Subbing for a teacher in an IEP meeting. The shootings at Virginia Tech have opened up several dialogs. Today, the kids were wondering where the young man's parents were? They lived somewhat close. They allegedly suspected he was mentally ill. At his age, they could have had him involuntarily committed, with court approval. If I suspected this of my kids, I would move heaven and earth to help them, especially if there were concerns about violence toward other people. But then it's so easy as a parent to say what you would or wouldn't do differently. I think every parent has to have sympathy, because no matter what we do, I think every parent fears that there for the grace of God go I.

The students then began to discuss how their parents are disconnected from them. They wondered if his parents were just as disconnected. We talked about the fine line between letting them have the space to become who they're going to be and keeping an eye on what they're doing. It's not an easy line for parents to walk.

Later, I traveled to the middle school for the same teacher. The 8th grade teachers were talking at lunch. The consensus was that people did try to help the guy. But once someone is 18, and considered an adult, it's hard to help if the person doesn't want help. Parents can't even review medical records without their child's permission. One of the teachers talked about a friend in high school, who before being caught, made pipe bombs and downloaded terrorist handbooks, and hid them in places around the house, all without his parents knowing. The teacher assured us that his parents were VERY involved in his friend's life, and he was still able to hide his true dark side. Scary, huh?

The middle school teachers also seemed to agree to limit the discussion of the events. At the high school, they were using the news conferences as educational tools. That's a good question. What age is appropriate to use current events like Virginia Tech as a learning tool? Do we fulfill the shooter's wishes the longer and more in-depth we discuss what he did? During one of my middle school classes, two boys were talking about the shooter's race. I had to stop them and ask why they felt it was necessary to mention his race. I told them that when anyone commits an act like this, the race, age, gender, etc. of the person should not be an issue in any way.

I was present during a school shooting in 1987, when I was a junior in high school. A 7th grader tried to kill his entire class. One student rushed him to allow the other students to escape, but lost his life in the process. The shooter then killed himself. When the students fled the class, they fled to the library across the hall, where I was a library aide, alone at the time. It was the only time in my life when I feared I would die. So, as you can imagine, school shootings are a sensitive subject for me. It is hard for me to hate the shooter in my incident. He was only 12. He didn't know how to talk about his feelings of isolation and hatred for the students who treated him badly. The VT shooter was 23 years old. As someone who's also suffered from depression, I can't accept his rantings about being mistreated. I understand that he suffered from way more than mild depression, but if he was able to put his feelings on tape before this rampage, why couldn't he tell the mental health professionals who worked with him. His feelings were obviously clear to him. He said on one of the tapes that he didn't want to do this. It's clear that he made the choice. I can not let anyone use mental illness to even remotely mitigate his actions on Monday. I believe that does a disservice to the mental health community. We are all better off to try and use this as a guide to prevent future incidents. Columbine was 8 years ago, and we cannot keep forgetting and continue to face these tragedies more often in the future.