The EPIDEMIC that killed Jaylen Fryberg and many more like him!
TULALIP, Wash. – A close-knit community on the Tulalip Indian Reservation has struggled to find answers following the shooting at a high school on Washington’s Puget Sound in which a young gunman from a prominent family opened fire, killing one person and injuring four others — including two of his cousins.
Three Interesting Observations and finding out,
WHAT TRIGGERED Jaylen to lose all self-control!
- John McCoy, a tribal member comments, “Because from all we have determined, he was a happy-go-lucky, normal kid.
- Fryberg left months of troubling messages on social media, and friends said he’d recently been in a fight over a girl. One of his tweets said, “It breaks me … It actually does …”
- Students and parents said Fryberg played football for the high school and was freshman prince in the 2014 Homecoming court.
NONE of the above even come close to understanding what evoked such rage and pain in the heart of Jaylen Fryberg that drove him to abandon all rational thought processes killing a select group of peers and himself.
As an educator of over twenty five years, no one would argue that students who are just out of middle school going to high school and the hormonal growth spurts of middle schools kids make this developmental time in their growth sensitive, unpredictable, and often dramatic. In fact the synonym for middle school school age children could be:
DRAMA, DRAMA, DRAMA!
That kind of crazy behavior is a pretty normal, predictable aspect of working with middle school kids. However, the behaviors and reactions of that age group from generation to generation has transformed from a mean note to another student at lunch to bringing guns and doing physical arm.
I found as a guidance counselor some very profound possible explanations for this negative evolution with our kids.
- The stress of a technological world is feeding their brain with too much information then they can socially handle.
- Social Media has increased cognitive knowledge at the cost of learning social skills. Skills like: waiting your turn, speaking one at a time, eye contact, and seeing consequences of negative behaviors face to face.
- Due to media, the knowledge of the competition, the status quo, the expectations of what is HOT and what is NOT makes even adults nuts. Our babies can’t handle it and they shouldn’t have to.
- The status quo changes so quickly; staying on the top of your game aka homecoming king means nothing…for tomorrow it starts again.
- Being NORMAL has become unacceptable in our society.
- Hyper sexual promiscuity has been over exploited to create unsafe and unrealistic fantasies. Fantasies that will NEVER live up to regular relationships.
- MOST IMPORTANTLY – MEAN behavior has been romanticized. Our world’s motto: win at all costs is leading us to our own destruction. I’ve seen it with administrators over test scores all the way down to the bus driver who wants it his way at the risk of kids being fearful of riding back and forth to school every day.
I must in good consciousness mention that I have heard the worst language, most damaging comments, and hateful disregard for others by middle school girls. We will never know what the kids said to Jaylen. That DOES NOT give him permission to carry out their demise but it does merit some thought conversation for Jaylen and many more teens who take their own lives every day.
PERHAPS, JAYLEN FELT SHOT IN THE HEART BY HIS COUSIN AND FEMALE INVOLVED.
WE MUST STOP THIS MADNESS.
IT MUST START WITH ADULTS.
WE MUST REALIZE WORDS ARE AS DAMAGING AS GUNS.
GOD bless us all.
Love always,
Just a teacher at heart,
April of Course
