American Education: Social Development or Social Withrdrawl?

In this short story, a teenage boy dies unexpectedly on his way to school, his math teacher is asked to inform his parents and write his obituary. Although he was the boy's favorite teacher as he later finds out, he hardly knew him. Shy and ostracized, the boy was a "cipher"--an unknown number in a class roll book.

The teacher then decides to find out the identity of this student. Sadly, as he looks at the student records, he finds out that " he had never belonged to a club. He had never played on a team. He had never held an office. He had never been anybody at all." This student, Cliff Evans, had been transformed into a zero. His records showed a drop from a high I.Q. of 106 in the sixth grade to 83 in the ninth grade. The teachers did not seem to understand Cliff's timidity and gave up on him. Students, in turn, excluded him from all their conversations and games. In turn he gave up on himself until he believed that he was a zero. The teacher, enraged by what the education had done to Cliff Evan, commits himself to not letting others suffer the same fate.

I read this short story and I was really moved by the impact of the interaction or lack thereof between students and teachers. We all went through school and we all know a Cliff Evans or two. It is amazing to me that even though the American Education system tries to focus a lot on the development of social skills for the students since the early stages yet we have cases like Cliff Evans. Not only that but it could get really severe and violent such as the tragedy of Columbine and lately the Virginia Tech University.

I wonder what goes on in a person's mind that leads him to the thought of killing himself and killing other human beings. These are not the mind of sick people. These are the mind of innocent, young, and fresh minds who supposed to be the future of our nation. What have we done that lead innocent children to feel the need for murder. What doors have we closed in front of them? This is a shame of a system, a shame of a nation.