There are pivotal events that happen in this country that impacts us all. The Connecticut school shooting that happened on the 14th of December, 2012, is one of those events.
In an effort to bring comfort, understanding, and a way to help us deal with our feelings of stress, empathy, and anger, this series has been created.
This is a combination of a story and a role-play for each aspect of the six-part topic.
This is a special feature add-on to the role-play about anti-bullying called “Bullies, Victims, and Bystanders at Kennedy Middle School.”
Please note: All story characters and Kennedy Middle school are products of the author’s imagination.
Mr. Campbell’s class begins to discuss the Connecticut school shooting
Part 5 of the ‘Teaching stress management, empathy, & anger control’ series
© 2012-2013 by Debbie Dunn
There are pivotal events that happen in this country that impacts us all. The Connecticut school shooting that happened on the 14th of December, 2012, is one of those events.
In an effort to bring comfort, understanding, and a way to help us deal with our feelings of stress, empathy, and anger, this series has been created.
Monica was one of the seventh-grade girls who had a reputation for being a school bully. She was feeling distinctly uncomfortable.
First, due to some of the things she was learning in Mr. Campbell’s Communication Skills class, she didn’t feel as motivated to be a bully any longer.
Second, she was feeling really distressed when she reflected upon the Connecticut school shooting that happened close to Christmas break in 2012.
In her Communication Skills class taught by Mr. Campbell, Monica felt safe enough to bring up some of her concerns. She called out, “Mr. Campbell?”
Mr. Campbell said, “Yes, Monica?”
Monica said, “Uh, …, I don’t quite know how to say this, but … , well, it’s about all those little kids getting shot at that elementary school in Connecticut. I don’t remember the name of the school.”
Fred, no longer feeling motivated to be the class clown, said, “The school’s name is Sandy Hook Elementary.”
Trixie said, “It’s in Newtown, Connecticut.”
Mr. Campbell gently asked, “What do you want to know, Monica?”
Monica said, “Well, my big brother is kind of a bully. Does that mean that he could turn into a school shooter?”
Once again, Nick, Blake, Judd, and Barbara felt like a spotlight was being shot in their direction. After all, in addition to Monica, they had the reputation of being school bullies as well.
The rest of the class studied them, wondering if any of those five could someday become a school shooter.
Mr. Campbell took a moment to gather his thoughts. He wondered, “How should I best respond?”
Bill interrupted his thoughts by saying, “In that school shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, it wasn’t the school bullies who did the shooting. Instead, it was two kids who were victims of bullying.
Cathy said, “Yeah, that’s true of a lot of those other schools where that kind of thing has taken place.”
Monica said, “That makes me feel a little bit better about my brother, but, … , why do some people decide to become school shooters, then?”
Mr. Campbell said, “I wish I knew the answer to that. I do think it has a lot to do with whether or not that person is able to feel empathy for the plight of others.”
Bonnie said, “I heard about that seventh-grade boy in Newtown, Connecticut. The younger brother of his good friend was one of those killed. So, he has started this movement he calls ‘Played Out’.”
Randy said, “Oh, I heard about that. I think that he thinks that some of those violent video games could cause somebody to become a school shooter.”
Doug said, “Yeah. That kid, his name is Max, by the way, used to play those violent video games all the time. Now, he is setting up this trash bin, and he is urging kids to throw those games away.”
Martha rather shyly said, “Uh, Mr. Campbell, I actually printed off the picture of that boy and his step-brother. I thought maybe you would like to share this with the class.”
Mr. Campbell took the clipping and noted that it came from the Chicago Tribune:
He turned to Fred and said, “Fred, you are a really good reader. Why don’t you read the description under the picture and then pass their picture around for everyone to see?”
Fred willingly took the article. He still read with dramatic flair, however, he felt no desire to make anybody laugh. The Connecticut school shooting had hit him really hard as he had both a six-year-old little sister and a seven-year-old male cousin. The thought of either of them getting shot had given him nightmares. He read:
“Max Goldstein, 12, (left) and Jackson Mittleman, 11, both of Newtown, pose near a bin placed outside the Newtown Youth Academy recently. Max started a movement called "Played Out," encouraging kids to dump their violent video games in the wake of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. They are stepbrothers and partners in the effort.”
Bill said, “Yeah, I can kind of see why he feels that way. The goal of those games is to kill off as many people as you can without getting killed yourself. That’s kind of what that school shooter did in Connecticut. His goal was to kill off as many people at that school as he could until the police showed up.”
Martha said, “Yeah. Thankfully, the police showed up in about ten minutes. Otherwise, it might have been a lot worse.”
Cathy said, “I think those video games could maybe get you thinking that the people around you are objects rather than people. Since they don’t feel any empathy for those objects, they seem to feel it is okay to shoot.”
Bill said, “Or, perhaps it’s like that ‘Coyote and Roadrunner’ cartoon. No matter how many times the coyote seems to die, he always comes back to life. Perhaps, in the same way, a school shooter doesn’t realize that it is not a game he is playing. Perhaps he thinks the person will magically come back to life like the coyote did. He maybe doesn’t realize that, unlike in that cartoon and in those violent video games, when a person is shot dead, it is permanent.”
Judd said, “I’ve played those games before. It doesn’t make me want to kill anybody.”
Randy found himself privately thinking, “Yeah, but it sure makes you like to bully other kids. We went to the same elementary school. You’ve been bullying kids since we were in the first or second grade.”
Trixie said, “You know, I think I’ll talk to Mrs. Feelgood, our school guidance counselor, pretty soon. Maybe she could help us set up a bin like that at our school. That Max kid wants his movement to spread across the country. Perhaps we could become a part of his movement. That would be one way we could do our part in making certain that video games are not the motivator for doing what that Adam Lanza did.”
Nick said, “We don’t know that it was video games that caused him to do all that bad stuff.”
Trixie said, “Yeah, I guess we don’t. But just in case it was, I still think that would be a good idea.”
Mr. Campbell asked, “How many of you think that Trixie’s idea might help?”
Multiple hands shot up. As for Nick and Judd and a couple of others, they simply shrugged. They enjoyed playing those video games too much to give them up.
Cathy said, “I’ve been thinking about that ‘Wild Boar’ story Miss Debbie told us. In the story, the short man faces potential death or danger from the wild boar above ground and from the tiger below ground.”
Mr. Campbell said, “Cathy, how do you see that story applying to this situation?”
Cathy said, “Well, in the ‘Wild Boar’ story, the tall man was able to climb a tree to be safe from the wild boar. That’s kind of like the teachers and kids who managed to hide in cabinets and closets and behind locked classroom doors.”
Bill said, “Oh, I think I see where you are going with all this.”
Cathy said, “Yeah, then the kids and teachers in the line of fire were kind of like the short man. He wasn’t tall enough to climb a tree. So, he had to find an alternate means to try to remain safe from the wild boar. Then, he finds a hole in the ground and climbs in. Only he discovers that his safe haven isn’t all that safe. There’s a tiger in that hole.”
Fred said, “I guess we could say that the school shooter was like the wild boar – a boar gone wild who feels no sense of empathy or compassion. It simply wants to gore and kill the short man.”
Cathy said, “Yeah, but I’ve been trying to figure out what the tiger represents.”
The students in Mr. Campbell’s class deliberated for a bit. Then, Randy said, “Well, I think the tiger is kind of like the fight or flight instinct that all those kids and teachers were feeling. That principal used her fight instinct to try to run at the gunman, perhaps to try to stop him or to take his gun away. She didn’t succeed, but she died a hero.”
Doug said, “That first grade teacher used her fight instinct to hide her students. Then, when the gunman came in demanding to know where her students were, she lied and said they were on the other side of the building.”
Trixie said, “Yeah, it’s too bad that some of the kids got so frightened that they jumped out of their hiding places, kind of like that short man did as he kept popping out of the hole to escape the tiger, only to have to jump back in to escape the wild boar.”
Bill said, “But I got a little confused. In one account that I read, six of those kids used their flight instinct. After their teacher was shot, they ran out of the building and showed up at a neighbor’s house about a half mile away. But in another account, those kids that jumped out of their hiding places got shot. In any case, that first-grade teacher, Miss Soto, I think her name is, jumped in front of her students. She sacrificed her life to try to keep her students safe. She was a real hero.”
Monica said, “Yeah, seven of those kids, the ones who stayed in their hiding places, were found later on by the police. They were heroes, in a way, too.”
Barbara said, “I think that first-grade girl was really clever to think of the idea to play dead. All of her classmates were shot, most more than once, but she managed to fool that gunman into thinking that she was already a goner so that he would leave her body alone.”
Daphne shuddered as she said, “I can’t imagine how frightened she must have felt when the gunman was still in the room, in case he didn’t fall for her act. And then, discovering that she was the only one left alive in that room sounds almost like one of those horrible scary movies. She might have called out to her friends to see if they were okay only to find that nobody answered her. Just imagining what she was going through has given me the worst nightmares.”
Several other kids in the room nodded their head.
Monica said, “What do you think the school shooter’s ‘tiger in the hole’ was all about? In other words, if it wasn’t video games, what made him decide to do what he did?”
Mr. Campbell said, “That’s what the investigators are trying to figure out. Unfortunately, we may never fully know the answer to that question.”
Bill said, “Some accounts say he might have had some kind of mental disorder. After all, he shot his own mother first before he headed to the school.”
Mr. Campbell said, “But, please understand that not everybody with a mental disorder would do something like this. Adam Lanza must have had a lot of other stressors combined that caused him to finally give in to his impulses.”
Randy said, “I heard on the news that his parents were divorced.”
Bonnie said, “I heard that he was estranged from his big brother.”
Trixie said, “I heard that his mother was planning to possibly try to get him committed to a mental institution or some such place. This possibly sent him over the edge.”
Martha said, “I heard that he didn’t really have any friends.”
Daphne said, “So, probably all those things combined with all the things we don’t know about him made him decide to do this. It’s just so really sad. My mother can’t seem to stop crying. She keeps crying and then running over to give me and my brother a hug.”
Cathy said, “My mother has been doing the same thing. In fact, on that Friday, the day it happened, I thought she was almost going to hug me to death.”
Fred said, “Yeah, my mother has been doing the same thing. She has been especially huggy with my little sister. She’s six, just like those kids at Sandy Hook Elementary.”
Suddenly, Fred found himself having to blink his eyes hard at the tears that suddenly threatened. He hoped that nobody in the class noticed.
Bill said, “Hey, Mr. Campbell, why have those grown-ups been crying so much? I mean, my aunt doesn’t even have any children. She told me that she felt like she lost people she loved at the very thought that twenty little kids got shot so close to the Christmas holiday. Just about every time I see her, she has tears in her eyes. And when she tries to talk about what happens or reads another story about it in the newspaper or on the internet, she starts sobbing.”
Mr. Campbell said, “I believe it all boils down to the mirror neurons we have been learning about. Since class is almost over for today, why don’t we continue this discussion tomorrow? Everybody be thinking about how mirror neurons and the nine core empathy skills applies to what happened in Connecticut.”
Most of the students nodded their heads somberly. They were hoping that not only could they make sense of this, they would find a way to once again feel safe and have kids everywhere feel safe as well.
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For the role-play download of the above story, please click:
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Six-part article series called ‘Teaching stress management, empathy, & anger control’
- Part 1: The instinct for fight, flight, or freeze and the ‘Wild Boar’ tale
- Part 2: Mr. Campbell’s class discusses ways to manage your feelings of stress
- Part 3: The Monkey and the Amazing Discovery about Mirror Neurons
- Part 4: Mr. Campbell’s class discusses our nine core empathy skills
- Part 5: Mr. Campbell’s class begins to discuss the Connecticut school shooting (see above)
- Part 6: Mr. Campbell’s class concludes discussion about Connecticut school shooting
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Return to Middle school lesson plan: Teaching stress management, empathy, and anger control
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Click below to read other articles in this series
- Women’s emotional health: Aftermath of Connecticut school shooting part 1
- Slideshow: Multiple Perspectives on aftermath of Connecticut School Shootings
- Women’s emotional health: Aftermath of Connecticut school shooting part 2
- Women’s emotional health: Aftermath of Connecticut school shooting part 3
- Women’s emotional health: Aftermath of Connecticut school shooting part 4
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Some of this material in this article series is adopted with permission from the programs of The Anger Coach produced by psychologist Dr. Tony Fiore (http://drfiore.com).
For daily anger tips, follow him on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/angercoachonline.
For adult anger management online, visit http://www.angercoachonline.com
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Resources for the Teacher and Parents:
The eight (8) tools of anger management and control were developed by Dr. Tony Fiore. Dr. Fiore is also known as the Anger Coach. Among other things, Dr. Fiore is a licensed psychologist, marriage therapist, and certified anger management provider.
The 8 Tools of Anger Control plus much of the other Anger Control material is also adopted with permission from the programs of The Anger Coach produced by psychologist Dr. Tony Fiore.
- URL: http://drfiore.com
For daily anger tips, follow him on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/angercoachonline.
For adult anger management online, visit http://www.angercoachonline.com
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For comments or questions, e-mail: moredunntales@yahoo.com
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