Columbine, which teacher is responsible?

Recently I was watching Columbine documentary. There are tons of arguments and analysis: gun control, media, video game, bully, etc. But, which teacher is responsible for student's mental state? Which teacher is responsible to not only see the sign of depression, but, also act uppon it? I mean, the teacher who is responsible for a limited group of students should be responsible to resolve the problem before it exploded, right? So, who is this teacher?

I mean, who is his 級任導師? Don't know the English name, sorry.

Why is a teacher responsible? Why not the parents, if anything?

@cbae:

because parents are not in school? teachers are in school, especially the assigned class teacher to oversee his/her class students. Also he/she is responsible to contact the parents when something is off.

Is this topic evildictaitor approved?

1 hour ago, magicalclick wrote

@cbae:

because parents are not in school? teachers are in school, especially the assigned class teacher to oversee his/her class students. Also he/she is responsible to contact the parents when something is off.

Each teacher will see the kids for a few hours each day (I assume that at that age they move between classes). The teacher is also responsible for about thirty other kids who, at that age, are probably completely p***ed off with life too, so unless the child comes to him and says, "I have an overwhelming urge to slaughter everyone in the building" then there's not really much they can do. To expect them to spot weird behaviour in every teenager is unrealistic because in their own way every teenager is weird.

If teachers do voice their suspicions then the parents come down on them like a tonne of bricks: "How dare you accuse young Ulik of being a homicidal-maniac-in-waiting."

How come the parents didn't spot this? They've known the kid longer than any of his teachers after all. They're the ones who know he's locked in his bedroom playing Judas Priest tracks in reverse. And how dangerous would the kid be if he didn't have such easy access to firearms?

It is not the teacher's job to raise children. That's down to the parents.

It is not the teacher's job to raise children. That's down to the parents.

It's BOTH their responsibilities.

That's one of the reasons they go to school.

The school is at fault for not providing a safe learning environment, my experience is that teachers look the other way, rather then to intervine. Highschool culture is also to blame, you need either be; a jock or a cheerleader to get respect, otherwise you are treated as a second rate citizen.

Parents are to blame; work work work work, kids?

Watch this film for a different take on it,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_(2003_film)">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_(2003_film)

Which is to say everyone will look for something in particular blame, when there isn't an easy answer. There are kids who play violent games that don't shoot people, kids who use firearms that don't shoot people, kids who are depressed who don't shoot people, kids that are bullied that don't shoot people, kids who are introverted that don't shoot people. None of these things alone or together could explain the shootings.

7 minutes ago, Ray7 wrote

*snip*

How come the parents didn't spot this? They've known the kid longer than any of his teachers after all. They're the ones who know he's locked in his bedroom playing Judas Priest tracks in reverse. And how dangerous would the kid be if he didn't have such easy access to firearms?

It is not the teacher's job to raise children. That's down to the parents.

Speaking of that, a lot of people misunderstand the criticism against violence in games and movies. There was never an argument that perfectly normal kids would be warped by violence and go out wanting to slaughter people; so Moore didn't really address the issue seriously in his movie. The argument was that when violence was common, people would become "desensitized" to it and no longer see it as abnormal, so you could no longer tell when someone had a problem. There are no warning signs anymore if many kids are into it. Parents don't even know everything they're kids are watching or seeing, so they might not even be able to tell if there were a warning sign.

So -- so what if he was locked in his bedroom listening to death metal? 

17 minutes ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

*snip*

It's BOTH their responsibilities.

That's one of the reasons they go to school.

The school is at fault for not providing a safe learning environment, my experience is that teachers look the other way, rather then to intervine. Highschool culture is also to blame, you need either be; a jock or a cheerleader to get respect, otherwise you are treated as a second rate citizen.

Parents are to blame; work work work work, kids?

I agree.

I personally think parents have the responsibility to switch school. But they have no control when kid is in the school, only teacher does. And yet, see that mentality, "It is not the teacher's job to raise children". That's how I feel about the whole case. They interviewed the teachers, but, all the teachers' response are inpersonal. They have zero connection with this student. None of them feel like they should have done something about it as if the responsibility belongs to someone else, but, who?

My class teacher oversee my class of 40 students, and she cared about all of us while she was having crisis of her own. While my class is not the smartest, my class behaves the best compare to other classes. I think that meant a lot to all my classmates and me. We could have gone bad, but, we didn't. I really believe things could have been different for the shooters if they had similar learning envirnment that I had.

34 minutes ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

*snip*

It's BOTH their responsibilities.

That's where we disagree. Raising kids is the responsibility of parents. If parents don't want that responsibility then they shouldn't have kids. The schools have enough to deal with educating them and still managing to do a very good job of spotting problems that the parents are unaware of (and often disagree with) or spotting that the problem is the parents themselves. Yes, schools do show them some kind of social awareness, but they should be half decent human beings before they turn up on their first day - if the parents have been doing their job.

It's really too easy for a lot of parents to shirk their obligations and just foist it all off onto schools.  

That's one of the reasons they go to school.

They go to school for many reasons, but teachers are not trained psychologists so cannot be expected to spot these problems in every child. 

The school is at fault for not providing a safe learning environment,

Again, if you start to frisk and x-ray every kid who comes into the school then folk start getting at the school for infringing the children's rights.

my experience is that teachers look the other way, rather then to intervine

That is your experience. In mine, a kid gets whisked off to some assessment centre as soon as he looks at someone cross-eyed.

36 minutes ago, brian.shapiro wrote

Speaking of that, a lot of people misunderstand the criticism against violence in games and movies. There was never an argument that perfectly normal kids would be warped by violence and go out wanting to slaughter people; so Moore didn't really address the issue seriously in his movie. The argument was that when violence was common, people would become "desensitized" to it and no longer see it as abnormal, so you could no longer tell when someone had a problem. There are no warning signs anymore if many kids are into it. Parents don't even know everything they're kids are watching or seeing, so they might not even be able to tell if there were a warning sign.

So -- so what if he was locked in his bedroom listening to death metal? 

Yes, the point of the Judas Priest reference was to show how ridiculous it was to assume that dangerous behaviour in a teenager is easy to spot. They play violent games. They listen to music where some rapper (who probably went to private school and has almost certainly never popped a cap in anyone's *) talks about gunning down policeman. Ninety-nine per cent of these kids turn out fine, and occasionally some do not. I just don't see how teachers can be expected to spot them (and remember that many of them are spotted) when the parents don't either.

In this country, we have frequent examples of teacher's putting themselves in harm's way to protect children, so I probably have a different perspective.

4 minutes ago, Ray7 wrote

That is your experience. In mine, a kid gets whisked off to some assessment centre as soon as he looks at someone cross-eyed.

What do you mean by "assessment centre"? My class teacher just sort out the conflict in class and she interact with parents directly, there is no "assessment centre". And she did a great job. She cared more about our moral than education. She wanted us to be good human being instead of training us to be test machines. Not sure what this special "assessment centre" is, but, most thing should be resolved by class teacher before sending anyone to some kind of special place.

@Ray7:

You have a warped view on what a school actually is.

It's both a place to learn hard and soft skills, and teachers should be envolved in both.

In my highschool the teachers both tought and bounced. It's about creating an atmosphere where the mind can develop, socially and intelectually. If you don't provide both, you are a bad teacher.