i just realized i said 9th grader... wow i feel stupid... but i agree with everyone thats for sure... the media coverage is causing alot of this... now i don't think violent video games and movies make kids do anything... a 3rd grader knows right from wrong... they still make the choice... however bad it may be... i watched r rated movies younger than that and i played violent video games however i don't want to kill anyone... so i think thats a weak cop out for ppl.

There is a correlation between violent media (games, tv,etc) and violent behavior in kids but of course that doesn't mean it's the cause.

Well if you (in a general sense) start blaming video games and other forms of art for causing the problems of the world then you have to eliminate all art out there because interpretation is everything. A kid could interpret Dr. Seuss as something bad if he/she really wanted to. I mean, look at the arguments between anybody who fancies him/herself a critic/fan of art, and the opinions vary drastically.

This is one of the more important topics to me because it has to do with art and since I want to make a living with art, it actually deeply affects me.

No doubt that some children lack the ability to distinguish the difference between "real life" and uh, pretend, but I hate seeing the media completely blow it out of proportion. Since I don't want to go too deeply into psychology here, I'll just say, I'd rather take the chances that one kid might read something violent and get ideas than to ban it and never have good art again.
Besides, what constitutes "bad lessons," anyways? You will not find many forms of art that celebrate mindless violence, even in video games. There's almost always a storyline of "good vs evil." But why look at the medium as a whole when we could just blame one aspect? We gotta blame SOMETHING, right? Can't blame the education system and their poor attempts to curve bullying or bad households or poverty caused by a capitalist society or... well you get my point.

And why does nobody ever include books when they're blaming art? Did that go out the window with Naked Lunch in the 60s or what? Funny when you consider how high up on the pedestal books are compared to newer artforms (such as movies or the baby of art, video games).

And now I'm gonna have a fucking pop.

I don't know why books are usually left out but they really shouldn't be. If Sesame Street can be bad for children, then nothing is safe. No art should be banned. The more violent and realistic forms should be kept out of childrens hands but not banned. If i was banning violent video games I'd have to ban myself from Resident Evil and I'm not going to do that. People don't pay enough attention to the research studying why this is happening. They hear correlation and assume that means they found the cause. The correlation coeffiecient between video games and violence is only +.2 That's enough to be concerned about but it is in no way showing a cause.

Maybe the correlation is because in today's society what people find shocking and disturbing is slimming down to mass murder. Rapists used to be executed. Now rape is just something we all deal with (that there will be rapists and there will be murderers). I can see them all getting ideas for the murder from stuff like video games and the idea to commit the murder from the nightly news, but we still need to accept that art inspires. I mean, it inspires in a good way and a bad way. Just because they plotted murder doesn't mean they were going to do it, and I don't think they were all desensitized to violence and death from Grand Theft Auto.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go jump on top of people's heads, throw turtles at dinosaurs, eat mushrooms, and climb through pipes.

I will go looking for the gold coins that ich_bin_butler missed

Wow I'm shocked that 3rd graders would even be able to plan something like this. I wonder what kind of punishment they would have gotten if they would have gone through with it.

This is why I think teachers should get what they asked for during these strikes.
You can never...never...never paid them enough for what is out there.Teachers have to deal with bullying , misbehavings , fightings and among other things.Now it is spreading to the "Mom and Pop" schools in the suburbs.

"The teacher was veteran educator, and teaches students with learning disabilities."

To me that sentence stuck out the most. Perhaps these weren't just your average 3rd graders (beyond the obviously rare violent behaviour)?

actually lipid, i think it would have been more shocking if they had been anything outher then normal 3rd graders.

i spend a lot of time working with all kinds of mentally disabled children, and the ones that are most agressive dont usually have the capasity to plan this far ahead, the ones that could plan this would not be agressive enough to carry it out.

odds of getting 9 people from that mix that would all take part. practically nill.

far more likly that normal third graders started to blur what is real and what is fake.