I have been told by people who apparently know about these things, that I have no place in a classroom because I do not care about children.
This came as a surprise to me since I have been teaching for a dozen years now and cannot recall any time when either my students or their parents have accused me of being anti-child. To the contrary, I would hope that people have the idea by this time that I put my students first.
Logic, however, goes by the wayside when you step on the toes of fanatics who believe that if you do not see things exactly the way they do you are the embodiment of evil.
That happened to me after the October 2006 incident at Memorial Middle School in Joplin in which seventh grader Thomas White entered the building with an assault rifle, fired a shot into the ceiling and then pointed the weapon directly at his principal Steve Gilbreth.
Had the weapon not jammed, Thomas White would have become a murderer, one of those people whose names stand out in our memories because, thankfully, they are still rare. Instead, he was arrested and his case became a cause célèbre in this area for the next few years.
One national group, Justice for Juveniles, which opposes any effort to try a juvenile as an adult, zeroed in on me after I encouraged that strong steps be taken against anyone who takes a gun into a school.
The spin from Thomas White’s supporters is that he had been bullied at Memorial and teachers and school officials were not willing to do anything about it.
When I pointed out that Thomas White was the one who brought the gun into the school, I was called “heartless” and told that someone like me “has no place in the classroom.”
Eventually, the controversy died down when White was sentenced to 10 years in prison and put into a program for juveniles until he turns 18.
And then the Joplin Globe brought it all back again with a top of page one article Friday. The occasion was a court hearing to determine if White should remain in the program past his 18th birthday. Both sides agree this should be the case.
But once again, the Globe kept the focus on Thomas White and his family. White’s mother, Norma White, told the Globe how her son was thriving in the atmosphere at the facility.
“He just took off there,” she said. “He didn’t any longer have the social pressure of being abused that he had here- what other kids were doing to him at school.” She said that while Thomas was a student at Memorial Middle School, the bullying of other students made him hate school so much that he repeatedly asked his parents to pull him out and home school him She said she regrets not having taken his pleas seriously enough at the time.
“That’s where I failed him,” she said.
And while I certainly hope that Thomas White is able to salvage his life and it appears he has taken steps to do so, it is disheartening that the Joplin Globe has once again turned the teenager into a victim and has perpetuated the story that he was bullied and no one did anything about it.
Shortly after the incident, the Globe and Justice for Juveniles began promoting this story about the uncaring teachers and administrators at Memorial. I took issue with that in numerous posts. While I would never say that there are not teachers who ignore bullying, I can tell you that those teachers are few and far between. It is something we take seriously and we have all had training to know the signs.
What no one ever mentions is that students do not do much bullying when teachers are in close proximity, so I just accepted the premise that the bullying occurred but teachers never knew about it. I also accepted Norma White’s explanation that her son did not complain to teachers or administrators because he did not think they would do anything.
Since then, new evidence has come to light.
I have talked with students who attended Memorial at that time. If Thomas White was being bullied, they were totally unaware of it. White kept to himself and students didn’t bother him, according to those with whom I talked.
As you can imagine, this is something that the students talked about for a long time after the incident. One fortuitous jammed weapon is all that stood between them and a possible Columbine. Just as the teachers and administrators did at Memorial, and all through the Joplin R-8 School District, the students carefully reviewed any dealings they had with Thomas White. Not only did they not recall any bullying, but for the most part they simply do not recall ever interacting with him.
At worst, these students were guilty of not extending a helping hand to a lonely student.
Yet, thanks to media that made no effort to uncover the truth, and a biased child advocacy group that has no ability to see any other position than its own, the students who attended Memorial Middle School in October 2006, their teachers, and administrators, have been labeled as cold and uncaring and blamed for driving a poor, misguided 13-year-old into the acts that have led to his imprisonment.
Perhaps that assuages Norma White’s conscience. Her claim that she failed her son by not homeschooling him is a cheap way of tossing the blame to the system that supposedly failed Thomas and not shining the spotlight where it rightly belongs- on a dysfunctional home where a 13-year-old was provided access to an illegal assault weapon (his father was a felon who was not allowed to own weapons) and where apparently the lessons of right and wrong fell on deaf ears…or may never have been delivered.
And even if Thomas Gregory White had been bullied, and that does not appear to be the case, since when does that justify bringing a gun to school?
So please spare me the moaning and gnashing of teeth over a fate that Thomas White brought on himself. If my lack of sympathy means that I don’t care about children, I am willing to live with that.
My sympathies lie with the innocent children who would never think about bringing weapons to school.
They are the ones who could use an advocate.
9 comments:
Well-reasoned. Young White's problems are more likely home-based than school based. When, if ever, has that subject been 'explored' by the Globe?
Where we are at fault as a local society, is to expect very much out of the Joplin Globe.
Someone wrote earlier that the major problems at the Globe involve leadership of the publisher and editor. This most recent article illustrates that.
Perhaps the name should be changed to the Mamby-Pamby Globe.
If you are an advertiser in this market and continue to use the Globe, I have but one question to ask. Why?
As a former teacher, it's hard for people on the outside to understand what goes on in a school. Regardless, a firearm should ring some bells. Perhaps I am wrong.
I have three children who attend school. I also own firearms. As a parent, I am responsible for knowing what my children are doing outside of the home, who they are hanging out with, look in their rooms and backpacks and attend parent conferences to have an idea of any concerns school wise. I am also responsible enough to teach my children that a loaded firearm is dangerous- it is not a video game: lives cannot be re-lived, a hole in the gut cannot be fixed by magic potions, and that there are severe consequences for our actions.
First off, I'm not smart enough to know who is to blame for White's problems. I assume parenting was far from perfect at home, but he didn't try to shoot the people at home, he tried to shoot the people at school, where he was unhappy. Have we asked the kid why he was unhappy and who made him unhappy? If he was bullied he can tell us who was bullying him, and I'd hope this information could be conveyed to school administrators. If, as you indicate, no one at the school remembers interacting with him, I suspect his problem is more along the lines of depression since he apparently had no friends and was probably of the opinion that no one cared about him.
As the parent of kids in the middle of a public school system, I know there appears to be some kind of war on bullying going on. Randy, can teachers identify and take action on something like this, or is it completely below your radar? Is it possible for administrators to compile a list of bullies (bullys?) and those they pick on? At my last parent teacher conference, the teacher wouldn't say much about bullying when we asked, but gave the impression she and others were frustrated that bullying continues despite their current efforts.
Randy, do you think teachers and school officials can reduce bullying, or are we better off teaching kids how to deal with being picked on (such as in the recent "It Gets Better" campaign.)
Who was shot other than a water pipe?
Randy, you surely must agree that someone dropped the ball with that boy at Joplin Memorial. Students who "keep to themselves" should be a red alert. Anyone who is not fitting in should be counseled and talked to. I'm not sure what this boy's problems were, but someone should have noticed. But the problem is, we don't have a safety net system for students at schools in this country. And our public schools are a lot like our chicken houses, where too many are forced to exist in a small space, with little autonomy and too many bells, whistles and too much authoritative control. I'm not surprised when certain students act out; I'm just surprised that more don't.
Teachers aren't the problem, and you can't put all the blame on parents. Our education system sucks. Until we are willing to take a hard look at how we are educating people, this crap will continue. We don't need more behemoth buildings with big-ticket administrators and huge sports teams; we need smaller satellite schools with a more home-like atmosphere, a more varied curriculum geared to each student's needs, and a higher emphasis on academics and career opportunities. Sports, and all extra-curriculars, should be funded and managed by the cities, etc., themselves, outside of and independent of school. Get the coaches out of the classrooms and the principal's office; get rid of the cash-cows that eat up too much of the grid, and don't overcrowd any student. Our schools need reform. And they need to be removed from local school board's oversight. Our present system is outdated and extremely poor at what it purports to do, which is educate.
You don't think a kid who is bullied, whose dad is a convicted felon who decides to own a gun despite that being a probation violation, who ends up doing a terrible act, who spends a couple of years in solitary without even psychiatric help DOESN'T need an advocate?
Bullying is a big problem in this nation. A girl in Massachusetts used a rope to end her problem. Any teacher or administrator who thinks advocats are only for quiet, well-behaved kids doesn't understand that White was, at one time, a quiet, well-behaved kid.
C'mon.
I never said that someone who is bullied doesn't need an advocate. I just happen to believe that people who don't try to solve their problems with guns need advocates, too.
I attended Memorial Middle school and was in my Freshman year at JHS during the time of this shooting and still had friends in attendance at the time of this shooting. I babysat at the age of 15 and actually dropped one of the kiddos I babysat off at the Whites home as the boy I babysat was friends with Thomas and his brother. I know for 100% fact that this kiddo was not treated well at Memorial. Out of North, South, and Memorial middle school; Memorial was the snobby school. South was where all the bad kids came from, and North was the quiet school. This is how kids labeled all the middle schools at the time of this shooting. Anyone who was not wealthy (Thomas was not), you were looked down upon day after day next to snobby kids. For you to say you spoke to "kids" at this school, I can only assume you spoke to the kids of which you had a good relationship with and not other kids who struggled along with Thomas. I highly doubt majority of the kids said he was bullied, because I did my OWN research as a Freshman in high school and asked my friends who were still going to Memorial at the time of this occurrence and they ALL told me he was bullied. For anyone on the fence about this case, trust the unbiased, NOT teacher opinion of a former student who actually spoke to kids on level that they would not speak to teachers about. This kid was bullied and I am thankful our criminal justice system recognized he deserved a second chance!
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