I was surprised that the show focused on signs to look for.... lets take it a step further and move to prevention. I'd be willing to bet that the common denominator among all the school shooters, as well as any violent offender is the absense of empathy. Lets teach our grade schoolers empathy. If the parents do not have the capacity to teach this very important emotional component, it is up to the rest of us to step up, be involved in your children's school, and help the school administrators teach our children empathy. Sometimes it takes a village to raise a child.
I found some information about teaching empathy, that I hope the readers to find of use... and can put to good use. Instead of licking our wounds, and looking for the "signs"... lets work together and stamp this out.
An operational definition I like to use has two components: First, empathy is an ability to imagine with some degree of accuracy what it's like to be in the predicament of the other person; and secondly, empathy entails the ability to communicate that awareness so the other person feels understood.
Empathy entails a different kind of learning. Just reading textbooks won't develop this skill. Nor is it a visual-motor skill, like getting the knack in golfing or basketball. Nor is empathy a matter of simple good will, caring, or an intention to be sensitive. Some books or papers about empathy describe it as a sensitivity to nonverbal communication, but I think this is only a small component. Rather, I view this skill as a matter mainly of focused imagination, picturing in the mind what it might be like to be in the other person's predicament. This skill also involves an integration of remembering, rational thinking, intuition, and feeling, all of which support the active imaginative process.
Empathy is teachable, but it requires experiential learning, practice. I challenge the cliche that "you either have it or you don't." Certainly there is a variable distribution of talent for this endeavor, but just about anyone can improve whatever level of innate ability with practice.
Furthermore, the natural vehicle for the experiential learning of an interpersonal skill–in this case, teaching empathy–, is role playing. It uses all of the aforementioned skill components. Role playing is a natural vehicle of learning because it's an extension of the imaginative, pretend play of childhood (Blatner & Blatner, 1997). It should be noted that this approach is often neglected in the course of traditional education, because it addresses a different type of learning than that which can be easily tested on exams. Role playing builds a deeper type of understanding and a more flexible type of thinking, qualities which will become increasingly important in the coming years. However, what most kids learn involves memorization and calculation, logical composition, and other more didactically taught skills. Role playing involves an experiential type of learning.
Early Sunday morning in Crandon, a small Wisconsin logging town, 20-year-old deputy sheriff Tyler Peterson went on a shooting rampage killing six people and critically wounding another before authorities fatally shot him. A part-time police officer, Peterson fired thirty rounds of ammunition on his ex-girlfriend and a group of friends who had gathered for pizza and movies to celebrate homecoming weekend. Who was Tyler Peterson, and what drove him to murder six people in cold blood? What is the profile of a mass murderer, and does he fit the description? How could Peterson have slipped through the system to become a law enforcement officer, and how do we keep it from happening again? Every day, more than 80 Americans die from gun violence.* From the 1999 Columbine massacre to the nation's deadliest shooting rampage in history at Virginia Tech last April, mass shootings in America continue to draw world scrutiny. Be there when Dr. Phil asks the tough questions. If it's happening now, Dr. Phil is gonna talk about it now! Share your thoughts, join the discussion.
