Saturday, September 29, 2012
Week 6
This week was a challenging week. We lost our second student this year to senseless gun violence. We lost 2 other students at another local high school last week. In Fayette County, there is a crisis team that comes to schools where tragedy occurs. They were very helpful and liked their idea of creating a giant poster where kids could draw or write a tribute to the deceased student. One of the students that died had been on my case load 2 years ago. Lexington really needs to address the teen violence problem that is growing in our town. These kids are seeing too much glorification of the gangster lifestyle in the media. I, also, think when the economy is not doing well people tend to turn towards crime. I wish I could find more ways to show these young kids that there is better life for them if they choose to work for it and have the right attitude. At the school level, we are working very hard to stop the teen violence. It is going to take the whole community to try and change the culture of these areas where teen violence is becoming too common and accepted.
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Although I have sadly dealt with the death of several students during my teaching career, I have always wondered how I would handle such a situation as a counselor. The tribute wall sounds like a nice way for students to express their emotions in writing. It is sad to hear that teen violence is on the upswing in larger cities. In my small rural community, drug use is the cause of death of far too many young people. I agree that it will take the involvement of the entire community to end the cycle of teen violence.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry for your loss and agree completely that what you state is true; the saying that "it takes a village" has never been so true. The media and social sites are a sounding board for these kids and only add fuel to the fire where gangs are concerned, we just lost (meaning they left my college) two first time students that were on a colleagues case load from a large metropolitan area out of state. They wanted to come here and act like they were in the big city and show off their gangster skills to the police officer breaking up the fight they were in. They were homesick and depressed and I suppose they found a way to get back home to the big city. I honestly wish they could stay because I feel like they lost, I think with some time we could have helped them, so really we all lost.
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