Charter students sit in and speak out
DEVIN WEEKS/Press “We need to be prepared, not afraid,” Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy junior Zach DeLuca said to his fellow students Wednesday morning during a school safety seminar in the school’s commons. Zach and many students wore orange to stand in solidarity with students across the nation as they participated in walkouts and safety events one month after 17 people were killed in the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
Karson Chrispens, a junior at Coeur d'Alene Charter Academy, addresses how important it is to make each person feel appreciated as he speaks to his peers Wednesday morning. The school held a safety seminar in conjunction with the school walkout movement that took place across the nation one month after the high school shooting in Parkland, Fla. (DEVIN WEEKS/Press)
Well more than 100 students packed into the commons of Coeur d'Alene Charter Academy to hear their peers speak Wednesday morning during the national high school walkout event. At the podium, freshman Max Wilderson spoke about the implications of arming America's teachers. (DEVIN WEEKS/Press)
COEUR d’ALENE — Unwavering and resolute, Merrick Bonar received applause from his peers as he stood at the podium Wednesday morning.
"I wish that everyone in this room would treat others as if they could say something worthwhile at any moment, and to behave in such a manner that would permit the reception of such ideas," the Coeur d'Alene Charter Academy junior said. "It is through mutual sincerity that we create community, those we can fall back on when the burden of life becomes too great to bear alone.
“It is through community that we create resilient individuals capable of gaining meaning from the ardor of life. Resilient people are safe people," he said, his voice rising above the applause. "Resilient students are safe students. Resilient societies are safe societies."
About 200 Charter students gathered in the school's commons during a study period to hear six of their peers speak on topics that included arming or not arming teachers, teaching students self-defense, firearms education, school reform and how to help each person feel important.
Many students wore orange to show their solidarity with the National School Walkout movement, including junior Zach DeLuca.
"We’re so saturated with news about the shootings that it has kind of instilled an atmosphere of fear. Personally, I don’t know most of the local events that are going on around here, but I did hear about a shooting all the way across the country," DeLuca said. "We are becoming so saturated with the knowledge and information that somewhere, someone’s being shot, and we are all being told to be afraid. That’s the problem there.
"We don’t need to be afraid of everything that’s out there. We need to be prepared, but not afraid."
Freshman Max Wilderson said a huge issue is education.
"People don’t understand the tools used in these attacks," he said. "If people understand the tools used in these attacks, we can understand the attacks themselves in a greater light — how people got access to the firearms, how people know how to use them, how the shooter learned and, especially, how to deal with that situation if you are in the place of a mass shooting without qualified security personnel to help protect you."
Almost all of the students touched on the importance of building community and promoting understanding and compassion.
"The digital age has disconnected us as people, disconnected us from each other,” Wilderson said. “In the past, people would connect with each other, with their towns, with their families through religion or social programs or get-togethers. That doesn’t happen as much anymore, and I see that influencing the shooters.
"The shooters now don’t have people to connect to, people they can talk to who can help them become better people. This causes them to be disconnected from the rest of society and to do things the rest of us wouldn’t even think of."
Junior Karson Chrispens said the origin of the problem is "people who are broken … People who have been secluded and outcast and who have not been respected, who then feel that life itself is not something to be valued."
He referred to the Columbine and Freeman high school shooters.
"All three of them suffered from depression, attention deficit disorders and broken childhoods where they were outcast and not paid attention to and cared for,” Chrispens said. "By being responsible citizens and being responsible for our own actions and our actions toward others, I think we can successfully address the origin of this problem — because if we talk to those and include those who seem outcast, they will be able to discuss their own opinions and their own views, and hopefully we can remedy the problems that have arisen in their lives.
"As people in the world, we have a right to respect, but we also have a responsibility to be wise in our direction of that respect."