Letters to the Editor
-
amazing, just after i write about the Anonymice, one shows up!
"I can't help wondering that if the teachers involved in the Cho case had simply done their jobs rather than blab to the authorities". how about listening to Nikki Giovanni's fears or better, that incisive, courageous, Lucinda Roy who *tutored* him alone, before you blab on, anonymously.
-
What if?
I am the parent of a young man with mental illness, an illness that appeared his first year away at college. I found out about his illness when I spoke with him one day on the phone: he couldn't tell me when he had last eaten or bathed. I told him to call the counseling office for an appointment, and I got on an airplane that day.
One of the puzzles I have wrestled with in the six years since that dreadful trip is the sad fact that once your child is an adult, you're out of the loop unless he or she brings you into the loop. I was lucky, in that my son felt he could tell me a little of what was happening with him. The school, however, was unable or unwilling (I never figured out exactly the mix) to talk with me at all about the situation -- they just gave him a leave of absence when we requested it. He was desperately depressed, and had been in his bed in the dorm for weeks. He had lost 50 lbs from his already slight frame. I never got a satisfactory accounting of what the hell was up with the residence hall, with his teachers, or the university. My impression was that they were just glad to get rid of him and that legally, they couldn't call me and say, something is wrong with your kid.
My son is bipolar, and he's still trying to manage the disease, with the help of drugs and therapy. The events of the past week have given me the shivers: what if that had been my son?
-
I still haven't figured out...
...how Cho turned in enough accepted work and had enough of an undisturbed academic career to become a senior. It sounds like he spent most of his time on the outs with those in his major, and at the least one would figure he'd have missed a year or two or been held back.
-
Erring on the side of art?
Consider if we were to believe all writers who wrote about controversial topics were considered disturbed. Should Alice Walker be put in a psychiatric clinic for having written "The Color Purple?"
If a student has been raped, or suffered from incest, we have compassion for them. And then when they write about it, we are supposed to consider them as possibly disturbed? This is not helpful, in fact it is wrong. And in the wake of this tragedy, it is reaching the level of pure consensus.
The VP of an insurance company is asking English teachers to be "gatekeepers for identifying students at risk." Is this all our English teachers are to become? Risk assessment agents? The purpose of an English teacher is to teach skillful, free expression. I think the risk of censorship becomes high, when administrators interfere with creative writing.
How hard is it to imagine someone torturing an animal? I've seen it happen! But if I write it down, well, I must want to do it. I must be disturbed.
I believe we must avoid this slippery slope.
Sally Huntting states in this piece that we must "err on the side of caution." Frankly, I think we should err on the side of art itself.
If a student is disturbed, they show it purely through their actions, not through their writing. Cho showed antisocial tendencies, stalking behavior, and other warning signs. THOSE are the things that should be watched. Writing should be considered a pure arena, a form of art, and a way of seeking catharsis and understanding.
-
Creativity and Outreach
To interject into the Anonymous v. Sugarman debate...
Well, when I read about this guy, I see someone who was terrible at connecting with people to start with. Unable to draw out warmth or admiration, in all that awkwardness, he found he could intimidate instead (and so get a kind of status.)
Like anonymous, I'm uncomfortable with the way the creative writing teachers freaked out and held him at arms length... because that fed into the game that he was playing: intimidation to replace lack of friendship and status, which lead to more alienation, thus more need to intimidate, etc.
He needed to be shown the human connection. He needed to see more positive ways to stand tall in the eyes of others. Before he became a murderer, he must not have understood some of these basic social mores. People who are socially adept don't always understand some people need to be shown these things.
Sure, a councilor could have done that, maybe, or the mental institution. But, intentions aside, we all know those things come with stigmas (that, again, play into the cycle.) Now, a creative environment is a place where people help each other work on something very personal. In other words, it's a perfect place to reach out to someone like this.
It would be stupid to judge the teachers and administrators. They faced other demands, which only seem small knowing what has happened. Plus I've never been in their position.
But speaking in general, I want to believe I would have put someone like that in a 24/7 human connection workshop. I mean, no matter how he acts, just constantly reaching out, showing how his self-interest in non-alienating behavior.
Being the creep who freaked out the poetry professor was like a dress rehearsal for becoming the murderer. How can anyone embrace those frightening, negative identities, seemingly for their own sake, without hating themselves? Writing, or some kind of creative expression, is a tool to bring someone out of a place like that.
From what I read about his meetings with the department head, he must have been hard to like. And maybe referring such people to the proper authorities is all you can do. But it seems so sterilized, so bureaucratic. They aren't a problem to report. Each is a person, and people need human contact. You don't have to be a professional to provide that. Or to be determined to keep at it until you break through the cycle and find the sympathetic person, before the cycle takes over.