Back to School

I have been following the sad unfolding of Micheal Vick, former VA Tech football star, now accused of engaging in illegal dog-fighting in our local newspaper. The story is vying for front page coverage with articles about VA Tech and the recovering students and faculty and our own children preparing to return to school. Something about this bitter contrast between promising lives cut short, marred by violence and the sweet image of young faces bright with promise, scrubbed for the first day of school has me troubled. Where , in their crowded schedules, are the Learning to Cope with Emotions class? And what is more important than Dealing with your Aggression 101?

I am not the first to connect the dot between suicide victim Cho and his troubled middle-school years and the bullying that set him apart, and on edge.

Dealing with our own aggressive tendencies could be mandatory teacher training. Kids have an unfailing ability to sense who is really in charge.It is in children's dependent nature to find security knowing their need to be protected will be met.Only a truly mature adult, in control of their own emotions can model this behavior.

If we accept that aggression and violence are part of our nature, it is our primary responsibility to educate each young person in successful conflict resolution, in spite of the examples they are surrounded with in sports, movies and politics. As long as threats and punishment are our method of coercing behavior, children will learn that being aggressive is admirable, even desirable.

If we argue that violence is not innate, then we have even more work to do, explaining why we have created a culture where it is easier for a teenager to buy a gun than see a doctor for health care.