Buck up, Mr. President
In a society laws and institutions are necessary for people to live together.
Mr. Trump, you are an adult so stop whining. In the words of a former president, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”
Mike Shanin
Waikoloa
Ode to Pele
Madame Pele serves her feast
With bubbling elation,
But all her neighbors have declined
The bright orange invitation.
Jackie Dallas-Cox
Kona
Looking for solutions to school shootings
Recent tragic school shootings in Florida, Texas and now Indiana, over 22 mass shootings this year alone, and I’m bracing for the next.
Congress and the White House seem unmoved by this human tragedy writ large and are only able to offer platitudes and empty, meaningless prayers. With the NRA’s stranglehold on sensible gun control legislation, it makes me wonder if we have been overlooking some areas of commonality that haven’t been adequately addressed.
I believe that most of the mass school shootings have happened in large schools. The size of schools might be a factor for conditions leading to mass shootings. Absent a sufficient cadre of skilled mental health/social skills counselors to address ongoing student social/emotional welfare, students in large schools in particular may be at risk.
I would think that at least one counselor for every 200 students is a starting point, but the pressures inherent in larger institutions might even make this inadequate. Schools need to do more to encourage inclusiveness and prevent/punish bullying. Perhaps construction of new schools need to be limited in size.
Schools, however, can only do so much. Having taught in elementary school for 26 years, I have observed that in most cases the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. While I know that sometimes well-parented children make poor choices and that poorly parented children can rise above their circumstances to become outstanding individuals, I don’t believe that sufficient investigation of the parents of the school shooters has occurred to determine if they had been doing enough to prevent their children from taking this barbaric course of action.
Might the parents of school shooters not bear some responsibility and criminal culpability if they were remiss in their parenting? Why did they not see the signs? Did they strive to teach appropriate conflict resolution techniques? Did they teach the necessity to forgive and forge ahead? Did they do their utmost to be there to help resolve problems that their children encounter? Did they interface sufficiently with their child’s school and friends?
But in too many cases I suspect poor parenting is a factor. If we are to hold parents responsible, then we must provide adequate and effective mental/social health support if their care is inadequate. The challenges of the modern technological world are manifold and parents must supervise their children’s interface with this complex web and demand help when needed. Society must be there to provide the needed help.
Daniel Konigsberg
Kamuela