"Dear Mom and Dad:
I'm about to go into battle and the chances of me coming out of the battle alive are slim to none. I am in the first wave which means that we are the first
to go into battle and we are basically on a suicide mission. We leave in the morning and I hope that you are not visited by any officers, but I guess if you
were not going to be visited by the army you would not be reading this letter....
..... Well, I guess I'm off to battle and I'm going to die for my country. ...."
When the shooting broke out on the west side of the school on 4-20, student Gary Morris(5934) was sitting in front of a computer on the east side, putting the
finishing touches on the above essay. When the police searched the school's computers as part of their investigation, they put Gary's interview to the
top of their priorities, because they thought they had come across a suicide note. But no, it was just another Columbine writing assignment--this time for
teacher Paula Reed's ACE langauge class.
It concerned the best-selling book "Into Thin Air" about a doomed Everest expedition. For the report, the teacher told them to pretend they only had
two hours to live, and to write down the last thing they would say or do in such a situation(book reports just ain't what they used to be, I guess). Young
Mr Morris decided he would be a soldier about to embark on a dangerous operation, and his essay would be a last letter home to the folks.
Do you get the feeling Death Ed was really the subject matter at hand, rather than language? Look at the eerie parallels to the 'last mission' of
H&K. And how many of the TCM had similar writing assignments, I wonder?
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You thought 4-20-99 was the first time that Columbine High School came to the attention of a national audience?
No!
That occured sometime in 1990, when ABC's "20/20" news program broadcast nationwide a segment titled "An Expose on Death Education." It
mostly consisted of an interview with ex-CHS student TARA BECKER(class of '85 or '86, I think) and her experiences in an "American
Literature" class. The front of the school with the words "Columbine High School" is briefly seen.
She describes the class as making death glamorous and that it made her plan for her own suicide.
"The things that we learned in class taught us how to be brave enough to face death."
Assignments included writing suicide notes and writing their own obituary. They had suicide "talk" days, about how they would kill themselves and
why. Tara says one girl in her class tried to kill herself four times in one week. The class project was called "Masquerade"-a 'magazine
journal' that was full of subliminal messages and images. The teacher, a 'Jean Newman'(phonetic) described herself as a psychic and was overly
sexual.
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eagle forum.org
"One student told the Associated Press that shooter Eric Harris was asked to write out his will as part of a class assignment."
CBI Reports(12029)
"Exhibit 4 was found to contain... various school assignments from Eric Harris. Several of these appear to be creative writing assignments and deal with
violence and dream sequences similar to the shooting."
"Let Justice be done, though the heavens fall" -Garrison-
On March 22, 2001(just 17 days after a fatal school attack in Santee, CA), Jason Hoffman, 18 walked into Granite Hills HS near Santee and wounded 5 before he was shot. A local school district worker posted this example of the kind of education they were pushing at Granite Hills:
"Some of the schools programs can only be considered bizarre. One two-day event involving the entire school, highlighted on the Granite Hills web page, is headlined by a skull and bones caricature and another cartoon of the Grim Reaper. The program, "Every 15 minutes," is described as:
" During the first day events the "Grim Reaper" calls students who have been selected from a cross-section of the entire student body out of class. One student is removed from class every 15 minutes. A police officer will immediately enter the classroom to read an obituary which has been written by the "dead" student's parent(s) - explaining the circumstances of their classmate's demise and the contributions the student has made to the school and the community. A few minutes later, the student will return to class as the "living dead," complete with white face make-up, a coroner's tag, and a black "Every 15 Minutes" T-shirt. From that point on "victims" will not speak or interact with other students for the remainder of the school day. Simultaneously, uniformed officers will make mock death notifications to the parents of these children at their home, place of employment or business... During the most powerful program of the retreat, the students will be taken through an audio - visualization of their own death....On the following morning, a mock funeral service will be held at the High School.
The assembly will began with a video of normal school day activities including scenes from the first day of the "Grim Reaper" and the staged accident. The assembly will be hosted by an Officer (Project Coordinator), who will guide the audience through the devastating effects of losing a loved one due to a bad choice "
The web site highlights photos of moments from last year's two-day event, bloodied and smashed students being carted off in ambulance carts-a simulation. "
www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~rgibs...vilege.htm
