The tragedy that has engulfed Littleton, Colo., is in fact a wake-up call for America. Too many of our schools have become killing fields. The question is whether we have gotten the message, and what our response should be.
Undoubtedly, over the next few days and weeks, a national debate will take place over what the Columbine High School massacre tells us.
Some say teachers need more training to be able to detect early on the loners who have extremely low self-esteem and who could be walking time-bombs. Others point a finger at parents, who should know whether their garage is being used to build pipe bombs or whether their children are obsessed with the thousands of hate sites on the Internet.
Last August, the government distributed a guide on safe schools, recommending smaller facilities and classes. Following last week’s massacre, Attorney General Janet Reno said there was a need for more counselors in our schools. Other experts insist that the answer lies in beefed-up security and doing something about the huge arsenal of handguns accessible to students.
While most of the above have merit, I do not believe that they speak to the heart of the issue. As the New York Times editorial page commented, “It’s not what we keep from a child that will save him, it’s what you put into him in the first place.”
The question we have to ask ourselves is: What kind of an education do we seek for our children? Webster’s dictionary defines “educate” as “to develop mentally or morally by instruction.” America’s schools certainly develop our children mentally. But do they develop them morally as well?
In the late 19th century, Herbert Spencer wrote that “education has for its object the formation of character.” Spencer was right. An education should be more than just a grade and a school should be more than just a place that dispenses it.
In January 1942, 14 men attended the Wannsee Conference at a mansion outside of Berlin. The purpose of the meeting was to figure out the best method of murdering the world’s Jewish population. Eight of the 14 men present at that meeting, which plotted Hitler’s Final Solution against the Jews, held doctorates. They were graduates of Germany’s finest universities.
They had the education, but were void of any trace of human character.
What happened in Littleton was not spontaneous. The bombs that exploded were really set off years before. Hatred is a process, a malignancy that grows. Unchecked, it can eventually take over a young person’s mind.
Following the Littleton massacre, I wrote to President Clinton asking him to take the lead in calling for the establishment of a tolerance and sensitivity curriculum to be put into place in America’s schools. The time has come to pay some attention to character by making sure it is as important as math and science in the development of a young person’s learning experience.
Schools should not have to shoulder the responsibility of parents, but neither should they be exclusive clubs that engage the mind while ignoring the heart.
Education must be about the formation of character.
It is more than just exposure to brilliant ideas and the ability to analyze data and reconcile contradictions. It must also be about life experiences that have a lasting impact on the soul of the students.
The great talmudist, Rabbi Joseph B. Soleveitchik, pointed out that at Mount Sinai, Jews were exposed to two great teaching traditions represented by two master teachers: Moses the prophet, who transmitted the law to scholars and the intellectually elite, and Aaron the high priest, who worked the crowd seeking to broaden the appeal to those less gifted.
While prophets always focus their beam on the most capable, priests must make certain the students in the back of the room are not forgotten.
Moses was the cognitive teacher par excellence and the greatest transmitter of the law of whom the Torah says, “Never again has there arisen in Israel a prophet like Moses.”
But Aaron the high priest touched the hearts of the masses for which the Torah eulogizes him: “The entire house of Israel wept for Aaron for 30 days.” The rabbis in Ethics of the Fathers add, “Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving your fellow man and drawing them near to the Torah.”
Schools have a responsibility to expose their students to both those traditions — to cognitive as well as emotional enrichment. The impact from such a dual exposure can be gleaned from the unforgettable story of Littleton coach David Sanders, who herded his students off to safety and took two bullets in his shoulder. As he lay mortally wounded, his students took out his wallet so that he could gaze at the faces of his family he would never see again.
His actions showed the world that Sanders was indeed a master teacher. His lesson of sacrifice will never be forgotten.
It is exposure to a well-rounded education — “to develop mentally and morally” — that might prevent future Littletons.