Did you all see the article stating that the shooter had failed an oral exam at the college recently and it devastated him? Reminds me of a student I used to case manage. He was very bright and never had to do school work as it just all came naturally to him. Until he entered high school and then he didn't know how to cope. Didn't know how to study because he never had to. Really went down hill. Also just read another article that states that he sent a package to a campus psychiatrist with a notebook inside detailing how he was going to kill a lot of people in the near future. Police apparently found this package in a mailroom at the college and found that inside.
You're in mental health/counselling? Sounds like fascinating work...
The problem I had in school was that, through about third grade, the teachers would just keep me amused by going to the higher grades and getting me progressively harder work for me to do (I did more learning in a Saturday after-noon at the library than I did in a week of school.)
I ended up about four years ahead of the system. And stayed there.
In fourth grade, I was given work that I'd done before. Mum had kept my previous work, so I just took it in. I got failed because I didn't do the work when
they handed it to me, and I have
never liked having to repeat myself.
So, I ended up continuing the previous pattern - marking time in class, learning at the library on Saturday. But, my marks (unsurprisingly) tanked.
I kept telling them it was because I was bored.
Come about seventh grade, they pulled me out of classes for a week for a comprehensive psych eval (which was really kinda fun - and more interesting than anything I'd done in school in the last few years.) They found:
- I was bored with what I was being given (ya think? You spend $20K to figure out what I'd been telling you
gratis for the last few years?)
- They had difficulty trying to quantify my intelligence on standard scales.
- My aptitudes were for
learning. No specific field, just the act of learning proper.
- My guidance counsellors were confused - I had a genius-level IQ, but enjoyed shop classes (I like working with my hands. Still do. I'd rather built something than design it, but I'll do the design as well. I just get to build the first unit...)
As a result of that, I got offered to take part in a pilot programme that Purdue was offering - actually, two:
- I could take college-level courses on Saturdays, which allowed me to stack up plenty of prerequisites for a degree. (I also got high school credit for the courses, so I "overmaxed" my graduation requirements...)
- I could take internships with various departments at Purdue in the evening, which allowed me to play with a bunch of fun stuff!
I'd have done better if I could have just given the rest of high school a miss (I'd taught myself calculus by the time I was twelve, I graduated speaking Spanish, Latin, and German,) but IN would only let me graduate one semester early (I had to come back my senior year just to take Civics - which I'd happily have taken in summer school and had done with the whole deal. So, my senior year first semester, I took Civics and six shop courses.)
I ran something like a 1.2GPA through high school - because I was bored out of my mind. I've been to college twice, maintained an aggregate 3.9GPA. College, at least, was
interesting.
There's usually a very fine line between "genius" and "insanity" - primarily because "genius" is often crippled by society trying to force conformity to its norms (and forcing people to fit in with the "Lowest Common Denominator" - read
Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. for what I mean there.)
My psych evals have always made for interesting reading.
I'm not trying to justify this halfwit's actions - I'd still like to hear what his stated motive would be. I can't see that
anything would justify murdering a dozen people and damaging five dozen more; and it was obviously not "blue suicide" because he surrendered peacefully. So, there's something else going on here, and we haven't found out what it is.
Finding out the contents of the journal that was found would be interesting, pity we'll probably never see it in original, unredacted form.
