Dr. Tajuddeen A. Williams

An Analysis of Aggression

· Personal Essays

There has been nothing more shocking than the rash of school shootings. These shootings have sporadically broken out across the country. Featuring young students as the aggressors, no one saw it coming. Many communities have been left asking the question “why?” It is hard to pinpoint any one situation or circumstance that led up to the atrocities that had taken place. In most of the situations, the source of the anger, and the origin of the aggression can be traced (CNN Library, 2013).

The Columbine massacre was one that took a year in the making. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold planned meticulously on how they planned on killing scores of people on the day of the shooting (Cullen, 2004). Had they not been so bad at wiring the propane bombs, they would have killed even more people. Many people believed that their aggression was due to being bullied. It turned out that the issues might have been much deeper than that. Their hate and rage did not start or end with school. The FBI and many psychologists and psychiatrists uncovered that they had hatred for everything from country music to people they perceived as being stupid and unintelligent (Cullen, 2004).

It is apparent that Klebold had a lot of frustration built up inside of him. This source of anger tends to be a recurrent theme. However, being the victim of an attack by a bully is just as popular. From 1996 until 2012, there have been 41 school shootings (Statistic Brain Research Institute, 2013). However, there have been school shootings every year, there have only been 1 to 3 during any given year. In 2011 and 2012, those numbers doubled. Whereas many shootings have had a catalyst that started at school, we have examples of others, like the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, that did not.

Adam Lanza was not known to be mentally unstable during his adolescent years. He had been an A and B student during his first years of high school. As he started to withdraw more, his school issues were said to be related to his PDD and OCD (Daly, 2013). Tutoring, desensitization, and medication were recommended. During that time, the people around him believed they were doing the right thing for him: getting him help. Although he had a fascination with guns, that was not a predicator to perpetrate the mass shooting. He displayed no aggression or threatening tendencies. There are no clear motives as to why he targeted an elementary school other than there must have been something about the age of the kids.

In Adam Lanza’s case, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly what went wrong. In other cases, we have clues as to what is happening with the shooter. Bullying happens throughout just about every school in America. Teachers are there to teach, but it would help if they knew how to recognize the signs of bullying in students. Whether they are able to pick out who is bullied or who is doing the bullying and staging an intervention. Parents, teachers, and school counselors alike should all be involved so frustration doesn’t build up in the student to the point where he feels he must harm people. If it is to the point where aggressive tendencies are being displayed, then psychological help should be a definite follow up.

Psychologists are still trying to understand the underlying issues of what makes students snap. A few of these issues we can understand the origins. The task of recognizing what’s going on with them ultimately falls on the parents. If the parents to do pick up on it, the last line of defense are the teachers they interact with on a daily basis. In order for the teachers to be able to do that job, they will need training. And definitely a raise.

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