SAVE OUR SCHOOLS, PROTECT OUR CHILDREN!

A 15-year-old freshman new to high school, Billy (William) Lucas, hung himself, while, alone, in his family barn.

He died because he could no longer accept the bullying at his school.  He could no longer accept people calling him a fag.

It doesn't matter if he was gay or not, he is dead and no one can truly say why he did it, but everyone places the blame, on the fact, that no one seems to know how to cure the problem of harassment, of bullying in school.  Schools blame the parents, while the parents blame the schools.

Billy was new to high school and no one could know what he was capable of doing.

At Columbine High School two teenage boys, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold took bullying and the harassment of other students to a violently new level. 

They mimicked their media heroes by donning Trench coats and holstering an assortment of violent weapons to kill their classmates.

Before the slaughter was finished there were 15 people dead, which included themselves.

These children were empowered for destruction by feelings manifesting over years that no intelligent adult seemed to pick up on.

The amount of formal education we give our children is not even compared to what they learn on their own outside the walls of schools.

Maybe we have to start teaching the teachers, before more young people have to die.

Education and family values no longer seem to exist in the same universe.

A senior, Seung-Hui Cho, at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University took it upon himself to teach family values and virtue to his fellow students. 

He was there a lot of years so people should have known him better, but they didn't.

One teacher felt his potential and simply threw him out of her class.  The University Administrators might have thought about an intervention, but apparently it never happened.

Before he was through with his violent rampage there were 33 people dead, including him and many others wounded. 

And these, instances, are just a few of the many times that children have taken it upon themselves to violently judge their fellow students or to simply murder themselves.

Why is it that we can have a team of psychologists show up to offer aid to students after a crisis, violence, but not before when their efforts might help to have stopped the potential bloodshed?  Is it the money we pay per hour that makes it worthwhile?  Do these professional listeners really care?

So how do we get closer to any new potential crises before another child commits suicide or murders their fellow students?

An idea I would espouse is simple, but it would take some change in school curriculum, but it might work.

There are five to six classes a day in most schools. There is not a reason why an extra class cannot be added.

The extra class is an overview of a day's events in a child's life at school.

The student will be responsible for taking a daily or weekly test and the results will be analyzed by a responsible teacher, psychologist and the school's administrative staff.

Social behavior will be rewarded with a passing grade and anti-social behavior will be punished with a lost Saturday or two.

Parents have the right to remove a student from the school if they don't approve of this curriculum, but if the student removed from the school gets into trouble later, then the parents will be in no position to place blame on the school.

People will scoff, but this one class, alone, will give children a full education in living.

Initially, one or two teachers will handle the tests and evaluations.

It doesn't matter if a child deliberately lies on their test, because their results will be corroborated by other students testing.  Any deliberate conspiracy to silence fellow students will unfold.

School will no longer be a series of interruptions with classes, because every minute of the school day will now be evaluated.

Every personal encounter, positive or negative, will be evaluated at the end of the week.

We are not going to place video cameras to take pictures, but, rather, we are going to depend on each other, student and teacher, to solve developing or ongoing adolescent problems.

This idea will not silence emotion, reduce conflict or hamper sensitivity.  But it will teach impressionable students a lot more about each other that they could never have understood before.

We are going to make the very idea of attending school a part of the overall education necessary to graduate high school.

We are going to make every minute of social activity between classes, as important, as the very classes they attend, but in a less formal sense.

You cannot address the problem of harassment, bullying, drug abuse, etc. if you only worry about a child in class.

You will learn more about an adolescent psyche and be better able to address the problems as they are uncovered.  Teacher and student, both, will learn.

There will be those that feel this is an intrusion on a child's development, but, in fact, this will better enable a child to learn.

Children have every minute outside the confines of a school to learn to enjoy on their own or get into trouble, but, for six to eight hours a day these children will be subject to a comprehensive development schedule that will better enable them to control their anger and their fears, while enjoying a safe educational environment.

This is to be a gradable class, and passing this class is as important as any other formal classes to graduating.

Friday will cease to be, simply, the last day of the week, but, rather, it will become a social reward for all the children that are now treating each other with respect.

The ultimate reward for a given year is, also, just as simple, if you pass you have the summer off, if you fail you will be here for the summer...learning more about how to treat your fellow students' right.

This one idea to make every minute outside a formal classroom more livable, more excitable if implemented, in the proper manner, could help to reduce the overall dropout rate of our students, while raising the literacy rate of our communities.

In conclusion, if you think this idea credible, then sign it and pass it on to a teacher, but, please, don't look for the negative before you judge the positive, because this idea might be the difference between a child living and a child dying.

LIFE OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM...NOTHING BETTER THAN THIS!

MICHAEL LEE MADSEN SR.