We need to have a serious talk about Guns. The world is a scary enough place, when you add in the fear of being shot to your daily life, well, you can maybe imagine what these kids lives are like. “Since the beginning of the school year in September, at least 32 Chicago Public Schools students have been killed” – Chicago Tribune.
While I had an after school group, we had a unusual request to keep the doors shut and keep all the kids inside the library. I thought very little of it because I figured it had to do with wandering kids. We (teachers) were then told that there was a high school student from the ACT program above us with a gun. We mentioned nothing to the students and continued as scheduled, making sure when our time was over to have each student picked up and walked out by an adult. I found out later that a fight broke out between our seventh grade girls and the ACT girls. Soon enough the boys joined in and one high school student had brought a gun and flashed it to people outside, even hitting someone with it (thankfully no shots were fired). Four students were injured, though I am not sure on those details, but one of the students was injured by the police and pepper spray.
What can be done to prevent this? Stronger gun control laws? Worse punishments for offenders? We need to figure out how to get these guns off the streets, and educate the ‘at risk’ students on how to stay away from them.
Anonymous said,
May 15, 2008 @ 2:07 pm
Violence begets violence, and children model what they see, hear and experience…my two cents worth.