Another School Shooting?

Every time I hear of a shooting at, around, or near a school, my heart leaps in my chest.  My immediate thought goes to my children.  But not just my three boys.  I’m the principal of a small Christian school in Franklin. 

We have twenty students ranging from Kindergarten to 10^th grade.  Every time the news tells me of another shooting, those 20 faces go through my mind.  I find myself walking the halls of our school, peeking into classrooms, counting heads, testing outside doors to make sure that they are still locked.  I worry about these children, as if they were my own flesh and blood. 

When they miss a day because of sickness, I pray for their healing and recovery as it were one of my sons sick in bed.  When they are tardy, and we haven’t heard from their parents, I worry and have my wife reach out to them to make sure that they are okay. 

Do I worry about someone deciding to shoot up our school?  Sure.  Every single day.  So, what do I do?  Most every morning, I stand outside greeting the students as they are dropped off.  I look at their little faces to try to determine who’s having a bad morning.  I try to talk to those students just a little bit more than normal, to let them know that I care. 

Every afternoon, I stand outside and watch their parents come pick them up to make sure that the leave just as safely as they arrived.  Those students that had a rough day?  I normally talk with their parents to let them know—I’m not tattling, I just want the parents to know that I know what their student is going through. 

Do I think that this epidemic of violence against the most innocent portion of the population is entirely to blame on guns?  No.  Do I think it is entirely the fault of violent video games?  No.  Do I think it is entirely to blame of absentee parents?  No.   I think it’s a combination of all of these and more.

You’ve probably heard countless people say this “when I was a kid. . .”  and they normally go on to say how everything was better and it was always rainbows and lollipops when they were kids and there were no problems. 

My generation grew up with violent video games (remember the furor over Mortal Kombat?)  My generation grew up with working parents, we were probably the original latchkey kids.  My generation grew up with guns in the home.  Yet, we didn’t see these senseless acts of violence that we see all to frequently today.  Our problems were different.  Someone from my generation can most likely tell of someone in their class or the class behind them or ahead of them that committed suicide as a teen.  Someone my age can probably tell you of someone they went to school with who died while driving drunk.  Though the problems are different, the root causes may just be the same.

In our society, there is a definite lack of respect.  A respect for life.  A respect for a difference of opinion.  A respect for each other.  A respect for authority.  A respect for self.  Respect comes from an understanding that each of us has value.  Young, old, black, white, citizen, immigrant, poor, male, or female.  We all have value. 

Nothing in our society will change until we all see the value in each other.  That kid whom no one likes because he’s weird?  He has value.  The poor kid who doesn’t speak the best English?  He has value.  That girl who doesn’t fit in with the cool kids?  She has value.  That guy working two jobs to keep a roof over his children’s head?  He has value.  The mom who relies on government assistance to feed her children because she can’t work?  She has value. 

We want things to change?  Stricter gun control is just putting a bandaid on the situation.  So is arming teachers.  So is putting police officers in schools.  We need to treat the root cause of the problem to solve it.  We need to start teaching our children that everyone has value.  Everyone is worthy of our respect.  Not only do we need to teach this to our children, we need to live it in front of them.  Actions speak louder than words.   We need to start valuing the people around us, when we do so, they will start to see the value in themselves.  Then things may start to change for the better.