Senseless messes

This morning, while I set up my visual aids for class, I could hear 3 of my students talking quietly in the back row about the shootings at Virginia Tech. They were sharing what they had heard most recently, trying to make sense out of a senseless event.

Usually, I try to chime in to student discussion to make connections with them. But this morning I pretended not to hear. I couldn't even begin to talk about this horrible tragedy with them. I kept thinking about the brave professors who sacrificed their lives for their students. What would I do? Here I was in a personality psychology class, but knowing psychology has no real meaningful answers.

At that time, they had not released any information about the shooter. By the time class was over, the news shows were all showing his picture, and were gathering their soundbites from neighbors and fellow students. No surprise - a loner who was angry. I'm sure in coming days we will hear speculations about his parents, his mental health, the music he listens to, the "warning signs" that someone should have paid attention to (as if anyone could predict such an event), the video games he plays, etc., all to try to come up with an answer so that 1) we have someone or something to blame; 2) we can assure ourselves it would never happen to us.