Classroom attacks

Every week, young people who excel in their fields of endeavour feature on the pages of this newspaper.

The scope, extent and level of their achievements can beggar belief.

Young people today are doing remarkable things, whether in music, sports, arts, civics or academia.

It is appropriate to remember this as answers are sought in relation to the instances, seemingly on the increase, by which members of their "tribe" horrify society.

The more wayward or outrageous that behaviour, the greater the puzzlement and the louder the clamour for explanation.

Thus it is in the case of the 13-year-old year 9 Te Puke High School boy who attacked his teacher with a 10cm kitchen knife, stabbing him in the neck and shoulders several times.

A centimetre or two either way, it must be supposed, and the injuries could have been fatal.

The attack has been met with anger at the perpetrator, sympathy for the teacher, incredulity that it could have happened at all, and revelations of just how common classroom assaults are becoming.

In 2008, 238 pupils were stood down for assaulting teachers; 442 teachers needed treatment after assaults at school in 2008 and 2009 at a cost of $413,000.

At the very least, these statistics show that such a shocking attack as happened on Monday at Te Puke is hardly an aberration.

Pupil-teacher assaults are an increasing problem in our schools.

The question is, why? Why did the boy have a knife at school? Whatever possessed him to make this apparently unprovoked attack? Was he, is he, prone to violent outbursts or physical aggression? If he had an issue or a grievance, why did he not first attempt to resolve them otherwise? Perhaps he did, and perhaps more of the background to this terrible episode will yet emerge, but it will not diminish either the viciousness of the assault, nor the level of accountability to which the assailant must be held - regardless of his age.

Whenever such adverse events occur, the quest for answers throws up familiar oppositions.

Nature or nurture? Is it simply inevitable, and a matter of biology, that unduly aggressive individuals arise in any population? Is there a little bit of evil in us all - the "original sin" of William Golding's Lord of the Flies - or are we, in fact, all, as Jean-Jacques Rousseau might have suggested, pure souls awaiting corruption by the society we keep?When it comes to outbreaks of violence in schools, New Zealand has been comparatively fortunate: we have not suffered the massacres that forever will be associated with Scotland's Dunblane, Colorado's Columbine, or Finland's Jokela and Kauhajoki schools.

It is not that we are ultimately immune from the influence of the internet, drug abuse, depression or the tangled psyche of adolescence sent spiralling into murderous intent by deadly cocktails of hormones, hatred and homicidal fantasy.

With our lesser population such incidents as could escalate, given opportunity - and ready access to firearms - to such catastrophes, might be expected to be fewer in number.

But the Te Puke incident shows those in authority and responsible for safety in our classrooms and our school playgrounds cannot take this for granted.

Neither should those charged with the care of children or youths underestimate the potency of the popular drinking culture that has long had hold of some young New Zealanders.

The tragic death of 16-year-old Auckland schoolboy James Webster at the party of a schoolmate, having drunk large quantities of vodka, is illustrative of its power and dangers.

Young men - and increasingly women - have traditionally pushed the boundaries of alcohol consumption in a variety of "rites of passage", but the adverse events, and tragedies, associated with such actions seem only to increase.

There are no simple answers, and it is counterproductive to generalise on the nature of the cure, but equally it is irresponsible as a society simply to ignore such problems and hope they will go away.

The time-honoured antics and challenging temperaments of teenagers will see to that.

The trick, if it can be conjured up, is to head off such calamities at the pass.