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Tragedy Strikes Our Students: Thoughts on Littleton
We have friends in Littleton, and our hearts, our thoughts, our prayers have been with them since the tragedy.
The pundits and talk shows have been spinning constantly. "It’s guns," they say. "It’s TV." "It’s the culture." Maybe it’s a little or a lot of all of it. But I’ll add one to the list of "culprits " in the Columbine High shooting — large, cold, impersonal schools that look and feel like a swank hotel instead of a school.
The research says that school size does matter, even in high school. It matters to the achievement of students, it matters to the culture that is created at the school. The principal of Columbine High said on national news that [he] knew nothing of the deadly clique.
It’s not his fault that he didn’t see it. How could he see it in a school that is the envy of some public college campuses for its luxury and it’s size?
Enough cannot be said – parents who let their children watch shows like South Park, TV officials who condone violence, children who obsess with video games and all electronic forms of communication, as opposed to learning how to communicate with people; and America’s increasing obsession with protecting self-esteem without giving children something that validly makes them feel good.
And kids who spend their nights at the mall playing "laser tag," instead of flash-light tag in the back yard. And all the while, those who argue against such "modern amenities" are told to loose the hang-ups. "Times change," we’re told.
In our rush to "globalize" we have given up the local support of communities, extended families, and friends. No longer do we gather in the church parking lot, or over the backyard fences, stopping casually to talk about community events – when there are community events TO discuss. The things that have rooted us in the past, built and bolstered our relationships, are eroding faster than we can create ways to reconnect.
The people and figures once admired were not International figures, they were the local sheriff, the pastor, our own parents. Our children’s admiration now runs to computer game fantasy characters, overpaid valueless sports figures, shallow Hollywood entertainers, rarely is there a Michael Jordan, a Bette Midler. Indeed we need to ask "Where have all the Heroes gone?" We need to regain the foothold in a true reality that once cradled us.
School-based Solutions. Perhaps better than any of the now hundreds of columns written about that fatal day is the views of Washington Post columnist Karen Chenoweth, whose weekly "Homeroom" (5/13/99) column was right on:
" In light of the events in Littleton, do you think it is time we took a another look at our attitude toward mega-high schools?"
"…Would a small school have prevented the Littleton tragedy? I would never make that claim….But if being marginalized by other teens and ignored by adults in the building was in fact the trigger for the murderous rage…it makes sense that it might not have happened in a small school where the adults were able to pay attention to each of the students.
"We should start by thinking through the purpose of high school and then build institutions to suit the purpose. The purpose of high school is to provide a place for children to become educated citizens of a democracy. It should be a place to learn a great deal about the things that we as grown-ups think are vital to know about, namely math, science, history, literature, foreign languages and the arts. And it should be a place where students can learn a little bit about a wide variety of things that are less vital but still good to know about...
"It should be a place where children of all races and ethnicities learn to get along because they need to know how to function in a wider society than that provided by just family and neighborhood.
"This can all be done best in a high school with no more than about 800 students — big enough to give some variety and challenge, but small enough so that all [there] know each other by sight if not by personality…It is big enough that teachers have the opportunity to have colleagues who teach the same subject, but small enough that all teachers know each other and know their students, forming a community of learning.
"We have built mega-high schools out of a false notion that there are "economies of scale" that can be realized with schools of 1,500, 2,000 or even 3,000 students. But the economies are illusory. With big schools we need more administrators to communicate… We need more security guards and metal detectors. We need more buses because students travel farther from their neighborhoods.
"…In other words, to manage such unwieldy institutions, we need all kinds of things that are expensive but do not directly contribute to learning. Interestingly, when asked why they left high school, dropouts often say that they felt lost and that no one knew them. That is, they leave not because they are failing (they often say they felt insulted by the low standards they were expected to meet, in fact ) but because they do not feel a part of the learning community…
"Keep in mind that at 1,900 students, Columbine High School is not huge by [local} or national standards. But it was big enough hat the principal didn’t’ know he had students marching up and down his halls in black trench coats, intimidating and being intimidated by others.
"It is time for us to think about exactly what kind of environment we have created for our children."
The Center doesn’t normally take stands on issues outside our purview. We felt compelled to share these thoughts and hope that those of us who do work in the education arena will do our part to help build and fortify solutions so that the fate of those Colorado students is never shared by any one of our children again.
Please also check out the statement by the Colorado State Board of Education, which they generously sent out to people nationwide.
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Jeanne Allen is President of The Center for Education Reform, a national, independent, non-profit advocacy organization founded in 1993 to provide support and guidance to individuals, community and civic groups, policymakers and others who are working to bring fundamental reforms to their schools. For more information, please call (202) 822-9000 or (800) 521-2118, or send e-mail to cer@edreform.com.