Violencia en la escuela

EspañaCultura y Ciencia, ,

Ha levantado singular polémica la propuesta que la Fiscal General del Estado, María José Segarra, realizó al comienzo de esta semana en relación a la instalación de cámaras de vigilancia en las aulas a efectos de minimizar y prevenir determinados delitos cometidos sobre menores. El Ministerio Público indicó que: "... esas grabaciones disuadirían de la comisión del delito o facilitaría la siempre problemática acreditación de los hechos", evitando "que determinadas personas se vean sometidas a tan lacerantes como infundadas sospechas o imputaciones".

Me permito, a la luz de la actualidad, escribir el presente artículo que complementa el ya publicado por este periódico el pasado 19 de octubre de 2016, bajo el título "¿Cámaras en las aulas?…  Seguir leyendo »

Cámaras en las aulas Sí, pero

EspañaCultura y Ciencia, ,

Los debates educativos en España son pendulares, extremistas, poco rigurosos y se establecen por una especie de modas y espasmos, a veces de puro artificio. Ahora estamos inmersos en dos de ellos: los deberes y el acoso escolar. En cuanto a lo segundo, se centra esta tribuna.

Debemos indicar que en España, no hay problemas de acoso escolar. Ni de violencia en las aulas. Eso es lo que dicen los estudios y los datos. Las evidencias sólidas en torno a las cuales, se deben articular los diagnósticos para que estos sean mínimamente fundados y solventes. En un informe del año 2010 publicado por el Observatorio Estatal de la Convivencia Escolar relativo a la ESO, la primera conclusión es: “La convivencia escolar en general es buena.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa,

Russians had considered their country immune to the kind of school violence that the U.S. has suffered in incidents such as the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings and the Columbine High School massacre. Now, 15-year-old Sergei Gordeyev has disabused them of that notion, killing a teacher and a cop at his school in northern Moscow.

News of the shooting, which occurred around midday Monday, immediately prompted comparisons to the U.S. "Have we caught the American disease?" user Tanya Morozova wrote on the Russian social network Vkontakte. "It's all about American movies and cartoons", user Nadir Kuramshin tweeted. "Kids ought to be brought up on Soviet or Russian ones so they do not seize schools like they do in America".…  Seguir leyendo »

EspañaCultura y Ciencia,

Tal vez ustedes, como yo, hayan tenido ocasión de ver recientemente en la televisión una grabación, hecha en junio del 2006 por uno de los alumnos del Colegio Suizo de Madrid, en la que se aprecia cómo durante un recreo varios estudiantes se burlan de un menor (de 10 años) y le golpean. Según leo en la prensa, "hasta 21 veces con la mano y un estuche blando en la cabeza, las piernas y la espalda".

La Audiencia de Madrid ha condenado al centro, sosteniendo que hay un "nexo causal" entre el daño moral al menor y "la falta de atención, vigilancia y respuesta inmediata y contundente del centro", revocando una resolución anterior de un juzgado de Alcobendas que había absuelto al colegio argumentando que las imágenes captaban un altercado "aislado".…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNuevas Tecnologías,

Los sucesos acontecidos hace unos días en un instituto de Finlandia, que desembocaron en el asesinato de una decena de personas y el suicidio del asesino, un joven de 22 años, vuelven a traer a la discusión pública el problema de la violencia juvenil, sus causas y los modos de prevenirla o paliarla. Cuando se trata de una matanza cometida con un arma de fuego, el reflejo condicionado de muchos políticos, periodistas y ciudadanos del común es poner en cuestión la regulación de la tenencia de armas en el país en el que han ocurrido los hechos. Como en bastantes ocasiones estos asesinatos tienen lugar en Estados Unidos, pronto se producen denuncias de su permisiva legislación sobre armas como la causa de la tragedia.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica, , ,

He dejado pasar un tiempo, antes de desbrozar estas reflexiones sobre la matanza en el Virginia Tech, situada en la ciudad de Blacksburg, en la que eran asesinados treinta y dos estudiantes, y se hería a otros veintinueve. La escena debió de ser dantesca. Alumnos que saltaban por las ventanas, se arrastraban por el suelo, improvisaban barricadas o se hacían los muertos, mientras un profesor -superviviente de los horrores del Holocausto-, perdía la vida, al tratar de bloquear las puertas. Y lo he hecho de forma premeditada, pues deseaba asegurarme de si mi primigenio análisis seguía pareciéndome correcto. Pues bien, mi criterio no ha variado; lo más, la presencia de las oportunas posteriores matizaciones.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial, ,

The first movie I ever made was called “Death Creek Camp.” It told the age-old story of a group of teenage guys who set out on a fun-filled wilderness excursion only to be stalked and murdered by a psychopath disguised in a hockey mask and a blue kimono. It was no masterpiece of cinema.

Most of the scenes played out the same way — one of the fresh-faced hikers would get separated from the group. He would hear a noise in the bushes. “Bob? Jerry, is that you? Charlie?” Suddenly, from behind a tree, the stalker would pounce and blood would fly.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica, ,

A judge ruled this month that depositions by the parents of the gunmen in the 1999 Columbine school shootings would remain sealed until 2027. It would be tragic to also have to wait 28 years to hear from the family of Seung-Hui Cho, the killer at Virginia Tech. But the tense legal standoff that led to the Columbine ruling is likely to repeat itself in Virginia if we don’t quickly devise an alternative.

In the Columbine case, as in Virginia Tech, the killers’ families went into seclusion and released statements of regret and bewilderment. Parents of mass murderers have their own grieving to do.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica, , ,

Era previsible. Cho Seung Hui era un taciturno solitario, de humor cambiante, inestable. Cuatro de sus profesores habían mostrado su preocupación a la vista del contenido de sus trabajos académicos o de su conducta en clase. Tras las quejas de dos alumnas, los servicios de seguridad del campus y un consejero de los servicios psicológicos del instituto politécnico de Virginia (Virginia Tech) hicieron gestiones para internarle en una institución psiquiátrica. Sin embargo, un médico se mostró en desacuerdo con el juez en el sentido de que representara un peligro para los demás. En Estados Unidos es fácil adquirir armas (aunque están prohibidas en el campus de Virginia).…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica, ,

On the campus of the University of Memphis, where I was visiting for part of last week, the news of the Virginia Tech mass killings struck with special force. Not only were these students, like those in Blacksburg, Va., attending a large public university with a big commuter population, but they still recall the scars of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who was gunned down in this city 39 years ago this month.

Meeting with students at the journalism school, I was reminded that no campus these days is free from violence. Just two weeks ago, the student newspaper reporters said, a female graduate student was stabbed in the leg by a man who was trying to steal her purse.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica, ,

In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, the spectacle of principled folk feeling the need to reassert their principles has not been uniformly edifying. Had all the students been armed, stated one rifle lobbyist on Monday, the massacre would never have happened. From NBC, who opted to air the material mailed to them by Cho Seung-hui, there were the thoughts of network president Steve Capus. "This is, I think, as close as we will ever come to being inside the mind of a killer," he posited.

Writing in the conservative National Review, self-styled "resident chickenhawk" John Derbyshire was frothingly bemused.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica, , ,

If people noticed anything at all about Cho Seung Hui, it seems, they were struck by his silence. He wouldn't respond in class. He wouldn't talk to his roommates. Making his way across the Virginia Tech campus, he was quiet as a ghost.

But when he was alone, at a keyboard or in front of a camera, he had volumes to say. "You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience," he proclaimed in the video he mailed to NBC News between Act One and Act Two of his rampage. "You thought it was one pathetic boy's life you were extinguishing.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica, ,

When it comes to school gunmen (and, yes, they're usually male) what may seem like random acts of madness are usually premeditated.

"The most frequent motive was revenge," the Secret Service concluded in a 2002 study of 37 school shootings. As part of the Safe Schools Initiative it undertook with the Education Department after the 1999 Columbine killings, agents reviewed cases and interviewed 10 school shooters. They found that school assassins send clear warnings and that "[i]nformation about these attackers' intent and planning was potentially knowable before the incident."

None of this suggests that assassins deserve public sympathy or that all mentally ill people are dangerous.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica, ,

I was at my desk at the F.B.I.’s Critical Incident Response Group on April 20, 1999, when a colleague ducked his head into my office and asked if I’d heard the news. A school shooting in Colorado. Some place called Columbine. At least 10 dead. Columbine, I remember thinking as I clicked on the bank of TVs on the far wall. Where in God’s name is that?

After 13 years as an F.B.I. agent, I’d become somewhat inured to violence: bank robberies, murders, Waco, Ruby Ridge, Oklahoma City. Death had become my business. Yet these images were appalling. Teenagers were dying in a public high school.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica, , ,

Why do we have the same futile argument every time there is a mass killing?

Advocates of gun control try to open a discussion about whether more reasonable weapons statutes might reduce the number of violent deaths. Opponents of gun control shout "No!" Guns don't kill people, people kill people, they say, and anyway, if everybody were carrying weapons, someone would have taken out the murderer and all would have been fine.

And we do nothing.

This is a stupid argument, driven by the stupid politics of gun control in the United States.

In other spheres, we act reasonably when faced with new problems.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica, ,

The horrifying killings at Virginia Tech on Monday leave us grieving and troubled. They also leave us -- especially those like me who lead colleges and universities -- with difficult questions to ask and, then, to try to answer.

The most complex and emotional question is: Could this massacre have been prevented by getting Cho Seung Hui into counseling -- or, as some have suggested, by removing this young man from Virginia Tech's campus? This is a university administrator's nightmare.

GW was in the news last year for its attempts to serve the best interests of a student who had sought mental health treatment, while also considering the well-being of all of our students.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial,

The sticky note on my door was wiggling. It was a gift from a student.

Glued to the middle of it was a cockroach.

Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t that I was an unpopular professor. To the contrary — according to student evaluations, I might as well have had a sign on my forehead that said “Kindly.”

I was told later that the cockroach was a symbol of love from — well, let’s call him Rick. Rick had recently moved into the lab across the hall from my office, where he spent the night in a sleeping bag under one of the benches.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica, , ,

La espantosa matanza que, a manos de un estudiante, ha tenido lugar en una Universidad del Estado de Virginia (Virginia Tech) hará que se intensifique el debate sobre la libre venta de armas en Estados Unidos, instalado nuevamente en los medios. A preguntas de los periodistas, el portavoz de la Casa Blanca ha respondido que éste no es el momento de entrar en tal asunto, sino de pensar en las víctimas y acompañar en el dolor a sus familiares.

No se conocen los motivos que han llevado a Cho Seung-Hui -un estudiante surcoreano de origen humilde, criado en Estados Unidos- a cometer este asesinato masivo.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica, ,

I wasn't born in Blacksburg, Va., but I lived there most of my life. If my husband hadn't dragged me to a bigger city -- "where something actually happens and restaurants serve more than

hamburgers" -- I'd be there still.

Your home town defines you. It helps make you what you are. Now that this thing, this massacre, has defined my home town, I wonder if my definition is going to change, too.

Last August, when a gunman committed a double murder in Blacksburg, people said the town had lost its innocence. Ridiculous, hyperbolic swill, I thought. Transplants. Commentators. What did they know?…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica, ,

My daughter, Colette, never had a babysitter. My wife and I wouldn't leave her in the care of a stranger -- or with her grandparents, all of whom live within 10 miles of us. For years we sacrificed vacations, trips to the movies and even church. We were the couple with the screaming kid on the airplane and in restaurants. Our daughter was as protected from the world as any two parents could possibly manage.

Before we knew it, 18 years had flown by. Our little girl grew up and applied to the one college she had her heart set upon -- Virginia Tech.…  Seguir leyendo »