Why is school violence so profoundly disturbing?
It’s fundamentally counterintuitive to think about the safety of children in schools with respect to extreme violence, because schools have traditionally been havens for many children. In fact, they continue to be so, no matter what environments children may be coming from. There is a sense that in the school building kids are safe and protected from outside negative forces, and they can concentrate on learning and developing social skills. So, the very notion that children can go to school and potentially be victims of extreme violence is antithetical to our basic understanding of what the schools do. That’s one of the reasons that this has been so difficult for all of us to absorb and the reason that Columbine and Beslan have had such a horrific impact on our communities here and abroad. What is the federal government doing to help protect schools? The unfortunate irony during all this is that federal funds to help schools deal with these basic strategies to make schools safer have b
