“In Indianapolis, four kids under the age of 18 have already been killed in shootings since the beginning of the year. Cindy Oetjen and Wendy St. John are prepared to talk bluntly to these kids so that none of them becomes the next victim. But first, Oetjen (above) has to lay out the problem in a way they can understand. ‘If you have 500 people in your school, and 3,000 kids are killed every year, how much of your school is that?’ Oetjen asks. An 11-year-old boy raises his hand: ‘Everybody.'” The gun is almost like gold:’ More kids in the crossfire as Indy sees 70% spike in youths with guns [via theindychannel.com]

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41 COMMENTS

  1. Perhaps the real question to ask is whether or not gangs have taken over their schools.

  2. It would be better as a sociology question. Why are so many young people killing each other?
    a) Because their parents have no moral compass, no respect for the sanctity of human life, no sense of personal responsibility, no idea what fatherhood entails, no jobs, no vocational skills and no incentive to acquire any of those things because of government entitlements.
    b) Because of the racist policies of Trump and the Republicans.

    Choose your answer carefully. Your life may depend on it.

    • Is our children learning?

      I’d normally pass over this in the comments, but since it’s about education, I couldn’t resist. 😉

      1. Is our child learning?
      2. Are our children learning?

      • Cue baller,
        I laughed at Swilsons comment as it was sarcasm and was a funny play on words
        I believe you need to activate your sarcasm detector

      • And normally I couldn’t resist the urge to correct such an obvious grammatical error either. However that is a quote from George W. I suppose I meant it as a musing regarding the Quote of the Day, and not as a serious rhetorical question to make folks think.

  5. Firearms seem to attract humorless OCD types. My gun club/range is full of them. I seem to spend more time illicitly shooting in my yard.

  7. By appearances,(photo above.)I don’t think this woman is even capable of operating McDonald’s. Let alone engage in Left-wing politics, propaganda, and agitprop with middle-school children!? I hope there were some pissed off parents that had something harsh to say….

  8. With just a single google search, I found all four teen homicides this year she referred to:

    14 year old boy shot dead outside a Popeye’s Chicken restaurant in January. The assailant pulled up in a vehicle, stepped out, and shot the victim at pointblank range in the chest.

    17 year old boy shot multiple times on a Sunday night in February.

    16 year old boy shot in the head by a 17 year old boy in February as they were engaged in what police described as “horseplay” with a handgun.

    16 year old boy shot in the head while seated in the backseat of a vehicle around 1:00 a.m. He was shot by an 18 year with whom he had been arguing, who then pulled out a gun and shot the victim once. The attack was witnessed by two other teens, ages 15 and 16, also in the vehicle, who fled the scene and returned later with their parents. The shooter, who later ditched the gun in a storm drain, claimed he thought the gun was unloaded.

    Sounds like a lot of gang activity to me, with some basic stupidity mixed in for good measure. What does that have to do with 100 million responsible firearms owners who haven’t hurt anyone?

    • Or with many millions of middle schoolers who do not belong to gangs? Also, not a single shooter in legal possession of a handgun?

  9. I will admit I skimmed the article, so many anti-gun talking points used as somehow factual….

    Even skimming the article I did notice the magical-thinking that was happening, that if somehow we could wish away all the guns then all of the violence would go away too.

  10. knowing today’s youth, i’m fairly confident that 11-year old was just trolling her.

    years later…

    “And then I shouted out “EVERYBODY” and she yelled “YES!”. Everybody was laughing so hard. Oh man, what an idiot.”

  11. Why, excellent. Those youths are already taught important skills of deception and manipulation!

    Truly, politicians are self-replicating kind.

  12. Anyone else notice the beautiful wall in perfect focus and the woman out of focus?
    That is great photographer that can capture only the beautiful things in his frame.

  13. “When my dad got shot, a bone got replaced in his heart,” one boy offers, unprompted. “It was really scary.”

    I should say so. Looks like math isn’t the only subject wanting at this school.

  14. >>‘If you have 500 people in your school, and 3,000 kids are killed every year, how much of your school is that?’

    Is this what passes for a word problem in a school today?

    O2

  15. But first, Oetjen has to lay out the problem in a way they can understand.

    It’s hard to overstate how deceitful her restating of the issue is. The minds of the at least some of the kids comprehend this as “because of guns we are all going to die”.

    It could be that Oetjen has done this restating of the issue in her own mind for her own elucidation, making her at least as foolish as she is evil. Just the kind of bubble-headed miscreant anyone would want “educating” their child.

  16. The worst derp:

    “In Indianapolis, a city with more than 92,000 licensed gun owners…”

    Indiana does NOT have licensing of gun owners.

    “But if they can walk away with the message of, ‘If I touch a gun, I’m going to get hurt or someone’s going to get hurt,’ I will continue to do what I do. Because it’s a message I think they need to get.”

    Unless the children she taught were truly sheltered from the world, they know that statement is a lie. Merely touching a gun doesn’t hurt them or anyone else. Anything else she said is going to be disregarded by the children she is trying to get through to because they know she is a fool or a liar.

  17. There are roughly 74,000,000 children in the US. While every death is tragic (even the gangbangers, as they are still people and their poor choices should be mourned even as the consequences to them of those choices might not be), 3000 divides into that, yielding an estimate of roughly 25,000.

    Might it be more prudent to ask, ‘If you have 500 people in your school, and two one-hundredths of a child is killed every year, how much of your school is that?’ That, of course, is without considering the risk factors that would lead a child toward greater or lesser propensity of death.

  18. How about swimming pools, streams, detergents that look like candy, electrical sockets, household cleaners, buckets of water, furniture/TVs falling over, run over by cars, prescription drugs (64K ER visits per year), bad dogs, fires, add nauseousism. At least a thousand ways for kids to die. Yes, it’s tragic, but bad things happen everyday; watching the nightly news unfortunately tallies several children killed per week, but hardly ever with a firearm. It is also painfully obvious that many people should have never procreated since they do not give a damn about their kids; just a nescience to the parents (oops, procreators). Even using the plural form (parents) is a misnomer; most of the time the father component is long gone & the woman’s multiple offspring are by multiple sperm donors. What a mess.

  20. At my school, mathematics was not taught very well, because the teachers did not have enough experience and desire to teach well. It’s great that there are alternative ways to learn math for kids. Various online platforms, including Brighterly, provide really good conditions for learning, so that it is fun, comfortable, but at the same time effective.

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