Even after the release of more than 35,000 pages of documents from 26 agencies, people have been looking for answers to why Columbine happened for more than 23 years. Those answers have been obvious to many of us since day one, and if you’re one of those people, it’s probably frustrating when people refuse to listen when you explain the simplicity of it all.
As with any case, you’ve probably noticed that no matter how many documents get released over the years, the question of why still lingers in people’s minds…
The question lingers because it’s not really a question. Allow me to explain…
For most people, asking “why” is an outcry in disbelief and disgust, not a sincere question. If it were a sincere question, they would be able to hear the answers that have been pouring in left and right for over two decades.
These people are not asking why from a place of genuine curiosity. It’s actually an expression of outrage. There is no question mark at the end – they’re not asking, “why?” They’re exclaiming, “WHY!”
This is why people can’t hear you when you try to explain why Columbine happened. When people are in a state of outrage, communication is impossible. On the other hand, asking why from a place of curiosity creates the space for communication to take place.
If you don’t understand why Columbine happened, it’s not hard to understand, but you’ll never “get it” until you drop the outrage and start listening.
To hear the answer, you have to come to the question empty—without an agenda. And that’s precisely the problem. Most people who ask why are coming to the table with an agenda, and aren’t really listening.
We’re Not Really Listening—We’re Just Waiting to Talk
Human beings have a listening problem. Everyone wants to “tell their side of the story,” argue their points, and make people wrong; almost nobody wants to just listen. But communication only happens inside of listening. Communication doesn’t happen when you speak. The person who listens is the only person who completes a communication.
When two people come together to discuss a subject they already have strong opinions about, there is no space for listening to take place. The space is filled with existing judgments and beliefs as they talk at each other.
Listening is a rare skill. What most people call ‘listening’, is really just ‘waiting to talk.’ While one person shares their opinion, the other is formulating their next sentence in order to make the other person wrong and prove their point. Authentic listening rarely actually happens.
I’m willing to bet that most people on Earth have never listened to another human being in their entire life. Unfortunately for humanity, school violence will never end until people start listening to school shooters, people who were caught before they went through with their plans, and people who understand the mindset.
That’s a scary thought for most people. Why would anyone want to listen to someone so full of hate and rage? I’ll tell you why. It’s the key to disarming their rage. Part of the reason their rage builds so intensely is the fact that nobody listens.
Here’s what listening looks like in this context:
Adult: Why did you want to kill everyone at school?
Teen: Because everyone is mean to me, the teachers won’t stop it, I’m forced to go to school every day, and I can’t get away from them.
Adult: I got it. Okay. So people are mean to you and the teachers don’t stop it from happening. You probably feel like the teachers don’t care, and are just letting it happen…
Teen: Yeah…
Adult: And you probably feel trapped because you share the same classes and see them in the halls and cafeteria, and it’s not like you can just go to another classroom or transfer to another school…
Teen: Exactly.
Adult: Tell me more about that. Why does killing them look like a better option asking a teacher or the principal for help?
Teen: Because the teachers know and they don’t do anything. There’s no other option.
Adult: So you feel trapped because the teachers know and don’t do anything, and the people who treat you poorly aren’t being made to stop what they’re doing?
Teen: Yes.
Adult: So then the only way to make them stop is to kill them?
Teen: Yeah.
Does that conversation scare you? It should. Not because it might encourage someone to go through with murder, but because that’s the kind of conversation that can actually stop someone from choosing to kill their classmates. Yet, most of the world is too chicken shit to have this kind of conversation. People can’t admit their own rage, so there’s no way in hell they’re going to allow someone else to be authentic about theirs.
I can tell you from experience that this conversation leads people away from violence because that’s the kind of conversation I had with teenagers who later shared with me that the way I connected with them literally made them change their mind about shooting up their school.
I didn’t do anything special. All I did was listen. Really, truly, listen.
And listening is the key because it does two important things. One, it gives the person the experience of being heard – really heard, and understood without being judged. And two, it clarifies the root of the problem they’re having. If you listen to someone enough you can uncover exactly what their problem is. And if you have eyes to see, just by re-reading that conversation above, you will have every answer you seek about school violence.
When kids are struggling with bullies, they feel powerless to make it stop because they’ve been indoctrinated into a dysfunctional system that forces them to co-exist with their bullies. And they really are powerless because they have no autonomy. They can’t change schools, choose their classes, or walk away. Telling kids to “walk away” from their bullies is stupid advice because all they can do is walk around a corner, where the next bully will be waiting, and then go back to school the next day only to be bullied again for 12 years until they graduate. In the workplace, that same behavior would get someone fired. Yet, we force our kids to endure it? It makes no sense.
And the adults with all the power – the adults who COULD help – aren’t listening. These kids are being brushed off. Nobody is helping them solve their problems at the root. They have nobody to turn to. Their parents and the law both force them to subject themselves to an abusive environment day after day, often with the same people, for 12 years. And inside that abusive environment, they have no rights and no choices.
The adults who don’t listen to them have all the power to control every aspect of what they can and cannot do inside of the system. They are literally trapped and powerless. They have no options, and no solutions. And they cannot see any way out. The only way out is their own death and/or to make one final statement of rage and kill everyone. Many are so jaded that they hate the whole world at that point because everyone has failed them – the school, their parents, their teachers, everyone deserves to die in their eyes because nobody helped them.
The entire situation is futile. And that sense of futility stems from the fact that nobody listens to them. And since they can’t change anything, and if nobody who can make changes listens to them, they know their life inside the system isn’t going to change, so what else is there besides death?
People don’t generally get bullied once or twice and decide to shoot up their school. The desire to kill arises when the adults in their lives refuse to listen and do something about what they’re experiencing in an environment they cannot escape from. And that’s where the magic of listening comes in. That’s why listening works.
As adults, we have the ability to walk away from someone who is abusive and we never have to look back. We don’t ever have to call them, look at them, talk to them, or share any space with them. We forget that our kids don’t have the same luxury of being able to choose to walk away. They can walk away in the moment, but an hour later they’re forced to sit near their abusers and there’s no way out. Both parents and teachers become targets because they allow it to happen.
Two important things happen when you listen.
First, the other person’s communication is fully received by you. And two, when you repeat their expression back to them, you are acknowledging and confirming to them that you really got what they shared. It has nothing to do with making them right or wrong, and everything to do with getting their communication.
Listening is Getting Someone’s Communication
When you listen to somebody, you come to the conversation as an empty vessel so you can receive their communication. When you’re just waiting to talk, you aren’t going to get anyone’s communication.
When you are listening to someone, you are in their world. Because listening isn’t about proving points or debating, you suspend any and all judgments and opinions you might have about what they’re sharing. You turn off the voice in your head that compels you to defend your point of view. Yes, even if someone is telling you they want to kill their classmates.
Arguing, making points, countering concepts and debating all prevent listening from taking place.
Listening to someone without defending your very different personal point of view doesn’t mean you’re agreeing with their perspective. It means you’ve got what it takes to create a space for others to be fully self-expressed. And that is how school shootings are prevented. It may sound scary to allow a teenager to express the reason they want to kill their classmates, but it’s the first key to preventing them from acting on their desire.
Every day a kid goes to school, they will experience the same fear and rage that they did the first time they experienced being powerless. As long as that fear and powerlessness is suppressed, those feelings will grow stronger every time they walk onto school grounds. Listening to our kids allows them to release their suppression of fear, rage, and powerlessness, and to be truly heard, understood, and validated, and only then does it stand a chance to disappear.
