Bowling for Columbine

[The Beatles]

I'm sorry to have to trivialize your great post Nuke, but man:

:*laughs*: :*laughs*: :*laughs*:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heath_High_School_massacre

[Nuclear Raunch]

Don't make me post a poll on the matter... :*laughs*:

Seriously though, do you have an evil twin running about?

[The Beatles]

Oiee! I thought you meant Harry Potter?

Then again, when they took my photo at the CS department here, my hair was at the exact height that for 'description', I put:

Looks like Harry Potter; no scar

[Nuclear Raunch]

I did notice the Potter resemblance, but I left it out because I'm sure it had been mentioned before. I posted the school shooter because I expected it to be the first time you ever caught that kind of comparison.

[Devari]

Beatles has a secret life! You criminal you!

[Nohc]

Betrayal! Killing Spree! Killimanjaro! I'm surprised you don't hear about more school shootings... not that video games make people violent.

[Gen. Volkov]

*laughs*. Beatles is a criminal!


OK, back to serious stuff...

5: Picture this, a man is trying to teach his kid that violence is not the answer, and if you have a problem with someone you talk to them, you don't go take them out. Let's say the child does not live under a rock and hears of the US wiping out Grenada, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Kosovo. It's not like we as a country discourage violence, why are we so surprised when it happens to affect our youth? BTW that list is from the 80's and newer.

That's a good point, but I would like to point out that we did not "wipe out" most of those countries. In most cases the military action was very small scale. Iraq, Afghanistan, and maybe Kosovo are the only ones that were large military actions. Libya was a few bombings and a couple of encounters with Libyan jets, which were quickly dispatched by F-14's, Iran was a failed hostage rescue attempt, Panama lasted a few days, and involved mostly special forces, Somalia was primarily peacekeeping, as was Haiti, Bosnia, and Sudan. We helped the Afghanis take back their country and bombed a bit in and around Kosovo. But the active role we play in world politics, and the use we make of our military in that role probably does affect our youth a bit.

Freen, have seen your points and will respond, but quick note: the availability of guns may have something to do with it. Americans are very independent-minded, and in some cases out West are a generation or two away from huntin' and shootin' Indians. So having a gun is much more common in the US, I'd guess. Certainly more so than in Eastern bloc countries where owning a gun for a non-party member was illegal. So that may have something to do with it.

Another thing may be just society, in Hungary there hasn't really been a generation that grew up without Communism yet, so mindless violence is really an unusual course to take; and fear of authority is very much still there.

Guns are much more available in Canada than here. There are more guns than people in Canada, yet they have a fraction of our murder rate. But your comment about our society seems on the money. I think it's that combined with left over fear from the Cold War.

A. No, only a student who wasn't truly afraid of their teacher would dare to raise a gun to them. A student who either feared or loved his teacher would not even think of such a thing. (I guess this is also what windy is saying.)

I still disagree. In America nowadays, the fear of a teacher does not mean you respect him. It's more likely to engender desires for revenge. Because that's part of our culture. The little guy getting revenge on the big mean guy.

1. Well, I have personal experience with community colleges if not highschools. In a CC which I do not wish to name, there are about 50 full-time faculty and 350 part-time faculty. This is a clear bid to reduce benefits costs, and most teachers are quite unmotivated to teach. Maybe this is different for highschools.

Community colleges and High Schools are two very different animals. High Schools are publicly funded and part of the public education system, CCs are privately funded and operate much more like a corporation. However, I go to a community college that's a branch of a large, somewhat state-funded University, so I don't get that same sort of experience that you might at other colleges. Cause really it's not a community college, it's branch of our state University. Not state run, but with state funding to bring tuition costs down. So it's run a bit less like a corporation. The bookstore is still a rip-off though.

2. No, Europeans don't say it's up to the system. We just tend to say that it's the teachers' responsibility to teach the students and the family's responsibility to make sure that the teacher is teaching and the student is learning. If you catch my drift. Beyond that, my family always tried to instil in me a love for school -- which was not difficult as they had a large library. And ultimately even the choice of school was such as to make this task easy. So my family personally believes that it is important for the school to be a home away from home for the student, and many leading psychologists in Hungary agree on that too. Don't know how it is here. About boarding school, I don't honestly know which was the original purpose: to get kids away, or to make sure kids learned.

Well I guess we don't totally disagree, but I still think that the school shouldn't be a home away from home unless the students live there. You need a certain amount of structure, as Freen said, in order to learn properly. (BTW Freen, the chinese are not the ones you are thinking of, it's the Japanese who are better edjucated, most chinese are barely literate farmers.)

4. Yes, that is what you said, but what I'm saying is it's not rebellion that's the problem -- that's completely normal -- but the condoning of rebellion as the norm. Perhaps I'm just making a silly distinction, but I feel there is something to it when the student is quasi-encouraged to disobey.

Well, it's true that pop culture encourages civil disobedience and rebellion, if the kid is well brought up and well adjusted, that will be lessened. My sister and I are perfect examples of that. My parents made all the mistakes with my brother, and corrected them for us two. So we are both well-adjusted and stable members of society. Well she is anyway, I personally have about three different problems with my brain chemistry and have aspirations for world domination, but that's not the point, that's cause my friends are all just like me, and we feed off each other. Mwhaha.

5. Well, then we do agree on this point. Whether or not it is preferrable, the last generation has been exposed to much more violence and anti-ethical actions than previous generations, and I claim that this too plays a role in the situations Nuke mentions. You claim it doesn't, correct?

Exactly. I agree that it's increased, but I don't think it's had any effect on the actual level of violence in the country. If you look at the statistics, violent crimes are on the decrease.

6. Windy brings up a great issue: in Europe teachers are afforded many more liberties than here. It's true that thrashing is out of vogue, but that's about the only restriction I know of. Of course, it's changing as Hungary has gone into mad capitalism and all the nouveau riche with 3 brain cells who think they know about education are talking with their money.

I have the same disagreement here as I do about teacher's being allowed to hit students, the fear does not translate to respect. It just engenders desires for revenge.

7. Another issue: Is it true that many people nowadays care less about their kids' performance in school? (Thanks windy.) In rural families or past generations there is/was a huge respect accorded to academic achievement, as it was seen as a "way up and out", but today's Joe sixpack with his big car and great standard of living may not much care how his kids do in education.

Well I don't know about anyone else's parents, but mine cared greatly. And I don't think I'm the exception, I think it's basically that it's easier for kids to hide their grades nowadays. Or explain it away as the "teacher's don't like me". Especially among the inner city poor, the parents might care about the grades, but the among the kids friends, doing bad in school is well thought of, or they just don't care because their parents are too strung out on drugs for them to realize it's important. But in the rural farming communities and the like, huge emphasis is still placed on doing well in school. I think the real problem is the collapse of the family in America. The divorce rate has just gone through the roof, and that kind of thing messes kids up, and puts school by the wayside.

[The Beatles]

http://www.nationmaster.com/red/graph/c ... a&b_desc=1

On average, West Europe's murder rate is about 1/4 that of the US.


Here's some interesting stats on the least people who shed off this mortal coil. The world leaders for least suicides are tied:
1. Italy and the United Kingdom
3. Ireland
4. Germany
5. Netherlands

Consolation prizes to tied-for-6th are Canada and Australia.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/

[edit] Wikipedia thinks otherwise. Amongst stable governments, where recent data is available and the country isn't too small (for statistical accuracy), it seems to be more along the lines of Kuwait, Greece, Israel, United Kingdom, Italy.