Today is a day of sorrow as what should be a sacred safe place has be ripped apart by violence.
A shooting has occurred at Chardon High School near Cleveland, Ohio,
One student entered the building and shot 5 student, killing one.
The school was put on lock down and parents frantic to get to their children stood in lines and waited hours in the chaos. Over and over the same words “things like this don’t happen here.”
But it did and there may even have been a warning:
A student at Chardon High School, Evan Erasmus, told CNN affiliate WEWS-TV that the suspect in Monday’s shootings may have posted a threatening message Sunday night on the social networking service Twitter.
“I think he said that he was going to bring a gun to school and I think that everyone just blew it off like he was joking,” Erasmus said.
I first want to say my personal thoughts are with those poor hearts who have lost a loved one, with those who will never again be the same because of this tragic day.
While all of this unfolds I can tell you about the whispers in many of the homeschool communities. While there are so many positive reasons to home school such as giving our children the time they need to follow their own passions, one of the very valid reasons is to keep them from violence like this. We are all so thankful our children are safe. We have pity for all those parents so scared today and not able to hold their children close.
We know these things happen. Can happen any place. Schools are a breeding ground for such things. Children raising one another with little over site. 30 plus children to 1 teacher and society that expects children to learn while ignoring the real things going on in their lives. Combined with social networking, it is just going to get worse.
Shootings are a big sign that things are not ok in our system. Smaller ones happen every day though in many kinds of violence. This is not to say everyone should homeschool, not at all, but things need to drastically change. We need to not teach to test, we need to teach humanity!
Please hold your little one tight today and consider that things like this, violence, are all around us. What can we do to change it?
school shootings have always made me feel uneasy. I was 11 years old when the Columbine shootings took place and too scared to go to school for a week.. which was ridiculous given I was so young and half a world away.
I can’t recall any school shootings here (Australia) which is possibly to do with our stricter laws regarding possession of fire arms, but also the different structure to our school system..
Our schools are smaller, they have more of a community feel about them. You know the name of every kid in you year level as well as most in the grades above and below.
American high schools have always freaked me out by their enormous size.. When staying with friends in CA a few years back I was surprised when twice their 16 year old daughter met people from her grade at school on the beach and they were total strangers to each other. It’s scary!
But all of that aside, my heart goes out to everyone in the affected community. It must be such an unsettling time for all of them.