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The rules of high school have changed.
For decades, the hierarchical breakdown of secondary school existence was pretty simple. At the top of the feeding chain were the jocks and cheerleaders--the beautiful people. Their good looks and athleticism gave them unsurpassed power, which they wielded over those unlucky souls sentenced to matriculate alongside them by unleashing a constant barrage of verbal and physical abuse.
Next down on the chain were two diametrically opposed groups--the stoners and the eggheads. For both groups, school was defined by acronyms--SATs and ACTs for the eggheads, LSD and PCP for the stoners.
The bottom dwellers of the chain were the most unfortunate kids of all--the loners, the freaks, the misfits. It's been said that no man is an island, but if you're 15 years old and claim membership among this no-clout crowd, you're as much of an island as Australia and buried farther down under.
I spent much of my high school years moving in a world with a population of one. My plan for survival was simple--stay invisible. Fortunately for me, it worked. I walked the halls, eyes straight ahead, unfocused, acknowledging and defying no one. From 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. each weekday, I was the world's most fluent mute. High school graduation day was like a presidential pardon that liberated me from isolation and allowed me to engage and embrace people I could finally choose as my peers.
What got me thinking about all of this was the story last week that our new state-of-the-art high school had received reports of possible gun violence and was sent into a lockdown state. Not so long ago, gun violence at schools was unheard of. Back then, we didn't know the name Columbine. Dylan Klebold, Eric Harris and Kip Kinkel were just obscure students, not cold-blooded killers. Now it seems that each day the evening news reports another story of a planned or actual school shooting. And it has upset the hierarchy.
The Bible says the meek shall inherit the earth, and Bob Dylan sang that the weak one now will later be strong. Despite those axioms, picked-on misfits from coast to coast are saying to hell with passive acceptance. We'll answer your taunts with the rapid-fire claps of an avenging AK-47. And when we're done wreaking carnage over the hallowed school grounds, we'll pump the final bullet into our own heads in grand Shakespearean style.
I have to admit that a part of me--a very small part of me, one that houses a 15-year-old misanthropic inner child--wants to find some twisted sense of heroism in the Klebolds, Harrises and Kinkels of the world. That small slice of my being wants to say, "Hooray for the underdog," and "Let the freaks rule."
But a much larger part of me restores sanity to my thinking--the part of me that proudly labels itself a parent. I have a 12-year-old son, and my wife and I are expecting our first child. I worry about the social climate of the schools responsible for the education of my kids. Like all parents, I simply would like my children to be involved in a school setting that's both challenging and nurturing. I fear that may be too much to ask anymore.
Following the Columbine shootings, psychologists said that the type of schools we're building these days are partially to blame. Large, consolidated schools, with student bodies in the thousands and overwhelmed, under-paid staff that are becoming more and more detached from the kids they are teaching.
In short--the new Niagara Falls High School.
There is no doubt that it's a technological wonder--state of the art in every way. Is it possible, however, that the new school may be a high-tech tinman? Shiny and new, but with no heart? The old LaSalle and Niagara Falls high schools were short on technology, but long on spirit. They had smaller student bodies that used their intense rivalry to forge internal bonds that crossed racial and socioeconomic lines. They had heart.
Initial reports of the reasons behind the lockdown stated that some students were upset that their old school had been slated for the wrecking ball. While officials now say that report was false, you can't help but wonder how many kids, who had managed to stay connected or invisible in the old schools, may be walking targets in the new one.
I also can't help but think that a number of parents must have hugged and kissed their teen-agers when they got home last week as they pushed images of Columbine from their minds. The social climate inside American schools has changed forever, and we can only pray that another parent doesn't have to deal with the grief of watching their child leave for school carrying a bookbag and return home sealed in a body bag.