state of the nation
In about 20 minutes, the entire faculty of the college of education is going to a presentation about troubled students — you know, the kind who shoot? I absolutely agree that this is essential and that every one of us needs to think about the students we teach and the kind of pressures they are under. Yet every year I have taught, there has been some kind of school shooting, large scale (more than five victims): some close (Columbine), some where I have good friends who taught there (Northern Illinois), and some that just plain didn’t make sense (Virginia Tech). I started doing research on the topic last year, into Facebook and the response of students at VT and across the country (you may have remembered some of my posts from then) and I began thinking again about Columbine and even had some bad dreams. It’s still too close to the bone — I may do the unthinkable and skip the meeting, not because it isn’t important, but because I don’t want to lose it in front of my colleagues.