Reflections on Columbine: Standards for The Heart?

By Tony Wagner

Killing classmates is made more imaginable for adolescents by glorified revenge fantasies in the media and video games, and it is easier to accomplish with ready access to guns, but the root cause is neither of these. It is the absence of community for a growing number of young people. And reweaving that safety net of caring and respect for all our youths is everyone's responsibility.

A 17-year-old Columbine High School junior, Breanna Cook, framed the problem clearly in the April 23 edition of The New York Times : "I mean, it was just like it must be at every other high school in America. You know, kids can be really mean to each other, really cruel."

Breanna sees a problem in schools that too many adults ignore. In dozens of focus groups I've conducted with high school students all over the country in every kind of school--public and private, urban and suburban--the No. 1 concern of most students is not physical safety, as most adults may believe. It is that their schools are uncaring places where lack of...