I teach school in Jefferson County, Colorado, the district that experienced the Columbine High School massacre. Although I have no explanation for the perpetrators' violence, I understand a few of the issues that may have troubled them. I do not validate their hatred, but certain problems are overdue for repair.
We must learn to value nonconformists. We nurture nonconformists by understanding that not all students care for sports and proms, by appreciating introverts, and by placing gifted students in challenging programs. We should expect and enforce tolerance toward all members of the student body. Just as we are learning to value racial diversity, we must learn to treasure the different abilities and interests of our students.
Respecting Nonathletes
The troubled young men who murdered their classmates at Columbine hated athletes. The geeks and nerds whom I know don't hate people, but they do hate the high school culture that glorifies athletics. They hate mandatory pep rally assemblies for high school sports teams. At my son's school, administrators blocked parking lot exits to enforce attendance at a rally. Some nonathletes drove their cars over barriers and across wet lawns to escape the school, while others hid in the building.
As a nonathlete in high school, I quit playing the clarinet when my only musical option was to play in the marching band to support our football team. No one would dream of making students attend a pep rally for the forensics team. Likewise, no one should expect the appreciation of athletics to be universal. School climates must value the sports teams less and the chess and drama clubs more. All student activities deserve support, but none needs glorification.
Research on status among high school boys shows that bright, high-achieving, athletic males rank highest in status, but bright, high-achieving, nonathletic boys rank lowest (Tannenbaum, 1962). Bright, low-achieving nonathletes actually rank above their higher-achieving nonathletic peers. One way for these lowest-ranked boys to raise their status is to become low achievers. Is it any wonder that some students don't give their all to their studies?
Coaches and teachers must teach athletes to respect less athletically gifted peers, and athletes should suffer consequences when they harass these students. I know one student who is routinely pushed into lockers and has rocks and trash thrown at his car. His crime: He is bright, likes to skateboard, and wears baggy pants and hats with a skater logo.
For years, jocks have gotten away with degrading lower-status students in most U.S. schools. In another decade, many students avoided walking by the "jock bench" because the kids sitting on it threw out rude comments at passersby. Administrators ignored the situation then as they do today. Since the Columbine shooting, students who dress like the perpetrators experience increased aggression aimed at them, even though adults vow to include each student in school communities. We need a zero tolerance policy for put-downs, insults, and harassment.
Challenging the Gifted
Schools generally have a small group of intellectually gifted students. Some of these students achieve well, and often their needs are met through Advanced Placement classes, an International Baccalaureate program, or part-time attendance at a local college. Others, however, do not earn excellent grades. Perhaps they have learning disabilities, emotional problems, or poor study skills, or they have given up on their school's ability to excite them. What happens to these students?
Low-achieving gifted students are denied access to the challenging classes that their more successful peers enjoy. Counselors and administrators feel that they have not earned the right to attend these classes. However, this logic would not extend to average-ability underachievers. They would not be placed in classes for mentally challenged students because they do not earn good grades. A highly gifted student with an IQ of 148, three standard deviations above the mean, is as far from the norm of 100 IQ as an average youngster is from a child with an IQ of 52. Is it any surprise that instructional methods designed for average-ability students do not always meet the needs of the highly gifted? We should place our brilliant students in challenging programs as a first step toward engaging them in learning. Their cooperation and success should not be a prerequisite for appropriate placement.
Appreciating Introverts
Many of our brightest students are also introverts. Extroverts get their energy from being with other people, and introverts get their energy from being alone. Introverts expend energy around other people. About three-quarters of our population is extroverted and tends not to understand introversion (Silverman, 1986). I heard many people comment that the violence at Columbine High brought people together. I believe that the extroverts gathered strength and comfort from one another. However, the introverts probably spent more time alone, writing poems, painting pictures, reading books, or simply thinking.
The extroverts in my 6th grade Gifted Center made and distributed Columbine memorial ribbons and held a bake sale to raise money for Columbine. The introverts read, wrote, or drew pictures. One composed music. Introverts respond to, but seldom initiate, contact with others. We can help our gifted introverts by reaching out to them in a sincere and caring manner, while still allowing them to pull back.
Valuing the Counterculture
Our schools have always had a counterculture of the very bright, who are different from the norm. Schools and society not only fail to recognize many specific gifts of the bright nonconformists, but also often tolerate a level of disrespect that leads to emotional problems and underachievement (Olenchack, 1999). We should not expect these talented nonconformists to share the same interests as students who have different abilities. They may prefer reading or playing computer games to attending mainstream school events. They may emphasize their differences through their clothing and hairstyles.
It is normal teen development for young people to separate from their parents and to identify with a peer group. We should not discriminate against those who choose to identify with a less popular group. For example, in the aftermath of the Columbine massacre, some school districts banned black trench coats. We must take care to differentiate between dark clothing and dark intentions.
The prom highlights high school for most students. After the Columbine killings, many sports events in Colorado were canceled, but the prom went on. School officials portrayed the prom as a right that students cannot be denied. How must students who do not attend feel? Can you imagine a better plan to alienate students who can't afford the cost of the prom, homosexual students, less attractive students who don't have dates, less socially mature students who are not yet dating, and those gifted students in the intellectual counterculture who boycott mainstream school events?
If we want to value all students, we must understand and respond to each student's needs. We must allow non-athletes to find a space away from the athletics at which they do not succeed. We must respect nonconformists' needs to identify with a counterculture, avoiding the portrayal of mainstream events as the only valid high school experience. We must reach out to introverts, knowing that they may not have the social energy to initiate or respond to social contact. We must put gifted students in the most intellectually challenging classes available. We must see our schools as gathering places for a diverse collection of people with interests and abilities beyond the prom and football.
The school community cannot possibly provide for all interests, but it can certainly value all interests. We must build climates that let all our students feel safe and accepted. Let us learn to value diversity and to respect all our students.
