Hokie Dokie
April 25, 2007

 
     Paralysis by analysis seems to have afflicted those trying to come to grips with remedies to school shootings. Columbine and Virginia Tech share a thread which can be learned from and exploited to assist in preventing these massacres: Invoke the Buddy System.
     Whenever a journey is potentially dangerous, teams, be they Boy Scouts, spelunkers, or scuba divers employ the buddy system as a defensive mechanism. It is clear to me that the journey from high school through college qualifies as one that is fraught with danger. The vortex of hormones, separation anxiety, and emergence are a formidable challenge. Is not the antidote to the isolation that links Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, and Seung-Hui Cho interjecting a mechanism that might periodically assess their coping skills?
     I would randomly assign each post elementary school student a buddy who would monthly assign a G.P.A. counting grade to their colleague. It is time to return “that which does not kill us makes us stronger” to the realm of metaphors.