BUCKING THE SYSTEM: SCHOOL RECESSES ARE FOR PLAYING, NOT REALITY

I remember telling some very bad jokes as a child, but none of them included a punch line about killing somebody.

I have never enjoyed the macabre jokes people come up with about another person's handicap or misfortune. Like ethnic humor, grisly humor bothers me, maybe because it isn't a very far cry from the real thing.

Even as a child, I can remember hearing for weeks after the television movie starring Patty Duke and Melissa Gilbert aired all manner of Helen Keller jokes. And after all the black students stopped being mad about the atrocities shown in the television mini-series Roots, they started telling Toby and Chicken George jokes.

More recently, a plethora of OJ Simpson jokes were available following the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.

To me those jokes just aren't funny because by laughing at them, we are in effect laughing at someone else's pain. However, that's only part of the story. I believe that such grisly humor is also a defense mechanism we have created to keep from dealing with the fears we have that we might be next.

I wouldn't have thought about any of this had it not been for a recent visit to a school. As I waited for the event to begin, I overheard three boys laughing and joking in the row behind me.

Obviously, they had nothing better to talk about, so they decided to talk about who in the roomful of teachers, students and administrators they would kill. Eventually, they just decided to kill everybody, including the guest speaker.

They scared me. Not because I thought they were serious, although in retrospect I realize it's possible they were. I was afraid because these children could laughingly make their plans after the recent, terrifying school slayings in Heath, Ky., and Jonesboro, Ark.

Those shootings were obviously the origin for their conversation. Thanks to voluminous media coverage that still is given to the events, the kids knew how the shootings had occurred and even what weapons were used.

But the major question is why these particular students were able to voice such thoughts. I have to believe their parents cherished them and tried to raise them to be strong, compassionate, independent thinkers. But something is wrong when anyone -- child or adult -- can idly sit by and plan another's death or harm, even in jest.

When I wake up in the morning, regardless of whether I'm perky or irritated, I look at my child and I smile. I truly believe I have been blessed with the responsibility of raising this child, and all I ever want to do is give him my best and keep him safe.

But I don't want school to be a prison for my children. School is supposed to be a safe haven, a place where students can go and learn a little bit, then take recesses from reality to run, skip and play before returning to learn a little more.

Unfortunately, every time a violent act occurs on school grounds, another life ends, and every time someone thinks it's funny to threaten to perform such an act at their school another wall goes up.

And the school recesses from reality get shorter and shorter.

~Tamara Zellars Buck is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.