Students suggest cures to violence

Danette Goulet

NEWPORT BEACH -- Students say a sense of school community will keep

guns off of campuses better than a metal detector.

In the wake of another horrifying high school shooting, students took

time during classes Tuesday to discuss what triggers behavior like that

of Charles Andrew Williams, the 15-year-old boy suspected in the shooting

tragedy at Santana High School, and how it could be prevented.

Charles, a ninth-grade student in the San Diego suburb school,

allegedly opened fire randomly on classmates Monday, killing two students

and wounding 13 others, including two adults.

The next day, juniors in Phil D’Agostino’s U.S. history class at

Newport Harbor High debated the best way to combat and prevent such a

tragedy.

“I think, first, metal detectors are avoiding the root of the

problem,” student Ariel Jacobs said. “The root of the problem is a sense

of community. Students need to feel like they belong to a community.”

The initial ideas tossed out by students were the same reactionary

instincts of administrators and parents: Put up fences and install metal

detectors.

But while students conceded that fences and metal detectors could be a

quick fix, they said communication was the key to a lasting solution.

“The easy way is to put up a fence,” student Ryan Schultheis said.

“You’ve done something. But to actually stop the problem you need to talk

to kids, and that’s a lot more work.”

Talking, counseling and attention, students said, are what would make

the difference. Whether that attention comes from teachers, parents or

other students, they said adolescence is a tough and tricky time -- and

it’s only getting more difficult.

“There’s two ways to look at it,” student Andrew Newsome said. “Either

guns are the problem, or teenagers are the problem.”

Like most of his classmates, Andrew contends that the problem lies

with the teenagers.

Student after student said that while gun control could help, those

who wanted them would still be able to get guns.

“It is the youth in America, because it has gotten to the point where

teenagers aren’t sensitive to other teens,” Andrew said. “They are

feeling alone and a sense of isolation. People don’t realize that’s what

they are feeling. They just go home and think, ‘This isn’t fair; why is

this happening to me.’ They are trying to get attention, and they won’t

get it because we’re not sensitive to that.”

One possible solution, students said, would be to establish an

“advisory system” in a class setting in which students could talk on a

regular basis about what was going on in their lives and the pressures

they are under.

“Kids who do this [violence] don’t feel a sense of community,” Ariel

said. “They see school as a hostile environment. People in adolescent

years are pretty sensitive -- joking is taken to heart. In the past,

those people just felt defeated. Now they think they can fight back.”

Ariel also suggested that maybe it was students who needed to fix the

problem by simply being nicer to one another and offering classmates a

smile in passing.