Letters to the Editor
-
I'll Tell You What Else Teachers Face
Insecure facilities. My classroom, like that of hundreds of thousands around the country can only be locked with a key and only from the outside. A teacher who steps outside to lock the door and is gunned down cannot secure the room against an armed intruder. Please take a few minutes and write or email your state legislator to tell them NOW that we need doors that can be locked on the inside without a key. An override mechanism can prevent the teacher being locked out. The action you take today may someday extend the life of an innocent young person who otherwise may have been killed.
-
Which of YOUR profs was superhuman?
Among the most saddest threads in this discussion is the assumption that any of these professors or lecturers benefited from the insights about Cho provided by 24/7 media coverage. I've taught English and writing as a lecturer at a 25,000-student university and at a small private college and now serve as director of a writing center at another public university. The notion that we instructors have access to some super-bank of students' personal mental, physical, and academic histories the likes of which CNN has compiled for us over the past week is ludicrous. When I see a student in my classroom for the first time, he or she is a clean slate to me. For all Giovanni and Falco knew (until they went to their dean), these were the first violent writings Cho had turned in. Cho's mental health history, police history, and writing history was off-limits.
As an adult, Cho was responsible for disclosing mental health concerns to professors. Thanks to FERPA, the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, educators are barred from contacting family or other authorities with concerns about the mental or physical health of their students. The Anonymous mother whose bipolar son lost 50 pounds at the residence hall wonders whether officials didn't want to report her son's problems to her. Having watched as my interventions for a deteriorating student failed, I can only assume that, as I felt, those officials would have jumped at the chance to contact her. They, and I, were hindered by the threat of firing and litigation for violating an adult student's right to privacy.
And, thehappychickenwillsmile, really? I'm sorry, but have you intervened in a 24/7-love-fest sort of way every time you met a sad, depressed, or destitute soul? I agree that, to make the world a livable place, we've got to be compassionate, but the reality is that (1) instructors are human beings, with time constraints and emotional baggage of their own and with concerns for their own safety and livelihoods; and (2) they cannot as responsible educators put other students into the middle of this sort of mental health counseling experiment.
Think of what you know about the colleagues who serve on a committee with you, work in the cubicle next to yours, or report to you three times a week for 50 minutes a day. Should you be held responsible for tracking their mental health?
-
Quentin Tarantino
You don't see Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, the guys who wrote/directed SAW, SAW II and SAW III, you don't see them going on shooting rampages.
Looking at a kid's writing and saying "I shoulda known!" -- that only works retroactively. It is not a predictor of behavior. Some kids (and adults) write violent scenes to get that energy out of their systems. For some, writing is not enough. There is no way to tell. It's all a crapshoot.
-
most saddest
Alright, before the sh*tstorm comes down on "most saddest" in my previous post, I call for the compassion I slammed in that same post.
Ahh, morning coffee does pry open the eyelids....
-
Points to Ponder
Many excellent posts in this thread. After reading about the murderer in the last few days (and reading his 2 'plays'), I have a few observations:
The plays were pathetic, IMO. Just the writng alone was (to me) middle school level. I found it hard to think that a junior English major would turn in such drek. I wondered what kind of grade he received.
Still as of this morning, I have seen no communication from his parents. Usually by now, you'd have had a stattement put out by their lawyer expressing their deepest condolences, etc. Other than reference to an interview with a grandparent by a Korean paper, nothing. I think that is strange.
I have read a transcript of his screed sent to NBC & I think the 'you' he rails against is his peers. I also heard him speak & had no trouble understanding him (he did have a very deep voice).
I would like to know if he ever returned to Korea for military training. As a national, he was supposed to do some. Looks like he didn't, but I could be wrong.
Finally, I would like to know if anyone from the school (educational or medical) ever spoke with his parents & broached the subject of their son being a little 'off' (for lack of a better term). Did his parents think he was OK? To me, he was too fragile mentally to be released into a large university all on his own (some good ole hindsight there).
-
Parents don't speak English
That's what I've read. Also that Seung-Hui's sister is preparing a written statement for them.
One of his mother's relatives told Korean newspapers that doctors in the US said that Seung-Hui had autism. Also a relative said something to the affect that that they wished that Seung-Hui's mother had disobeyed her husband more. The implication is that they blame Seung-Hui's father for something. A Presbyterian minister is saying that Seung-Hui's mother spent a lot of time praying for her son to get better. In other words, the family knew of Seung-Hui's problems with socializing with others.
It will be interesting if Seung-Hui turns out to have a stepfather because I haven't read that anywhere.
As far as evaluating a student's writing for mental illness, that's not the domain of a English professor. English professors are not trained medical professionals. Let's leave that task to to psychologists.
I completely agree with the person who wrote that taking photos of students' legs is voyeurism. If a student is causing a disturbance in class, how could he not be thrown out, especially if over 50 students stop coming to class because they are afraid of him? That made no sense to me that the administrators could do nothing. Either some of the professors are exaggerating about what really happened or the administrators of that college are totally inept. Either way there will be firings and lawsuits.