Thoughts on Then and Now

It's been difficult for me to hear about the English major, the writing student, who went on a murderous rampage in a place that I have always considered to be in my neighborhood, family ancestry speaking. I have cousins in all the -burgs in Virginia... I was an English major at the University of Texas, passing by the infamous "clock tower" daily, sometimes thinking "there's no place to hide here" on my way to French class.

Tonight, I see/read his verbal sputum that he decided was newsworthy and mailed to NBC (and apparently, it is), and I hear that he was admitted to a psych unit, and was pronounced a "danger to himself" (and please, people "and others" is NEVER far behind with that kind of diagnosis).

I think back on all the students I've faced in my writing classrooms, all the drivel they wrote, all the outrage they expressed, all the apathy and slack-jawed, mumble-mouthed "kewl" and "dood" speak. And I think about the hopes and plans, the sense of justice, the empowerment and the entitlement that 18-23 year old students feel. They are in COLLEGE, they are ADULTS, and they are drunk with their powers. They are scared of making mistakes. They are bemused with the "older generation" and their rules... and they really just want to take it easy and have fun.

But they never ever would think that one of the messed up doods would bring a gun into the dorm and open fire.

Except now... they better think it, and parents of college students had better think it. NO ONE will ever enter a classroom and think they are safe. Because, face it, you're not.

I once had a student lunge for my throat, when he received a C or something non-A on a paper. He later apologized and finished the semester with a whimper. But all the seeds of rampage were there. I have never forgotten his name or what he looked like, either... I even remember what set him off (I learned how to make effective marginal comments that semester). Today, I would have called 911 on my cell phone, and he would have been maced, nightsticked and carted off to the padded room. I would be grateful, I guess. But I never stopped thinking about him every single time I commented on a paper, so no, I guess I didn't feel safe after that.

Did Cho's writing teachers know? Maybe, but what could they do? What can we do? If a student hands me a hate-filled manifesto, what will I do with it? Grade it? Confer with the student on it? Perhaps with witnesses/bodyguards present?

I haven't been in the classroom since 2002, and have been contemplating a return. But now? I simply don't know. And I don't think this is something I can put in an assignment and "open up the dialogue" in class about either. You either feel safe in English, French or Engineering class, or you don't. And now, I don't think the former is possible. So much for academic freedom.

It is disturbing to hear also that this "dood" wrote dark and violent screenplays (how original). And his teachers are reported to have said, "we thought it was satire." Um, ok. Reminds me of my Japanese student in a "Food in Culture" class who simply did not get Jonathan Swift's essay "A Modest Proposal." (Go look it up and read it... if you don't know it.) His outrage and grappling with the sheer blatant inhumanity was slightly amusing and perfectly understandable, because he simply did not have a cultural context for "satire." His strong moral compass never pointed to irony or satire. Is this true for South Koreans? For South Koreans who grow up in America where pop culture desensitizes and satirizes EVERYTHING? Hard to second guess his teachers... but not hard to see that professionals recommended treatment. Too bad it was "outpatient."

Quite rightly, NPR did have some good reporting about how (good) writing teachers do in fact know how to spot the difference between "disturbing situations" in a work and "disturbed" authors. This is true. It's fairly easy because students are not usually very good actors, and usually slack off or react honestly to an instructor.

I remember my students' faces in 1991 the morning after we went to war in real time, prime time.... One of them withdrew and enlisted because he wanted to serve. (No, the story doesn't end with drama and his corpse returning in a body bag. He probably is somewhere having a beer right now, enjoying his kids, or maybe he's in Iraq as a seasoned veteran.)

Then, at least there was a buffer, some recourse. We discussed it. You could protest the war, you could enlist, you could start a letter-writing group to support the troops, but it was organized, it was over there and you could still go to English class and hand in your 5 page paper. There was order somewhere in the world, where syllabuses and assignments mattered.

I remember their faces and relief when I cancelled classes on Sept. 12 (and 14), 2001, and then held special sessions on the 17, 19, and 21st, rearranging the schedule and encouraging them to get counseling if they needed it. The bravado, the slack jaws, the gum-popping slouching were gone. They were worried children. Frightened children. Two students withdrew. We continued with our work, but under the new normal, the new uncertainty.

But years later, a student came to me and said that none of his other teachers seemed to care or acknowledge what happened. He was able to heal and get on with it, and graduate.

The VTU boys and girls I saw on TV last night, talking about the massacre, the blood, the dead professors - they were not frightened children. They were strangely, peach-fuzzy, t-shirtedly mature, resigned to this new reality.

Later, I almost smiled indulgently when I channel-surfed past the E! channel's "Spring Break" show, depicting the flashing, drinking and hooking-up. Ah, youth! Well, at least those kids weren't armed and dangerous, or headed for war.

But a fellow student opened fire in the dorm, in a classroom. What is next? What in Goddess' name is next? Can we really ignore the fact that our children are not safe. Can we afford not to? It's not the guns, it's not the security, it's the ticking time-bombs inside our children, our neighbor's children. How many of our children are sick inside, how many of them will let the blackness take over, and how many of our children will be killed in a classroom, by a shooter or by their own hand?

And now? how in the hell do I protect my 11 yr old son from becoming a victim? or a perpetrator? There really are no answers here. There just aren't. Not now, anyway.