Nashville school shooting

[SGR]

Dr. Grande has released a video on the Audrey Hale shooting - he's generally pretty objective.

[Jwb]

Dr Grande sounds like a menu item at Taco Bell.

[SGR]

Dr Grande sounds like a menu item at Taco Bell.

I'd buy one, with extra cheese

[Trollheart]

Is he Ariana's father?

[SGR]

Is he Ariana's father?

I'm 99% sure that's not the case. I think Ariana has a much less dry sense of humor.

[Psy-Fi]

Children getting killed at school is a price that Americans are willing to pay.

They probably just hope its someone else's children who are killed and not theirs.

The USA is sick.

Something profoundly disturbing has happened to American society during the past 40-some-odd years. I don't know exactly what has happened but when I was in school during the 60's and 70's, shootings at American schools were almost unheard of and on the very unusual and rare occasion when they did happen, it was usually a grudge between a couple of students or a student and a teacher and didn't involve anyone else.

I'm glad I finished school before all of this atrocious carnage started to occur and become a trend. I can scarcely imagine what kids and parents in the USA have to deal with today during every school day.  

[Janszoon]

Something profoundly disturbing has happened to American society during the past 40-some-odd years. I don't know exactly what has happened but when I was in school during the 60's and 70's, shootings at American schools were almost unheard of and on the very unusual and rare occasion when they did happen, it was usually a grudge between a couple of students or a student and a teacher and didn't involve anyone else.

I'm glad I finished school before all of this atrocious carnage started to occur and become a trend. I can scarcely imagine what kids and parents in the USA have to deal with today during every school day.   

Same here. I was in school in the 80s and 90s, and though there were some school shootings that happened during that time, it was no where near the level of how it's been more recently.

[SGR]

Something profoundly disturbing has happened to American society during the past 40-some-odd years. I don't know exactly what has happened but when I was in school during the 60's and 70's, shootings at American schools were almost unheard of and on the very unusual and rare occasion when they did happen, it was usually a grudge between a couple of students or a student and a teacher and didn't involve anyone else.

I'm glad I finished school before all of this atrocious carnage started to occur and become a trend. I can scarcely imagine what kids and parents in the USA have to deal with today during every school day.   

Same here. I was in school in the 80s and 90s, and though there were some school shootings that happened during that time, it was no where near the level of how it's been more recently.

It seems to track a bit with the rise of the internet, and the ease of accessibility to it, no?

Not saying that it's directly causal or anything - but probably plays a factor in different ways.

Back in the 80s/90s (and before), when kids went home, the bullying/harassment for the day was over. Now, with social media and how tuned in many kids are to it, the bullying often leaks over into that space as well. I get the adult perspective of 'just block them', but I'm guessing it's probably not as simple as that for kids.

Disillusioned kids also now, with the internet, have the ability to learn more about previous school shootings, weaponry, etc. and of course, these disillusioned kids, who often seek approval or at least some kind of recognition no doubt see all the attention that school shooters are given by the media. I'm imagining for some neglected kids, any kind of attention is good attention.

Not to mention that the internet has allowed them to seek out and fester in negative and toxic-minded communities of people who might feed into their negative/anti-social thoughts (e.g. incels).

Again, not claiming it's causal, but I think it definitely plays some kind of role.

[Janszoon]

It seems to track a bit with the rise of the internet, and the ease of accessibility to it, no?

Not saying that it's directly causal or anything - but probably plays a factor in different ways.

Back in the 80s/90s (and before), when kids went home, the bullying/harassment for the day was over. Now, with social media and how tuned in many kids are to it, the bullying often leaks over into that space as well. I get the adult perspective of 'just block them', but I'm guessing it's probably not as simple as that for kids.

Disillusioned kids also now, with the internet, have the ability to learn more about previous school shootings, weaponry, etc. and of course, these disillusioned kids, who often seek approval or at least some kind of recognition no doubt see all the attention that school shooters are given by the media. I'm imagining for some neglected kids, any kind of attention is good attention.

Not to mention that the internet has allowed them to seek out and fester in negative and toxic-minded communities of people who might feed into their negative/anti-social thoughts (e.g. incels).

Again, not claiming it's causal, but I think it definitely plays some kind of role.

I think the internet is part of it, along with the general growth in media overall. Not only do I think that the 24 hour news cycle puts people more on edge in general, but I think the reporting about things like mass shootings to some extent probably gives some people ideas. The fact that the same time period we're talking about is also when the NRA started really going off the rails is probably a factor as well.

[Toy Revolver]

is there a more appropriate word than "fad"

i think it's the same sort of social contagion

the drills they're having in schools and the obsession with locking every door might be making it more likely to happen

like putting it in their heads yeah this is a thing

i'm not suggesting they do otherwise - idk

i'll always comeback to this point though

we need to do away with the compulsory component

school is not for everyone- forcing tens of millions of people to do something against their will day after day for years is bound to get serious pushback

also the strict scheduling and bell adherence needs to be deeply reformed- i don't think people who aren't alienated by this process understand how upsetting it to some kids who just aren't cut out for it

what if you had a job you absolutely hated and it was against the law to quit - that's insane -

[SGR]

Kids are the most vulnerable group of people in our society and the regular mistreatment of them seems to be by and large accepted. It's actually disgusting.

The same people who might call you a disgusting piece of shit for beating your wife or beating your dog will encourage (or at least turn a blind eye to) the spanking and hitting of kids - and they'll justify it in their own heads if they were beat/spanked as a kid: "If I cried like that in a store, my dad would've given me a beating" or "Kids don't get any discipline these days, back in my day, my dad would whip out his belt and we'd shape up" or "My parents hit me as a kid, and I turned out okay!"

And so the cycle will continue because the justifications continue - because dumbfuck adults think it's okay and are afraid to confront their parents for what they did or to broach the idea that their parents were abusers and weren't actually just "doing the best that they could". If kids weren't beat, spanked, and neglected on a regular basis across the country, we'd have a much more peaceful and accepting society.

[Psy-Fi]

the drills they're having in schools and the obsession with locking every door might be making it more likely to happen

like putting it in their heads yeah this is a thing

i'm not suggesting they do otherwise - idk

Every time a school shooting occurs, the so-called "security experts" are all over the TV talking about the security measures at the school and offering ideas on implementing extra layers of security to try to keep it from happening again. I guess it's a case of trying to be safe rather than sorry but these shootings keep happening with mind-boggling frequency even with all these extra security measures. The notion that a school should be some sort of combination of a TSA checkpoint, military compound, and prison seems unreal to me.

[Toy Revolver]

Kids are the most vulnerable group of people in our society and the regular mistreatment of them seems to be by and large accepted. It's actually disgusting.

The same people who might call you a disgusting piece of shit for beating your wife or beating your dog will encourage (or at least turn a blind eye to) the spanking and hitting of kids - and they'll justify it in their own heads if they were beat/spanked as a kid: "If I cried like that in a store, my dad would've given me a beating" or "Kids don't get any discipline these days, back in my day, my dad would whip out his belt and we'd shape up" or "My parents hit me as a kid, and I turned out okay!"

And so the cycle will continue because the justifications continue - because dumbfuck adults think it's okay and are afraid to confront their parents for what they did or to broach the idea that their parents were abusers and weren't actually just "doing the best that they could". If kids weren't beat, spanked, and neglected on a regular basis across the country, we'd have a much more peaceful and accepting society.

https://preventchildabuse.org/

this organization has been at it for decades

their commercials on tv when i was a kid helped me tremendously

a kid doesn't even necessarily know it's abnormal and wrong without any other guidance

those ads reassured me that it wasn't my fault and that i didn't deserve it

it's hard to accurately remember what was in your head but i think i understood that instinctively but seeing examples on tv and the message to the parent saying don't be like this

i'd like to tell the people who made those ads that i heard it and it meant a lot - those people were awesome

[Trollheart]

In years, even decades gone by, I would disagree with you on school, because how else would kids learn? But now it does seem that they're less establishments of learning (if they ever were) and more a sort of assembly line to show how good - or bad - the teachers are. I mean, let's be honest here: at least sixty percent of what we learned in school has been of no use to us whatsoever. I did terrible in maths, I wasn't great at geography, I loved history and of course English, I struggled through Irish, French and Spanish and as far as Religious Ed (or as they called it here, Catechism, which is somehow more chilling) they can stick it. Point-less.

But now, anything you need to know can be looked up online. There's the Open  University, all sorts of online schools and colleges, and just about every resource you need to learn anything. Obviously, getting a kid (let's say from maybe ten; who really needs an education before that? Kindergarten my arse - just a way to give the parents a break for a few hours a day) to actually put in the work and not play their ZBox or YBox or whatever it is you damn kids play those video-computerated games on, would be hard. But if parents made an effort, and the "lessons" were made interesting, maybe it could work.

I wonder what the stats are for those who go to school (not college now; that's something you choose to do but school is mandatory) and actually do well in life versus those who go to school and end up hanging around on street corners? I'd imagine they might surprise you. Or not.

Tl;dr: there's really no solid reason to pack a load of kids into a small space for eight hours a day five days a week and talk to them about dead kings and queens, the square root of fuck and how to say "Blow me" in Spanish or Italian. And any kid who really wants to know what a god-damn terminal moraine is, or how igneous rock is formed, can surely find out on their own time.

It would certainly decrease the school shootings, wouldn't it, if there were no schools?

[Toy Revolver]

It would certainly decrease the school shootings, wouldn't it, if there were no schools?

Completely abolishing public education used to be my position but I've softened. I've read a lot about home schooling, unschooling, alternatives to school, and I've worked with troubled youth, I've listened to their opinions, I've taught virtual / online classes, I've created online curriculum--

the road to hell is paved with good intentions and dropout prevention is the worst thing schools get into

there's so many possible creative alternatives to what we're doing now but we're stuck in a victorian nightmare

also, school shootings are obviously tragic but in terms of inflicting human misery, the cost of forcing school on those who hate it and the psychological misery they suffer through and the permanent ptsd level it causes on this subset of kids, because of the sheer volume of them that's where the ultimate tragedy is, anxiety depression bullying ostracism all that - it's one of those things we accept because it's been normalized for so long we don't even see it anymore