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Source: (consider it) Thread: Mass murder and guns
Horseman Bree
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Having just lived through a 30-hour lockdown of a large segment of a small city, I am forced to think about angry young men and guns.

Here was a "nice" boy, home-schooled until he went to a local high school, regular (RC) church attendance, obsessed with guns and an inexplicable hatred of police.

Once he had killed three and injured two more, he basically went into "cops-and-robbers" mode, hiding in scrubby woods until it got to be too cold and rainy, and cold realisation set in. As he said on coming out of the woods: "I'm done".

The Mounties didn't panic and fill him with lead (however much they were tempted). They simply searched him and took him away.

And the city went back to a new normal. No murders at all for years before. But there was a more deliberate and brutal murder, 30 years ago, of two city police (details on request - I found the method to be much more upsetting)

But now we have to live with the idea that lone young men, reclusive and/or angry, can attack a placid city for no discernible reason other than "I saw it on the Internet"

A week before, it was Seattle. The shooter there was well-armed, but not with high-capacity clips - he had to reload and was jumped at that point. Another difference was that the jumper had pepper spray, which I doubt that anyone in Moncton carries (or not enough people to make much difference)

And the shooter attacked a Christian college, not armed police.

Is modern society - Twitter, etc., TV, sterile downtowns and shopping malls, too-big high schools, denigration of education, lack of jobs for those who make themselves, deliberately, unskilled... simply going to become a shooting gallery for the young males who have made themselves unattractive to women (or whatever other young males you think of)?

Second question: is there any specific action that we as Christians can do which might make some difference? I am an anomaly: I live in a village (pop. 1400) with a regional high school, where just about everyone at least recognises just about everyone. Some kids talk to the janitor or the EAs, some get to hang with individual teachers. The local youth group is functional, as is the after-school activity center. So, relatively few kids slip through unnoticed...teams...other activities...relatives available...

But this is not true of city high schools, at least not for enough kids. (I know, you had a good time in high school, but the loners don't. Please spare me the details)

Is there any way to make contact with kids before high school, so that the risk of alienation is reduced?

Preacher talked about "sacrificial service" yesterday - not just the obvious front-line Mountie who ran towards the shooter, but the sacrifice of our own comfort in reaching out to the troubled - which set up this question.

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It's Not That Simple

Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Horseman Bree
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And, just to make the point that this is NOT a "guns: for or against?" thread, I offer the meditation of a former student: "Three of Us are Dead"

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It's Not That Simple

Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
no prophet's flag is set so...

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First of all, terrifying, very hard to watch. Thankful it wasn't even worse, but sorrowful for what it is/was.

I am surprised, given the mention on CBC radio of contact with the parents of the (alleged) shooter that the police didn't consider Section 810.1 or 810.2 of the Criminal Code of Canada (Link to the section here, search for "810.1" to find it).

They use this section for persons not convicted of any offence but with reasonable grounds to think the person is a danger. They can get the person to report to the police, to a probation worker, to attend medical / mental health / addictions treatment, and they will arrest the noncompliant person and take them to jail or hospital. I know of a specific situation where this all was done, and the person was stabilized. They had never committed a crime, just was thought to be a risk.

I suspect the province in question will join the other 9 provinces in legislating "community treatment orders" as well, I don't think you have them in NB at present given a brief internet search just now. These CTOs both empower and require police to arrest a person and take them to hospital for exam and treatment under a provincial mental health act. The person can usually be re-arrested every time they fail to attend treatment, and involuntarily committed if necessary. I have seen these used effectively with home visits from community mental health nurses to ensure stability.

We haven't heard about the inevitable inquiry that will be held about this incident, but I suspect we will come to understand more than merely the family sought help for the young man who did this. I was talking to people at work about it, and we all thought we'd hear that he'd come to the attention of the authorities and this is now confirmed. We will hear I think in the next days what wasn't done that might have been. I'm not interested in recriminations about what was missed, but would want this to proactively help for the future.

There is another issue that is seldom discussed with these incidents. Everywhere, we have seen the movement to community-based treatment in place of inpatient mental health care. This was touted as better for patients, but was really actually promoted because of cost savings. The money for mental health care has been saved at the expense of nontreatment of people at risk, and is spent later on prisons.

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GCabot
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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
I am surprised, given the mention on CBC radio of contact with the parents of the (alleged) shooter that the police didn't consider Section 810.1 or 810.2 of the Criminal Code of Canada (Link to the section here, search for "810.1" to find it).

They use this section for persons not convicted of any offence but with reasonable grounds to think the person is a danger. They can get the person to report to the police, to a probation worker, to attend medical / mental health / addictions treatment, and they will arrest the noncompliant person and take them to jail or hospital.

The problem lies with what constitutes "reasonable grounds." I am unfamiliar with Canadian law, but there is usually a high bar for what could be considered actionable evidence. Moreover, even if there were strong signs, they may not have been apparent without the benefit of hindsight.

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The child that is born unto us is more than a prophet; for this is he of whom the Savior saith: "Among them that are born of woman, there hath not risen one greater than John the Baptist."

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bib
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People claim they carry guns to protect themselves from people with guns who carry guns to protect themselves from people with guns etc etc ad infinitum. What a crazy world!

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L'organist
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The fact remains that ready access to guns means more people being killed by guns.

The only society I can think of where there is widespread gun distribution without large numbers of deaths from guns is Switzerland, where males between the ages of 18 and 50 are either conscripted full time or serve as reservists: and reservists keep all their equipment, including weapons, at home.

However, the Swiss aren't stupid and so (a) guns have to be kept in locked cabinets, and (b) they may have the gun but they don't have the ammunition - the argument being that as/if/when reservists are mobilised they will assemble at a central point and it will be at that time and place that ammunition will be issued.

Quite apart from the issue of unstable, or briefly murderously enraged young men having ready access to guns, is the issue of accident: the number of young people killed by the accidental discharge of weapons kept in private homes is staggering and one would have thought this, if nothing else, would persuade the gung-ho pro-gun lobby to look again at domestic holding of firearms.

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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet

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Horseman Bree
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There is absolutely NOTHING that will have any effect on the gun-obsessed in terms of thinking about anyone else whatsoever. Think of the most obdurate religionist being asked to give up some element of dogma, and then add in total paranoia about "them" and you may get some inkling of the desperation that drives the gun nuts.

Fortunately, most gun-owners are not actually "gun-nuts", although many of those moderates still vociferously support the rights of the nuts to be nutty in public.

The rest of us are not allowed any opinion at all, because we are not one of the in-crowd.

Add in the so-called "conservative" political climate, which demands the right of any unstable person to attack the rest of us, and I do not have a good feeling about society.

Just think of the "Troubles" in Ireland, with no discernible motive beyond paranoia.

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It's Not That Simple

Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
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quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
Just think of the "Troubles" in Ireland, with no discernible motive beyond paranoia.

Power and money?

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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/

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Horseman Bree
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Since there is no purpose in arguing about the gun issue, let's go back to the OP.

Is there an effectively-inexhaustible supply of angry young men, angry enough to cause murder among the general population?

Is there a useful thing that Christians (or anyone else) can do which may reduce the incidence of these events?

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It's Not That Simple

Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
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Elliot Leyton's book "Hunting Humans" (2005) while about serial killers, might be of some use to you. He identifies the social conditions that produce these men.

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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/

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Moo

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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
He identifies the social conditions that produce these men.

I suspect that conditions peculiar to the individual, e.g. bad family situations, have a greater effect than social conditions.

Moo

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fletcher christian

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There have been so many of these incidents and yet nothing seems to be effectively introduced by way of curtailing the possibility. It's not about stopping them, because the reality is that you can't. If someone is insane enough, radicalised enough, hateful enough, they will do what they are driven to do, whether it be via a gun or a home made bomb. But I just don't get why its such an enormous deal to have much more strict laws in controlling gun use and ownership. There are those who say it would destroy an industry, but at the same time you would be creating jobs to regulate an industry that has proven over the last decade is in desperate need of regulation. Banning gun ownership is a bit stupid - I don't think that is achievable or a sensible solution - but why on earth anyone feels they have a 'right' to own a huge gun that fires tank per icing rounds at 100 per second I really don't know. There are a lot of questions to be answered, but to come back to the question, I don't think you can stop things like this from happening, but you can play for time by taking away the ease through which it occurs.

[ 11. June 2014, 13:14: Message edited by: fletcher christian ]

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IconiumBound
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If only we could look at the gun culture as being a mental defect; that is, if we could consider anyone wanting to carry open weapons as being "a danger to self and others" and deal with them as being a mental patient perhaps the gun culture would quietly fade away.
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no prophet's flag is set so...

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quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
He identifies the social conditions that produce these men.

I suspect that conditions peculiar to the individual, e.g. bad family situations, have a greater effect than social conditions.

Moo

Apparently some societies lack serial killers.
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Horseman Bree
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Often the ones that have a continuing war or tribal rivalry problem to distract the angry young men. That is one purpose of armies: to provide stability and control over people who need to attack or defend against others.

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It's Not That Simple

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rolyn
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Young males have a propensity towards violence -- fact . It can be suppressed, or it can be expressed -- fact.

A society with free access to guns, a society with a culture that makes violence look cool needn't be surprised when violence is expressed in the random way that the shooting spree represents.

Thinking on this this issue , and on the somewhat unrelated matter of islamic fundamentalists organising themselves in the takeover of Iraq , ISTM like further evidence that the West has ,(for a whole batch of reasons), come close to losing the plot .

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Kelly Alves

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quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Young males have a propensity towards violence -- fact . It can be suppressed, or it can be expressed -- fact.


I'm not a big believer in suppressing anything; I believe in redirecting.
Young men have a propensity toward solving problems in a concrete, tangible manner. This can be expressed as shooting someone in the head, tearing a rotten old tool shed to bits -- or building a fabulous freaking
building. In the 30's, in the US, we gave frustrated, underemployed young men the opportunity to use their dynamic energy to build. Some of our most impressive buildings carry the WPA label.

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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.

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no prophet's flag is set so...

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Forts. We built forts. And we pretended we were explorers, and we pretended we could see shapes in clouds and then that we could move the clouds with our minds, and we built campfires and put things on sticks and roasted them in those fires, and we did war dances or love dances around those fires, and we sang dirty songs and clean songs, and we laughed our heads off as we were wet in the rain and thought we knew something profound as someone else farted.

There's a boy thing that seems to be lost. There's a child thing that seems to be lost. -- I have a biologist for a child, now an adult who has to teach teachers and children how to play outside, unstructured and catch bugs, pick flowers and make mudpies. Yes, you can get a job teaching kids how to play. [Killing me]

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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/

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Kelly Alves

Bunny with an axe
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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Forts. We built forts. And we pretended we were explorers, and we pretended we could see shapes in clouds and then that we could move the clouds with our minds, and we built campfires and put things on sticks and roasted them in those fires, and we did war dances or love dances around those fires, and we sang dirty songs and clean songs, and we laughed our heads off as we were wet in the rain and thought we knew something profound as someone else farted.

There's a boy thing that seems to be lost. There's a child thing that seems to be lost. -- I have a biologist for a child, now an adult who has to teach teachers and children how to play outside, unstructured and catch bugs, pick flowers and make mudpies. Yes, you can get a job teaching kids how to play. [Killing me]

This is the reason I hung out with boys when I was a kid. This is the energy I love.

Another entry for the CDEV rant I have been ranting-- play is the basis of learning for all mammals. All of them. When we beat the play instinct out for a kid, or curtail their opportunities for play, we cock-block our natural path to learning.

More power to the people who help kids-- and adults!-- remember how to play. Thank God for those people, actually.

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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.

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Curiosity killed ...

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Those activities are still available.

This week I have been raft building with Girl Guides at the nearest Sailing Scout centre. I would love to take the boys I work with. I'm also trying to book grass sledding and archery at the local scout activity centre. I tried to book it at the local Guide (Girl Scout) place but they haven't responded.

A month ago we had a weekend camp where we tried running in zorba balls on the lake, ice wall climbing and crate stacking on the Saturday, followed by evening camp fire songs, scavenger hunt and messy games on the Sunday, all at a scout camp, and were the only girl group there.

In a couple of weeks we're off to an outdoor camp where we doing survival stuff.

Girls need this stuff too and won't do it in the company of boys. But it's there and available. Not so freely available for just going out and taking.

It's sometimes getting those young people to realise that these are good activities and not childish and stupid (as the student I work with will think)

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Doc Tor
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Not having been a scout when I was younger, and viewing them with slight suspicion when older (I'll probably get into yet more trouble from the usual crowd by referring to them as 'the paramilitaries' - but the usual crowd can kiss my shiny metal arse), I can now see the benefit of them, certainly in an urban environment.

As a kid, I grew up in the country, built camps in the woods, went for long bike rides, dammed streams, fished etc etc, mostly on my own, but the Boy doesn't have access to that sort of childhood, except through Scouts. He does challenging physical activities - most of them carry an element of risk, sometimes more than that - with a real possibility of failure. It's good for him, and his mates, and while I can't discount the possibility that he's going to go on a murderous rampage later on in life, it won't be because of Scouts.

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Young males have a propensity towards violence -- fact . It can be suppressed, or it can be expressed -- fact.

A society with free access to guns, a society with a culture that makes violence look cool needn't be surprised when violence is expressed in the random way that the shooting spree represents.

Challenging the myth of redemptive violence is the key. The narrative that the best, only, solution to violence is overwhelming returned violence, whereas at best it's a sticking plaster treating the symptoms. Yes, sometimes it's all you can do, but a dead perp is still a dead perp, and violence has still won.

[ 13. June 2014, 10:59: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]

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Might as well ask the bloody cat.

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Moo

Ship's tough old bird
# 107

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One thing I have noticed about the play of children is that it is frequently focused on the activity rather than the result.

A kid or several kids decide to dam a small stream. They work hard for awhile; maybe they succeed, maybe they don't. When they move on to some other activity, they don't seem disturbed if they failed to dam the stream.

I think adults put too much emphasis on results when they are dealing with children.

Moo

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See you later, alligator.

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Gwai
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quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Forts. We built forts. And we pretended we were explorers, and we pretended we could see shapes in clouds and then that we could move the clouds with our minds, and we built campfires and put things on sticks and roasted them in those fires, and we did war dances or love dances around those fires, and we sang dirty songs and clean songs, and we laughed our heads off as we were wet in the rain and thought we knew something profound as someone else farted.

There's a boy thing that seems to be lost. There's a child thing that seems to be lost. -- I have a biologist for a child, now an adult who has to teach teachers and children how to play outside, unstructured and catch bugs, pick flowers and make mudpies. Yes, you can get a job teaching kids how to play. [Killing me]

This is the reason I hung out with boys when I was a kid. This is the energy I love.
Me too, but I'd go further and say I don't think that things like forts and pirates and whatnot is a boy thing. I loved to do those things as a young girl. I think girls are still told they're supposed to prefer hopscotch, hoola hoops and dollies. Those who are a little more agreeable than myself, cooperate and do*. That leaves the rest of us playing with the boys unless we find a fellow tomboy. (I remember when in sixth grade that our playground was literally divided into the partially shady area that was big enough for sports where the boys could play and that with a swing set, small jungle gym, and set of parallel bars where the girls might play. It took an outright protest on our part to be allowed to sometimes play soccer or sit under the trees.

*And of course many children naturally like these things too. I know I made up elaborate pretend games with my dolls as well.

[ 13. June 2014, 13:25: Message edited by: Gwai ]

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A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.


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Kelly Alves

Bunny with an axe
# 2522

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quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
One thing I have noticed about the play of children is that it is frequently focused on the activity rather than the result.

A kid or several kids decide to dam a small stream. They work hard for awhile; maybe they succeed, maybe they don't. When they move on to some other activity, they don't seem disturbed if they failed to dam the stream.

I think adults put too much emphasis on results when they are dealing with children.

Moo

This is called "placing the product over the process." Best practice is the exact opposite-- the process is the learning experience, regardless of the product.

Gwai-- quite right. While I totally recommend planning classroom activities with boyish needs in mind, I totally disapprove of labeling this or that activity as "boy" or "girl".You are definitely going to get girls who are interested, you are definitely going to get boys who show no interest, and you are definitely going to get kids of both sexes who give things a whirl and lose interest halfway through.

Speaking as a former kid who got squeezed out of my favorite activities because "girls can't do X."

[ 14. June 2014, 02:25: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.

Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002  |  IP: Logged
Curiosity killed ...

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Gareth Malone did a TV programme (youtube) trying out fun teaching for boys in a primary school. The aim of the programme (other than good TV) was an experiment in improving reading ages. Gareth tried a lot of the outside activities to engage them.

If I'd been in those classes I suspect I would have been acting up atrociously as I would have wanted to do the stuff those boys were doing, but knowing that area quite well, most of the girls at that age are really socialised not to get into messes or play rough and I suspect they would have turned their noses up at what was going on. It wasn't that the girls weren't active, they were really happy when I tried making space on the playgrounds in other local schools for them to have their own space for games that weren't football, they loved skipping and clapping games.

There's been another programme I keep meaning to catch up on. It was broadcast on UK Channel 4 also looking at boys' under-achievement Mr Drew's School for Boys - which included camping trips. That was a summer school for students transitioning to secondary school - year 6 into year 7 - so these boys will be 11.

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Curiosity killed ...

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# 11770

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Interesting, this thread has segued into the Boys' Under-achievement thread - (and I regret missing the apostrophe on that title). My last post would fit equally on both threads.

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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat

Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006  |  IP: Logged
rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840

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quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Challenging the myth of redemptive violence is the key. The narrative that the best, only, solution to violence is overwhelming returned violence, whereas at best it's a sticking plaster treating the symptoms. Yes, sometimes it's all you can do, but a dead perp is still a dead perp, and violence has still won.

Indeed so KLB . Christianity's attempts to challenge the myth have, alas, pretty much enjoyed Centuries of failure. Buddhism has made a better job of it but has never found itself globally promoted .

It's hard to escape a truth that violence may well be a winner of sorts . Nature 'red in tooth and claw' an all that , Universes and Solar systems formed by unimaginably violent forces .

I like Kelly's idea of getting young men to build things . Had an off the wall thought a while back about getting wayward lads to build Public Conveniences . Not as a shaming exercise but something they took a pride in and therefore remove the association of Public loos and vandalism.

Sorry this doesn't address US gun atrocities , afraid you guys need to take to the streets and get those guns gone .

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Change is the only certainty of existence

Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011  |  IP: Logged
Kelly Alves

Bunny with an axe
# 2522

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quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Gareth Malone did a TV programme (youtube) trying out fun teaching for boys in a primary school. The aim of the programme (other than good TV) was an experiment in improving reading ages. Gareth tried a lot of the outside activities to engage them.

If I'd been in those classes I suspect I would have been acting up atrociously as I would have wanted to do the stuff those boys were doing, but knowing that area quite well, most of the girls at that age are really socialised not to get into messes or play rough and I suspect they would have turned their noses up at what was going on. It wasn't that the girls weren't active, they were really happy when I tried making space on the playgrounds in other local schools for them to have their own space for games that weren't football, they loved skipping and clapping games.

There's been another programme I keep meaning to catch up on. It was broadcast on UK Channel 4 also looking at boys' under-achievement Mr Drew's School for Boys - which included camping trips. That was a summer school for students transitioning to secondary school - year 6 into year 7 - so these boys will be 11.

Gareth Malone should be running education policy for the entire free world. He gets kids, he gets their needs.

I have been meaning to recommend the excellent book
Last Child in the Woods , which discusses the impact of generations of kids being deprived of the kind if natural environment that stimulates that sensory immersion I have been yammering about. The authors mention in it that boys with ADD who are taken to wildlife excursions show drastic reduction in their symptoms. I'll have to read it again to be specific, but they seemed to be suggesting that natural elements-- trees, water bodies, bird song-- are encoded on our psycho- emotional responses in such a way that removal from such elements for too long produces a kind of sensory starvation, and the result is anxiety, depression, and other emotional disfunctions.

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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.

Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002  |  IP: Logged
no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
# 15560

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I would also recommend that book. It applies most directly to the American situation but has general applicability.

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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/

Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010  |  IP: Logged


 
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