I didn't shoot up my school, either

by Kaitlin | April 27, 2007 at 12:58 pm

1584 views | 10 Recommendations | 4 comments

Picture this: You are a high school senior in the United States. You have just witnessed the most horrendous school shooting in your country's history play itself out over and over again in the media. You are sitting in class and given a creative writing assignment: a free-write, as we used to call them, where you are just supposed to write to get the juices flowing. Write what's on your mind, you're told. Whatever you're thinking, it's okay, you're told. Just write it.

So you do. And then your teacher reads it. And you get arrested.

The creative writing assignment in Lee's English class on Monday instructed students to "write whatever comes to your mind. Do not judge or censor what you are writing," according to a copy of the assignment.

"In creative writing, you're told to exaggerate," Lee said. "It was supposed to be just junk. ... There definitely is violent content, but they're taking it out of context and making it something it isn't."

In his piece, Allen Lee wrote that he had a dream about shooting up his school and having sex with the dead bodies. A dream. It's what he was thinking about when he was told to write whatever he was thinking. He followed the instructions, and he was punished.

Picture this: You are a high school junior in small town Canada. You are asked to make an animation for a computer class. You decide to create an on-stage showdown between Ozzy Osbourne and Alice Cooper, who will keep biting the heads off various animals (Osbourne allegedly bit the head off a bat on stage once; Cooper supposedly did the same to a chicken) and spit the heads at the screen in a spray of blood. You play your animation for the class. One of the kids in your class goes home and tells his mom about it. His mom calls the school and demands you are suspended for displaying violent behavior. It is eight months after Columbine.

You are not suspended, but you are subjected to meetings with counselors and teachers who grill you about your mental state. In the end you're deemed an acceptable member of society and allowed back into the general populace.

That "you" was me. If I was I lived in the US, maybe I'd be in jail right now. For making an animation.

Sure, we need to watch for violent behaviour in students; that's clear. Feeling safe at school is important. But how do you feel safe when you have nowhere to put your thoughts without being told your way of thinking is wrong? If you aren't allowed to channel your thoughts and urges through the pen (or you're arrested for doing so), is it more likely that you'll channel them through a gun?

Kaitlin, good stuff. The ongoing mantra of, "Any sign of violent tendency is bad," is a terrible thing to be perpetuating.

Violence, like any deep rooted biological impulse, is undeniable. If all the healthy outlets are taken away, we'll naturally, and unfortunately, regress to unhealthy outlets.

I watched an interesting special on the power of hunger and the obesity epidemic the other night, and one doctor/researcher summed up the situation brilliantly in a way that applies to this as well. Something along the lines of:

"It's like breathing. You can run up a flight of stairs and, at first, consciously control your breathing. But the longer you run up the stairs, the harder it is to keep your breath even. At some point the natural functions take over, and it doesn't matter how hard you consciously fight to maintain a steady breathing patterin, you take a big gasps of air to catch up."

Violence, or violent tendencies that need some outlet--be it video games, movies, writing, or music--are no different.

Hello Kaitlin,

An excellent story! First year of high school, my son used to write very dark stories - and they were great, just very dark. One day I got a letter home from the school asking me to come meet with his teacher.

She said she "was concerned," about my son's psyche and "was he happy at home?"

I couldn't believe what I was being asked. There was no comment about his wonderful creativity; his methodology of putting a story together; his writing skills, nothing. She just kept asking me over and over in different ways if he had social problems - did he play with other friends - did he have an active social circle?

His stories were about vampires and monsters; the monsters he fought as a super hero; tracking grisly murderers as an FBI agent - that sort of thing. And yes, he did go into gory details, but this was HIS imagination put into gear for story telling.

A few weeks ago, a friend's son was suspended from high school, because he told his friends (in all it's bloody detail,) about his hunting trip the prior weekend and how he got to use his brand new shot gun. A teacher overheard him and he was suspended because he spoke about using a gun.

The school has a zero tolerance policy on guns and violence at school.

When younger, my boys were no different to anyone else's children; they played cops and robbers; cowboys and indians and even the next door neighbor's daughter was employed to tie to a tree as a captive.

If that happened today and the girl had told her parents she'd been tied to a tree by two boys - it would be blown out all proportion, complaints abounding and it would also probably make the media.

This isn't evolution - this is devolving, a step away from the norm, and a terrible injustice to children who aren't able to exercise their imaginations and play out their natural fantasies as the sheriff, captive or indian.

One would have to wonder what would have happened if Stephen King's teacher had branded him the same way.

One day imagination will be outlawed and all we'll be left with, is relying on external entertainment to build pictures and stories in our minds.

Ok., an exaggeration, but I'm sure everyone gets my drift. Great story Kaitlin!
~ Swan

recommend Sign In or Join to post comments

Victoria Revay

at 14:11 on April 27th, 2007

This is brilliant! I can't believe the poor Tiny Fortuna. Just for being creative...

levmyshkin

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 16:08 on April 27th, 2007

Kaitlin

at 15:15 on April 27th, 2007

Amen, brother.

Swan

at 08:53 on January 20th, 2008

NowPublic

World

I didn't shoot up my school, either

Photos