I have to say that this tragedy at Virgina Tech. has affected so many people's lives, and it is hard at this point to even comment on the "story". This is a situation that is simply unexplainable, no one can make it right and no one can make people feel better-this is a situation when young adults NEED someone to open up and admit that everyone is confused and scared and that it is OKAY to feel like that. It has been on the news non-stop, we now know more about the student who committed this crime, but we don't know exactly what to do with the other students and families affected by this incident.
When I lived in Ireland, as a peace and conflict mediation student, back in 1997-1998, when the peace treaty was broken and I had to explain to my second grade students WHY this was happening...I felt the same way I do right now-helpless. It is so hard to try to explain the hurt and damage done, there is NO rationalization and NO comfort evident to the people who feel the ripple affects of such actions. The best I could do as an adult working with these children in conflict was to just be honest and talk through what I did know, and express my unease and insecurity with what I was not sure about, I was vulnerable too.
Listening to various media interviews; the one resounding message seems to be that although classes have been suspended and students are expected to flea home to their families...the students interviewed are talking about staying on campus and being together with their friends to work through this...it is amazing to see young adults making a choice to stay and face the grisly truth with their peers rather than running home to an easier comfort zone. The fact that they choose to wear their V.T. gear and stay on to support their peers and live through a very mature situation while relying on the support of one another is a very respectable act- my thoughts are with all of those directly and also rippled by this tragic event.
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It's another example of how important community is to teens and adults. On NPR this afternoon I heard the principal from Columbine say that students in his school didn't want to talk to adults about what happened to them because the adults weren't there - they weren't locked in classroooms, running for their lives, being shot at, etc. Teens in Columbine and VA have a community we wish they didn't, but we need to recognize how important it is for the teens to bond.
BTW, there are some good posts on the YALSA blog about the tragedy and its impact on teens -
http://blogs.ala.org/yalsa.php?title=video_games_and_virginia_tech&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 and http://blogs.ala.org/yalsa.php?title=teens_as_content_creators_during_times_o&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
And tomorrow on Talk of the Nation - http://www.google.com/search?q=talk+of+the+nation&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a - I think there is going to be a segment on helping kids and teens deal with this kind of tragedy.
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