violent fantasies in a recreational setting. Some people feel that those games amp up the players into committing violence in real life.
For some truly disturbed individuals, those violent video games could inspire them to commit real violence.
However, since the rise of video games since the 1980s, the violent crime rate has generally declined.
(note to anti-gun activists: violent crime has declined, we already did much to reduce gun violence already).
The theory is that if we give people a venue to put their aggressive energy in a game, it gets that energy out of their system and there's less energy left to put their aggression in real life.
It's the same theory in how contact sports like American tackle football and mixed martial arts have saved many youths from the gang life, by giving them an aggressive outlet off the streets and under the control of adult supervisors.
As for heavy metal, that genre along with gangsta rap, has also been blamed for encouraging violence.
I grew up with both genres.
I listened to a lot of heavy metal (though I prefer Pantera & Limp Bizkit over Marilyn Manson). Pantera & Limp Bizkit have the perfect soundtrack when you have a lot of angry energy. That might be fine if you preparing to play hockey or MMA. Not so great if you are getting ready to work at school in the morning. There's a reason why I don't listen to heavy metal in the morning.
That being said, heavy metal can also be healthy in that it has given a voice to the frustrations many youths feel dealing with authority and society.
The same is true about gangsta rap.
As for gangsta rap link to violent crime, the link is not always what you think it is. Yes, some kids are inspired to wear gang colors, smoke weed and confront those who disrespect them.
But the evidence is in. Gangsta rap became popular in the late 80s. Violent crime has decreased since the late 80s. Therefore, gangsta rap didn't increase violent crime. The music most likely gave an outlet for youth to express their aggressive energy through words and rhythms rather than using their fists or guns.
The crusade to censor violent entertainment didn't really do much to get rid of violent entertainment.
However, it did start a conversation among parents to how best counteract the messages of violent entertainment. Parental communication is a more productive response to violent entertainment than censorship ever was.
