You see, a few weeks ago the Virginia House of Representatives approved the "Moment of Silence", which already passed through the Senate and will shortly be made law by Governor Gilmore. At the start of the day, students will flop down into their desks (if there are enough seats). Then they'll wait an additional minute, pondering God, their crush, or their acne, before launching headfirst into Political Science or Wood Shop. The law is meant to prevent students from rashly shooting everyone, a noble goal if ever there was one. A quick examination of this law, however, makes it a perfect solution to only one problem: ailing re-election campaigns. In fact, it is an absurd bit of Constitutionally dubious, pointless legislation, grounded in an erroneous assessment of violent kids, that should nauseate all but the most blinkered proponents of prayer in school.

Is there a link between silence and the prevention of insanity? At least six state governments seem to think so. The law provides time for silent prayer or meditation. When students are preparing to murder their classmates, these states assume, this momentary armistice will clear their heads and let them contemplate the ten commandments. In the younger classes, I envision row after crowded row of glassy uncomprehending stares punctuated by snoring heads on desks--silence isn't understandable propaganda like the Pledge of Allegiance, it's simply arbitrary, surreal, and soporific. High school rooms will be full of children fidgeting, frantically completing homework, talking in whispers, and maybe even praying. (Throughout high school, I used to ‘meditate' in eight different places a day, often for forty-five minutes each!)

The quietest moments at school are always linked to test-taking and therefore silence should induce paranoia in these classically conditioned kids, but never mind that. Legislators have misunderstood the causes of the recent crazed behavior. Let there be no bones about it: the background of the principle is that morality is slacking, and the tacit suggestion of prayer will tighten it up. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that each recent school shooting was not the result of genuine neurological insanity (paranoid schizophrenia, etc.). Rather, assume that each action was a planned act, not subject to change at the last moment. In this case, the only lacking element of prevention was maturity: weighing the long-term costs and benefits of the short-term action, determining and creating less obvious solutions to the problems, realizing one's own fault in one's situation, and so forth. God and prayer are not relevant factors.

The moment of silence law misses the mark by assuming that the violent kids would even consider prayer for even a second, much less sixty seconds. Anti-social behavior comes from a hatred of a society (naturally), which emerges from a lack of acceptance. If the kids had found their way into an embracing and acceptable religious community, perhaps they would not act in anti-social ways. But at eight in the morning, good luck getting the despised and rejected to suddenly embrace Jesus. Schools must rely on something more substantial--like reminding the kids that they won't have to put up with wrestling team jerks, or those computer-addicted know- it-alls, once they're away at Yale or Bob Jones U..

At Jefferson football games, we had a haughty cheer: "We can lose, it's okay-- they will work for us someday." Like our football team, Columbine High School assassins Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were losers. Had they restrained themselves, the killers might have someday set the record straight: watching their testosterone-swelled enemies pump gas into their dot.com- earned Ferraris. The best revenge is served cold and legal. (Perhaps gloating is not the highest form of maturity, but at least neither side winds up in a coffin.) This is long-term thinking, grounded in actually giving credit to youth.

There is a way to prevent kids from lashing out with violence. Educators and parents must trick children into thinking themselves mature members of a functional, equal society. "Society" is a system of ethics with the same fundamental moral code as every religion: your rights end where other people's rights begin. For me, the word "mature" always connoted acceptance of a bigger picture, beyond the concrete walls of high school and its limited model of the world.

The Columbine High School killers were excluded from their educational society. They were told explicitly by peers and--more significantly--by administration that they were not a part of the acceptable system. Reports show that the faculty rigidly enforced rules against nerds but overlooked the rules for spirited athletes. Under such a regime, Columbine became two separate worlds. In "Such, Such Were the Joys...," young George Orwell learned, in his parallel British school universe, that there is a "moral dilemma that is presented to the weak in a world governed by the strong: Break the rules, or perish." The ideal education can find and build on each student's strengths such that no student feels absolutely weak--creating a modicum of general acceptance that prevents disaster. The Columbine administration, like that in Orwell's brilliant essay, acted on behalf of the physically advantaged without equal permissiveness toward intellectual potential. They created a world where power was unbalanced, and violence became the desperate outlet to save some kids' self-respect. Dylan and Eric were forced to break the rules or perish. Other students paid the price.

The Jefferson High School system was quite the opposite: the system informed us of our brain-strength by accepting us into the school. The educators' daily mantra of "leaders of tomorrow" certainly got old, but reminded us to consider our future. Truly we suffered socially compared to our uninvited counterparts, but we received more freedom and self-respect. We were tricked into acting mature; reason stepped in front of violence, and I don't regret the chilling effect of this deceit—even if many of us graduates have not, in fact, become the leaders of today. (For what it's worth, about half of us now run internet startup companies.) Jefferson worked as a microcosm of a balanced and effective society, because nobody ever had to feel like the absolute loser.

Protective measures against school violence should relax discipline, not entrench it. Rather than view every student with hawk-like vigilance, educators should show signs of trust, giving nurturing credit to fertile minds. Virginia's new Moment of Shut Up and Like It, in the aftermath of at least 18 events of violence in U.S. schools in the past few years, simplifies the issue to absurd levels. It offers nothing to improve education, nor remedy the divisive system that alienates certain participants. The law designed to combat violent outbursts is thoughtless, misguided, and completely underestimates the high potential of American students.

...But I might be wrong; perhaps a moment of relaxation will stop that hail of bullets we call public education. And if that moment of silence isn't enough, if there is another shooting in Virginia (the current count is one, in Richmond), perhaps we can extend the moment to two minutes, or two hours, or the entire school day. While we're at it, we can institute a "moment of learning" in the prisons. About the only benefit of the silence is that school officials will have already budgeted time in case a student actually has died--after that solemn and well-practiced minute, classes can return to their business without further ado. (Just don't you ask Virginia's gummint to simply clamp down on kids getting guns; we're not that kind of a state, Yankee.)

In the wake of the new law, I imagine my alma mater won't change much. The Christian clubs comprise about twenty kids who aren't of "miscellaneous" religions (savages, to use the political term, like myself) and who aren't among the agnostic majority. Such clubs might not need morning prayer rallies around the flagpole anymore, which would ultimately hurt their solidarity. Some teachers at Jefferson will teach right through the law, I'm sure, until someone is made an example of. In the computer lab where I used to hang out, it'll be the moment of flamenco key-clicks. The students will do homework and pretend that the law of silence isn't horribly condescending to their relatively mature intellects.

Schools have always suffered in their nebulous political realm. A bunch of random no- names run for school board positions, and their voting slot is ignored. Two days later the voters discover they've accidentally elected a majority of fanatical right-wing crackpots, white Christians who inevitably know what's best for everyone else's child. This is followed by threats of this and that: mandatory bible scripture, crucifixes on the walls, Ten Commandments on other walls, and so forth. Every year the ACLU fights a new docket in places where Engel v. Vitale is suspect, where Clarence Darrow's incisive rout of creationism is forgotten, where the First Amendment is thoroughly void. All in all, this seldom amounts to much, and your typical underfunded public school is the same from one state to the next. The following year they're all thrown out of office, all their changes reversed. Complacency sets in again and the cycle begins anew.

Then there are the congressmen and sleight-of-hand politics. Nobody wants violence in schools; that much is given. So next year a host of Democrats will be skewered with phrases like "Senator Unwashed Q. Heathen objected to last year's measures to curb school violence" although nobody could mistake the "moment of silence" for something other than a ploy to grab votes from the conservative right. And they'll trumpet it as a positive measure—never mind that this concession carves off a bit of daily learning, which used to be the purpose of school.

Lastly there are the young students, who, without so much as a vote, must now twiddle their thumbs for a wasted minute. Chewing their gum, patiently waiting for class to begin, they're sitting ducks for that bitter outcast strutting down the hall with pistols at his sides. And each of these silent targets must meditate on the daily reminder that they are political pawns in a system that refuses to treat them as anything otherwise.

Copyright (C) 2000, Post-Collegiate Malaise.