Prayers and Thoughts....

Over here at LTLWI, our thoughts and prayers are with the VA Tech community - particularly those who lost their lives and their loved ones who are forced to cope with this tragedy.

As someone who is in academia and hopefully close to becoming a professional academic, the tragedy hits home in a completely different way. As a professor/instructor, how does one address something like this in class and with one's students? I think part of our job is to be there for students in ways that go beyond imparting the subject matter. I'm sure what happened at VA Tech is unnerving for students and teachers alike no matter where they are. I can't even begin to wrap my brains around how the professors at VA Tech will handle this once classes resume. I'm not sure what to make of the 'profiling' that ensued of the perpetrator. Yes this student was disturbed as his writings reveal. He was also referred for counseling. The implication in the way this aspect of the story has been covered is that these were clues that we should have been more attentive to. On the other hand, having had some years of college teaching under my belt, it seems to me that there are plenty of students that are disturbed and coping with a whole host of complications in their lives. Not all of them act in this way. Perhaps he was more disturbed than the students I have come across but I can't help but think that not all students act out in the same manner. So the question is as professors/instructors how we do we know when to act and the appropriate action to be taken? I don't think we can control it all but I guess we remain on the lookout. That there have been plenty of hoax calls on campuses the day after the massacre at VA Tech is also worrisome and in poor taste IMHO...makes me think about what would be classified as part of the worst side of humanity...not as heinous as the actual act in some respects but, in others, perhaps equally and even more reprehensible.

Speaking of which, in a strange way, I was also touched by the best in humanity that I saw as a result of this massacre. When the news broke, I happened to be flipping through channels. Watching the reactions across the nation of the newscasters when the death toll was in the single digits, I felt happy to be living in and be a citizen of a country in which "5" lives meant something and counted for something. I couldn't help but compare it to Pakistan where I was born and grew up. In the late 80s when riots in Karachi had become common, I remember hearing how it was just "5 people" who died. They remained anonymous. They remained irrelevant. The event became banal. To be completely fair, I think it was probably the only reaction of a people, of a community that could preserve any sanity amidst the ongoing and endless cycle of violence. Then again, while I understand the need for desensitizing oneself I wonder if that move is the beginning of the end? After all, what remains if emotions, passions, empathy, and the reason as well as the action they inspire disappear into an abyss of complacency and neglect.

I have to end here...this is just too darn depressing to keep thinking about :-(!