ABSTRACT
The tragic events at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado (sadly repeated at places as far apart as Santee, California and Pearl, Mississippi) broke through, if only for a few moments, the usual discourse of educational concerns in this country. Suddenly we found ourselves attending to issues that were not about academic skills and test scores, accountability of teachers, and the measurement of our state’s or country’s educational performance. We were looking at what was happening in schools from a perspective that had little to do with those things that typically filled the nation’s discussion about education. What burst to the surface was an ugly and disturbing brew of issues and concerns that, most of the time, remained buried under the all-consuming focus on kids and schools’ academic achievement scores. We were now compelled to confront issues of alienation, competition and social isolation, rage and hostility, and the search for meaning in a violent and cynical world. Here was a very different perspective on what was happening among at least some of our youth.
