"Education Under Attack"

Virgina Tech has made all of us sensitive to the potential for unexpected violence. Part of that is because we see schools as a safe place. Students and teachers are unacceptable targets. Even now we see the threat coming from disturbed individuals instead of groups or governments, and for that we are lucky.

The United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization has been researching the violence committed against education by military and political groups. The report Education Under Attack outlines their findings and discusses several case studies. This report excludes student to student violence. Rather it talks about the teachers and young girls who are attacked in Afghanistan who are attacked by military groups who don't believe women should be educated. It talks about the groups that raid schools for soldiers and kill any students who refuse to enlist. Teachers are refusing to teach because they know that it is putting the students' lives at risk. Many of these schools cannot ask for protection, because the military troops that the government would send out are just as much a target as the school is.

According to the report, these attacks are increasing. The number of lives lost for education is increasing, and because of it, the number of children receiving an education is decreasing. In these areas that are entangled in civil combat, children who are not in the classroom are hauling ammo or searching for land mines. I mourn for the people in America who suffered a loss to school violence. I ache for the countries that are losing their futures to school violence.