-Caveat Lector- from the Philadelphia *Daily News*, 4/23/1999: IGNORING KIDS WHO TEASE CAN BE DEADLY By Jill Porter On Wednesday, when I awoke with the dread of Columbine High School heavy in my heart, I decided to go talk to the principal of my son's middle school. I didn't go because of the student there who wears a black trench coat and combat boots every day no matter the weather. I didn't go to request metal detectors or other security measures. I didn't go to be reassured that it couldn't happen here. Of course, it could. I went because of the groups of young kids - otherwise normal kids who have become predators when they're together - who tease and taunt and torment classmates they perceive as losers or misfits. I didn't go because I believed these bullies were necessarily dangerous or their victims might retaliate with the same homicial vengeance that brought death to Littleton, Colo. I went because I believe the only way we'll ever prevent another high school mass murder is to change the culture in which teen-agers marginalize and isolate and ridicule other teen-agers who are different. Every story about Colorado says the same thing: The Trenchcoat Mafia members were outcasts, mocked and scorned by the other kids, driven to a deadly alternative community and finally, to revenge. We all lament the failure of adults to recognize that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were murderous psychopaths. As we should. But what about the failure of adults to intervene when Harris and Klebold were being tormented by their classmates? When the atmosphere was incubating their rage? God knows it isn't justifying or rationalizing or even explaining what they did, or blaming the victims for what happened. The two killer teens were undoubtedly so warped that they needed little provocation, or could have invented a reason to justify killing their classmates. And certainly the victims they murdered seem to have been selected at random rather than chosen for their part in the rejection of the Trenchcoat Mafia. In that sense, the killings differ from the one that occurred six years ago at Upper Perkiomen High School in Montgomery County. In that case, a 15-year-old who'd been taunted for months by a 16-year-old classmate brought a handgun to school and shot him to death. In the aftermath of that incident, as I recall, there was much hand-wringing about taking teasing seriously and intervening before it escalated into violence. Take an easily humiliated teen-ager - and all of them are - add some mental instability and a culture that celebrates violence and glorifies guns, and blood can easily be shed. But the lesson faded when we were distracted by the next horrific crime, and nothing changed. Not the culture of violence. Not the availability of guns. Not the tendency to pay lip service to being nice to each other, while looking the other way when kids are cruel. There's so much else for teachers and principals and counselors - and parents - to worry about. When the kids at my son's school go too far in their persecution, the school responds admirably. The harassers are called in, they're counseled, they're disciplined, they're warned that the next time, the punishment will be more severe. But is that enough? They need to be taught not to be threatened by someone different, not to reject someone to feel accepted themselves, not to cement their small community by picking a common enemy. That's what I told the principal at my son's middle school - who entirely agreed. And that's what I told my son when I drove him home. I can't promise him that Littleton, Colo., won't happen here. But I can help him learn to be tolerant and accepting and change the school culture that enables it to happen anywhere. 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