We must take a harder look at ourselves and our schools. There is a dangerous disconnect between teen-agers and adults in contemporary western culture. The gap has been there for decades, but our changing lifestyles and technology are making it wider and deeper. Technological advances are not going to stop, so that leaves lifestyles as the top candidate for alteration. Much is being made of the cliques that permeated Columbine High School in Littleton, an affluent suburb of Denver.
Cliques are nothing new.
All schools, public and private, have them. What seems to be different, not only in Columbine, is that cliques exhibiting deviant behavior are considered a normal part of the in-school scene. Where once the circle of adult authority extended all the way to the edge of school property and into the community, that circle has shrunk to classrooms and administrative offices. And it is under attack there too. Schools, large high schools in particular, have succumbed to the societal notion that beyond certain areas that are the domain of authority figures, everywhere else is an authority-free zone.