By now most Americans should have heard about or seen the story of the Chicago student beaten to death by gang members while he was walking home from school. If not, then google it or go to Youtube.com and search for it.
The Secretary of Education and the US Attorney General meet with leaders in Chicago to talk about how to prevent this type of thing from happening again. Read the press release. They decided to throw money at the problem instead of laying blame where it really lies- with parents and a communuity not instilling a sense of values (especially the value of a human life) into their children. Children who learn that all human life is valuable -- something to cherish and protect don't kill others, wish that all those "gays with AIDS" should be rounded up and shot, or comment about how a racial or religious group deserves to be killed. Think about what is said in our community and in our school. Where are our values? Is not all human life sacred and worth portecting no matter what?
6 comments:
We use many thoughts and sayings without realizing what it means or what it could mean to others. When we say stuff like that we have to be careful who we may hurt. Also if we talk about what we might do to others as parents, our kids might take it literally and they may hurt someone. They really should really talk to the parents in order to make sure nothing bad happens.
This violence in school doesn't really happen as much in small town South Dakota so its hard for us to relate to. We don't have the gangs or groups of people that would beat you up just for being different. I believe we still have to respect each other and try to get along. Even if you don't like someone or agree with them, you should still try to show them your respect. We all need to remember the golden rule.
Well, you may say that, Drew, but you as well as almost everybody, including me, doesn't do that. We just don't show people respect, we are rude and disrepectful people. People's main goal in life, it seems, is to boost their self-esteems and make other people feel like they are two feet tall. I would know, as this happens to me quite a lot in school and in church. Once again, guilty as charged, I do it too. It seems like people have two sides to them, the one they like to show to people they don't really know that well, normally their nicer side, and the one where they are their true self, normally the extremely rude side. Our values were taught, but with today's society being a dog eat dog one, they have kind of gone to the side. To me, yes all life is sacred, no matter what, but if you would ask my dad or any other of the extremely white supremisists in our town, only whites are ok to save. My dad, and brothers are this way, now i don't care. I call them racist a**holes all the time at home, and they know it's true, but yet they still do it to provoke me and get me angry. Human life is worth protecting no matter who it is and no matter what it takes to get the job done.
The violence like that in our community is very little. Of course there might be one or two days that some kids start a fight, but later on those kids will forget that it ever happened. We respect each other and hopefully are respected back here in South Dakota and if not we still respect that person without using harsh words to express how we feel towards them. The parents should really be the ones to blame because they should be teaching their kids not to act like that and not to kill some poor, innocent kid. I wonder if that made those kids feel cool to kill some kid that was just walking home from school having a normal day. That's just not right and I don't see how anyone could ever do that to another human being.
Brooke, you make it seem as if everyone is a rude and disrespectful person. Granted, most kids in our highschool do say some pretty disrespectful things, but I don't think they say 'um to intentionally hurt the other person. And as Drew said, we live in a rather small community, so gang violence and things like that don't really affect us as it does other schools. What happened to that kid in Chicago was a display of pure ignorance and stupidity. "You're in our 'hood wearing the wrong colors, so we're gonna' beat the sh** outta' you cos we're gansta'." Am I the only one who thinks that's just stupid? I think all life is sacred, and we're not the ones to judge when other peoples lifes are meant to be ended.
There is really no way to prevent school violence, it needs to come from the students growing up. The students just need to understand that what they say and do does have an extremely huge affect on other people's feelings. The staff can try and stop some of the violence that goes on, but for the most part, it just needs to be the students stepping up and changing their ways for the better.
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