America, Raising a Generation of Natural Born Killers?

I thought it was an April Fool's Day joke when I saw the Headline claiming that a group of 9 year olds cooked up a plan to assault their 3rd grade teacher. The plan was foiled when one of the students spilled the beans. The group of students were prepared to carry out the plan, armed with a blunt object to strike the teacher with, handcuffs, a broken steak knife and other misc items. Sadly it wasn't a joke or a hoax.

I can still remember the shock and disbelief immediately following the breaking news from Littleton Colorado. Two young teenagers armed with a mini arsenal, which included firearms and pipe bombs, began killing their teachers and fellow students. The siege of the school left an entire community in a state of panic.

Public outcry, candlelight vigils and shallow promises from opportunistic politicians ensued but to this day neither answers to the causes of such violence nor solutions to prevent future problems have been provided. It would seem that as soon as the bullet riddled walls are repaired, and after the last memorial services are held, the incidents are all but forgotten. They are simply locked away, sentenced to be paroled at the end of the year as a blast from the past. (Until the next tragic occurrence.)

Unfortunately it is becoming routine to hear that yesterday's playground has become today's battlefield. But these things only happen in our colleges and high schools right? It's the teenagers and young adults who are plotting and committing these acts of violence right? Think again! Some of these violent attacks involve children as young as eight years old.

I was reminded of this disturbing fact this week as I read about these young third graders from Center Elementary School in south Georgia. These students were upset because a teacher scolded one of them. Allegedly these young children plotted to teach this teacher a lesson. They hatched a plan that involved the use of handcuffs, a broken steak knife and even assigned specific tasks, including a clean up crew. The Waycross authorities said that they can't be sure of whether or not they intended to kill the teacher; but it is a very real possibility that it could have happened had they been able to carry out their plan.

This is not the first violent incident involving young children. I can recall a story ran in The Economist, 1998, involving two young children ages 11 and 13 who armed themselves and then went to school in Jonesboro, Arkansas. They killed four girls, a teacher, and wounded 11 others.

During that same year I remember reading an article in Newsweek, where a young girl in Chicago, age 11, was bashed in the head with a rock, dragged into the bushes, sexually assaulted and asphyxiated when her panties were stuffed in her mouth. Here assailants were two younger boys ages 7 and 8. In April of that same year three young boys in Dallas, clubbed a 3 year old girl with a brick, stripped her naked and left her bleeding in a creek bed (Newsweek 198)

I guess the cold hard reality is that with all of our current conveniences provided by our society, none of them offer any prevention to the violence we continue to see manifesting in our children. Prevention is only possible through two means cooperative, Time and Change, and as we have so painfully been witnessing, America has room for neither!