When I first heard about Abigail Zwerner’s story, I had the strong feeling that we shouldn’t talk about it. To clarify, I do not feel that the story shouldn’t be addressed by the relevant community officials; rather, I feel that the widespread American public is inadequately informed to make meaningful statements about it. It is perhaps one of the most sensational news stories to come out of our already sensational news of recent years. It’s hard not to have a visceral reaction to the story of a six year old boy shooting his teacher.

Most of the messages and comments online are not without vitriol, and hardly any of the messages I found provided nuance or new information.

The only excuse I have for the irony of writing an article about why one should not write such an article is that the discussion will continue whether or not I participate in it, and I hope to at least mitigate its harsher effects through my participation.

My strong reaction that most people are not equipped to discuss this story came from watching this interview on Good Morning America. In the interview, Linsey Davis asks Deja Taylor, whose son shot his teacher, Abigail Zwerner, a series of carefully worded questions, which all, in my opinion, amount to alternate versions of “why the hell did this happen?” Next to the mother is her lawyer, who is prepared to intervene on those questions which veer too closely to “why the hell did you let this happen?”

At the close of the clip, Ms. Davis turns to the panel of hosts, and remarks: “Interestingly, he [Ms. Taylor’s son] doesn’t talk about the incident at all…” Fitting the genre of morning television talk shows which are always polite, often more pathetic than pathos-driven, Michael Strahan responds: “Hmmm, fascinating, alright Linsey…” George Stephanapolous looks dumbfounded.

Though this may appear to be an ad hominem attack on Ms. Davis, I have to say that hers was an incredibly idiotic remark. It is not interesting that this child has not been discussing what will (hopefully) be the most traumatic event of his life. Silence should be regarded as a humane, obvious and resilient strategy for a child who is trying to survive a horror which millions of people across this country are saying he created by his own hands.

It also must be noted that the lived and emotional realities of this child are affairs that we, as a society, have decided are beyond public purview; hence,  this child, Ms. Taylor’s son, has remained unnamed in all reports, and is instead referred to, ominously, as “the-boy-who-shot-his-teacher.” Because this boy has been deprived of his name, by right of secrecy, he often is portrayed as the sensational circus-freak the media want him to be; they use captivating titles like “THE FIRST GRADER WHO SHOT HIS TEACHER!” as a way of describing a child whose life has, already, been set on a very difficult path.

To remove some blame from Ms. Davis’s own person, it should be noted that television reporters in today’s age exist only to perform: their job is to achieve–through wardrobe, makeup, hair, facial contortion and vocal intonation–a relevant aesthetic response from the audience. They are supposed to appear attractive, intelligent, emotionally evocative, and always comprehensible. I do not mean to say that this art is achieved without use, labor or talent. I merely wish to indicate that the qualities which make for an excellent host do not always correlate with those of an excellent educator. Indeed, this entire story revolves around the dire conditions that exist for those who truly wish to be educators in today’s sensational, digital age.

The substance of a television host’s remarks is authored (almost) entirely by teams that carefully monitor what can and cannot be said, for profit, on national television. (The term “television” itself is skeuomorphic, since we have not yet settled on an updated term for the digital age.) These personalities do not speak their minds any more than they dress themselves. So, Ms. Davis’s remark, that this unnamed boy has not yet discussed shooting his teacher with anyone (so far as she knows), has been chosen to get a calculated response. And it’s worth investigating what those calculations were.

To simplify, for a bit, I will claim that those who engage with this story fit, for the most part, into Team O or Team T. Team O responds mostly with outrage and disgust, and would like to use the story as proof for how villainous people can be. Team T sees the story as tragic, and responds with incredible pain; they will seek further information about the people involved, hoping to prove–against the salient evidence–that people care about people, that they have capacities for resilience and healing. The division is simplistic, and it is likely that many people will oscillate between the two “teams”; still, the schema is relevant for understanding how this story affects us as observers.

The brilliance behind the idiocy of Ms. Davis’s remark is that, in its vapidity, it can appeal to both Teams simultaneously. To Team O, the remark will further indicate that this unnamed boy is a monster, seemingly unbothered by his heinous action. “He can shoot his teacher and not even bat an eye!” To Team T, who sees this event as a tragedy, and fears for the health and safety of everyone involved, this remark may instill hope that this child has capacities for resilience, perhaps has been spared the awful knowledge of his own deeds. The remark was preceded by the statement that the boy is receiving help and “treatment,” which fits with Team T’s hopeful relationship towards the story.

The realities of broadcasting make it so that no remark can give in wholly to either Team O or Team T. Imagine how people would react if George Stephanopoulos were not silent, seemingly dumbfounded. Imagine if he gave into his internal reactions of disgust and exclaimed: “Horrendous! I know that he’s just a kid, but how can he be unbothered by this?!” Poor George would probably not fair well, as he would appear to the morning viewers of this nation as callous and cruel. Or, if he emoted differently, overcome with grief, and said “What a horrible thing to go through, I can’t even imagine! I hope the boy’s okay!”, viewers would claim that he was being soft, a Pollyanna; they would likely lose their ideal of a Stoic, critical and hard-hitting “journalist.” So no emotion was, truly, expressed. “Hmm, fascinating,” in the dull words of Michael Strahan.

I should state that I personally find it tempting, though reckless, to feed into Team O. And those who have reported on this story have already stoked the flames. Despite having access to the relevant resources, ABC news did not qualify their statement with reasons why a child, whose nervous system has evolved to survive being surrounded by people two feet taller than him, would not discuss such a heinous event.

Trauma-informed child psychologists are readily available to explain why this boy’s silence would be natural and expected. Experts could explain how children who experience traumatic events, conditions that overwhelm their developmentally limited capacities to cope, often dissociate. Dissociation is a clinical term used to describe the phenomenon where a person’s memory or awareness is disrupted by an overwhelming event. Dissociation is common among all people who experience trauma, but it is especially common among children who experience overwhelming events.

When children experience dissociative symptoms, they may appear lifeless or unresponsive. I have heard one boy, who was frequently beaten by his parents, describe his habit of “zoning out,” where he became unable move. Sometimes, even with considerable conscious effort, it may be difficult for children to remember details of a story that caused them distress; for example, this boy may struggle to remember how his teacher’s frantic hands stained objects in the room in a seemingly endless, syrupy flow of red. Or children may struggle to answer questions that cause emotional distress; for example, the boy who had a “zoning out” habit would not be able to answer the question: “what was going on when your father got angry?” Dissociation is a deeper and more complex physiological event than one’s voice catching in one’s throat, though this may be the most accessible comparison for those who have not experienced dissociation themselves.

Even if the boy’s recall of the event were not, in a meaningful way, “blocked” by symptoms of dissociation, there would still be ample reasons for him to not discuss the event. It is unlikely that any six-year-old would have the level of reasoning required to understand the severity of firing a gun at someone. It would be developmentally appropriate for a six-year-old to associate guns with power and control, without understanding the consequences further. He may simply have believed that shooting, in an imagined form of “self-defense,” asserts one’s dominance and prevents others from “messing” with you; isn’t this the narrative that Americans have been putting forward throughout our culture, as the gun-lobbyists and stand-your-ground legislators argue for the benevolent omnipotence of guns? Isn’t the NRA engaging in a fantasy of magical thinking, the same way this boy was?

Even without the physiological excuse of dissociation, it would be fair to assume that the resulting shock and horror–as this boy saw first-hand just what guns really do–was enough to shame this boy into silence.

When it comes to this story, outrage will bubble under the surface because teachers, parents and children are all groups of people towards whom Americans feel a great deal of ambivalence. Most commonly, when we are being “politically correct,” we regard teachers as selfless sages who have sacrificed high pay and prestige for the sake of building the next generation. Similarly, we regard parents as loving and engaged caregivers, who are tasked with the difficult but spiritually significant job of raising children. And, certainly, no bad words can be stated about children: we regard them as innocent and inherently deserving of care, even if coming into contact with their rebellion and their incontinence quickly brings to mind the adage that “hell is other people.”

This story provides Team O with an outlet to voice their ambivalence after years of repressed silence. See? I told you! Parents/teachers/children are not as innocent as everyone wants you to believe!

Let’s start with teachers. Teachers who feel blamed for poor “classroom management” may build resentment towards parents as the secret villain that nobody else is willing to acknowledge as such. Teachers often resent parents, and feel that they are given the impossible task of raising a classroom full of children, when the “real” problem is that those children have not been shown proper “manners” at home. Out of frustration, there is a temptation to regard children’s aggressive behavior as the result of a parent’s refusal to set healthy boundaries and limits at home. (“Ooh, if that were my kid, let me tell you…”) This may be true, but the educational and child welfare systems often do a horrendous job of enabling parents and educators to set those healthy boundaries in ways that are consistent and non-restrictive.

Teachers do not always ask themselves whether parents can afford to provide for their children and be present for them. We, by which I mean American society writ large, do not question what resources parents deserve in order to be present for their children. The process of boundary-setting will itself require a great deal of resources, since it takes a great deal of time, labor and risk management to reach the point where children internalize the message that they cannot intimidate others to get what they want.

However, a great deal of danger arises when teachers assume that children misbehave because their parents do not set enough boundaries. There are many teachers who assume that misbehaving children are entitled: that children, as a result of being spoiled, feel that they can push and pull, scream and yell, to get what they want. Teachers may decide to correct this system, by taking on the character of the big, bad guy. They will act aggressively, hoping to intimidate children out of their bad behavior. The problem arises when children act aggressively not because their parents were too soft or too absent, but because they are merely copying the aggressive behavior that their parents or community members have already modeled for them. The teacher becomes yet another example for children that life is a struggle, so that children, always observant students, learn how to fight by copying the adults around them. For these and similar reasons, abuse and frustration may multiply across familial and educational systems.

Of course, the behavior may also be due to the internal struggles (developmental, neurological, emotional) which prevent children from regulating their behaviors and their emotions, the same way that babies are not born able to control their bowels. In those cases, teachers and parents alike find themselves overwhelmed by their children’s behaviors. Although, each–out of their shame of being powerless over such a small, fragile being; or their  fear of being called a bad teacher or parent–pre-empts blame by accusing the other party of negligence and ineptitude. Despite needing each other desperately, teachers and parents may–as a result of their shared distress–develop an acrimonious relationship. And both feel the impulse to give up: “there’s not a diaper big enough for this shit!”

In this case, there is a temptation to blame Ms. Deja Taylor. How did her son get the gun, anyway? Perhaps, our most paranoid thoughts seem to tell us, Ms. Taylor even encouraged her son’s violence against a teacher that they both despised. The answers are unlikely to be found through speculation, though speculating would allow Team O to feel the joy of seeing Ms. Taylor as a deeply depraved individual. See? I told you! Parents aren’t so innocent!

Out of institutional pressures to make quick decisions, decisions which are often made harsher when put under public scrutiny, child welfare officials have decided that Ms. Taylor is unable to parent her child due to neglect. In my clinical opinion, this is a dumb, even dangerous, response. Instead of regarding themselves as mandatory supporters, responsible for intervening during dangerous situations, child welfare professionals are institutionally organized around being mandated reporters, responsible for identifying and isolating dangerous people. If the problem is that Ms. Taylor was negligent in the way that she secured her firearm (a tremendous mistake that she is unlikely to make twice), then there are ways that Ms. Taylor could be banned from owning a firearm, or required to secure it in certain ways, with continuous home checks to insure that Ms. Taylor did not have unlawful possession or position of a firearm. This would be an invasive intervention, but still significantly less severe than child removal.

Unless there was the presence of severe abuse and neglect (a possibility that I am not eliminating), then the decision to remove Ms. Taylor’s son from her care puts him at greater risk, not less. In such cases, any behavioral prognosis for her son is going to get worse, not better, if he is separated from his primary caregiver.

What Team O will miss is that Ms. Taylor accompanied her son while he was at school, was literally at his side in the classroom. She was an engaged, collaborative presence, trying to make sure that her son could receive an education, using the resources available to her. This highly unorthodox arrangement indicates the extent to which Ms. Taylor’s son had behavioral needs that far exceeded what the school was able to meet, and yet the school proceeded with the arrangement anyway, leaving Ms. Taylor and Ms. Zwerner responsible.

This strange arrangement also indicates the extent to which Ms. Taylor has a strong relationship with her son, and is able to help him regulate his behavior. In the parlance of clinical social work, we call this kind of strong attachment between parent and child a “protective factor,” meaning that it can prevent  dangerous behaviors, or at least lessen their effects. When the school administrators made the decision, shortly before the incident, that Ms. Taylor was no longer required to accompany her son in the classroom, there was no replacement “protective factor” put in place to mitigate the risk. Child welfare officials have done something similar, removing Deja’s son from his home; and law enforcement hopes to do the same, by incarcerating her.

And so Team O will vilify Ms. Taylor, while we have enough reasons to assume that she is far more human than monster.

Parents, too, will have their reasons to vilify Ms. Zwerner. This is particularly the case for families of color, given how parents are rightfully concerned that their children will be discriminated against, disproportionately punished, as part of the widely evident school-to-prison pipeline. For some, it may be easier to believe that white teachers can be violently racist towards their black students (which is an already known reality) than to believe that children can be capable of consequential malice, even at such a young age.

Those engaged with this story are likely to develop the question: “what can a teacher do that could possibly make a boy act in this way?” When we read this question in a tragic key, it shows how odd and harmful the boy’s behavior was, how undeserved, absurd. When we read this question in a baffled key, hoping to find an answer to the puzzle, we may wonder how villainous Ms. Zwerner could have been to incite so much anger, such extreme violence, from such a young child.

Indeed, Ms. Taylor’s legal defense has chosen this latter option, in highlighting how the boy felt “ignored,” how he was punished by his teacher in ways that were potentially inappropriate or excessive. Of course, if the legal defense were to find evidence that Ms. Zwerner acted in ways that betrayed her own emotional state, so that her responses were at times unprofessional or her behaviors excessive to the demands of the moment, then this would not serve to prove that Ms. Zwerner is a bad teacher, and certainly would not justify the boy’s response. If anything, emotional, excessive reactions are to be expected (on a weekly, if not daily, basis), when teachers are under-resourced and forced to meet impossible demands.

But the temptation remains: See? I told you teachers aren’t so innocent!

And the last person who will be vilified is the boy himself.

To those who do want to vilify this boy, I want to ask them what our responsibilities would be, even towards an apparently “villainous” child. What if this boy were to have refused everything we asked of him? What would be our remaining responsibilities to him? What if, like Bartleby the Scrivener, he responded to every request with the pithy refusal: “I would prefer not to”? What are our responsibilities towards children who are unproductive, perhaps even destructive? Can we love those children who stubbornly, even excessively, deny our demands of them to be composed, effortful, focused?

Throughout my engagement with this story, I have been reminded of a passage from Melville’s tale. When Bartleby refuses to work, refuses to engage with life as others see fit, his employer is at first charitable and curious, hoping to rid Bartleby of his apparent pain: the thorn-in-the-paw obstructing his next, forward step. As he loses hope for returning Bartleby to a state of efficiency, having been left with an utterly inoperable employee, the narrator speaks truth to the limits of how much of others’ suffering we can accept:

“My first emotions had been those of pure melancholy and sincerest pity; but just in proportion as the forlornness of Bartleby grew and grew to my imagination, did that same melancholy merge into fear, that pity into repulsion. So true it is, and so terrible too, that up to a certain point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but, in certain special cases, beyond that point it does not. They err who would assert that invariably this is owing to the inherent selfishness of the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness of remedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot lead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul rid of it. What I saw that morning persuaded me that the scrivener was the victim of innate and incurable disorder.”

Imagine that you are a parent, and your child was in Ms. Zwerner’s class. Though we like to say that children are innocent and inherently deserving of care, you are unlikely to eye this boy with unconditional positive regard. You are likely to feel angry that your child has been stuck in a classroom with someone far too disruptive, and that your child was, as a result, unable to learn. In this case, you are likely to be enraged that your child was endangered, exposed to such traumatic violence.

Most parents will, at first, turn their blame towards the parent of the disruptive child. You will think to yourself: well, my child isn’t like that. What’s she doing, that her child is so different? This is a dangerous way to think, particularly as disparities in wealth and the corresponding investment in children’s well-being make it so that affluent parents will be able to say to themselves uncritically my child doesn’t act like that, without ever considering it inequitable that their children have been provided with the resources to act differently.

Did your child witness a shooting in their building this week? Did your child’s classmate? What has your child’s classmate eaten this week? We should think about how children’s differing levels of trauma exposure (through community violence as well as inadequate food and shelter) will lead to differences in how children are able to participate and function in the classroom (even if we were to have well-funded classrooms with culturally responsive teachers). It’s worth noting Resmaa Menakem’s observation, in My Grandmother’s Hands, that “[w]hat we call out as individual personality flaws, dysfunctional family dynamics, or twisted cultural norms are sometimes manifestations of historical trauma.”

However, it should be noted that children coming from similar environments will still differ from each other in their neurology and development. And the differences between children will bring into consideration its own ethical dimensions.

Some parents may look at this boy’s mother with sympathy, seeing her earnest and extreme efforts to provide for her family. But even those so empathetically inclined may wish to tell this parent to give up. The thought “I couldn’t imagine how I would manage my child’s needs if he had needs like that” becomes “I couldn’t manage my child’s needs the way she does” becomes “she shouldn’t have to manage her child’s needs.” Those linked to this mother by sentiments of pity will inevitably, like the employer towards Bartleby, feel repulsion. They might feel a perverse sense of relief if this mother were “relieved” of the duties of parenting.

Indeed, this mother would be justified if she wanted respite: if, like Atlas, she wanted someone to help shoulder the burden, at least for a moment. Of course, this would rely on a system of social services that could reliably match the needs of parents in order to sustain their families’ connection. All this to say, the other, empathetically-inclined parents in the community would have to step in, offer support, rather than give in to the paternalistic impulse to send this boy away.

We have come a long way from the ancient Roman days of leaving children out to die, but Bartleby’s reality is still with us. We have decided that some people have needs which exceed what any single parent is able to provide, and that such children deserve institutional care. Historically, Americans have often made that determination without the parents’ own involvement. And the quality of institutional care in America has not, historically, been so distant from those ancient Roman days.

A significant part of the problem is that, in our arbitrations over how much support parents deserve and in what cases, we have over-relied on diagnoses.  Diagnoses have, thanks to the gains made by disability rights advocates, the potential of legal promise. They are labels by which those who are suffering can certify that they are deserving of care. However, in addition to the promise of change, diagnoses are also labels which indicate a society’s certitude of failure. As the employer looks at Bartleby, he sees an “innate and incurable disorder.” For some, diagnoses may suggest the path forward; for others, they will indicate the extent to which we should just give up on change.

In Love’s Executioner, Irvin Yalom famously remarked that “borderline,” (as in “borderline personality disorder”) is “the word that strikes terror in the heart of the middle-aged comfort-seeking therapist.” Preceding this remark, Yalom describes the intimidating history of a person with borderline personality disorder, who presents with “multiple suicide attempts, eating disorder, early sexual abuse by her father, episodic psychotic thinking, [and] twenty-three years of therapy”. Psychiatrists may similarly shudder when they engage the patient who experiences paranoid delusions and has already been labelled as “treatment resistant.”

So, too, the child who is labelled with “oppositional defiant disorder” bears the mark of earlier providers’ frustrations. Those children in whom society is most reluctant to invest, whose needs are most likely to be regarded as excessive, bear the brunt of this diagnosis. Historically, black boys, and youth in foster care, have been disproportionately labelled with “oppositional defiant disorder.”

And this history is relevant to the discussion surrounding Ms. Taylor’s son. Because this story is about an incredibly young, black person who acted out in an incredibly violent way, Team O will find fuel in this story for the racist conviction that black men are born violent. They will see this story not as proof for the inadequate support provided to black boys in this country, but as support for the white supremacy that this country has yet to disown.

As a clinician who suffers with the symptoms of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), and as a clinician who has helped children to receive the ADHD diagnosis required for them to access relevant care, I have complicated feelings about this case. Ms. Taylor, as part of her defense, has publicized her child’s diagnosis of ADHD as an “acute disability.” As a clinician, I feel it imperative to note the irrelevance of this diagnosis for predicting the child’s behavior in this case; further, associating the diagnosis with this behavior risks worsening public myths and confusions about ADHD. Telling a clinician that this boy has ADHD would not help the clinician to determine his course of treatment, particularly if the goals of that treatment are to lessen the risks associated with possession of a firearm.

And “possession of a firearm” is not yet a DSM diagnosis. That is not to say that Ms. Taylor should herself be pathologized for choosing to own a firearm. But, from the perspective of a public health emergency, we should wonder what conditions exist which made Ms. Taylor feel that possession of a firearm was a necessary step towards insuring her and her family’s safety. Surely those conditions are more contributive to the outcome of this story than the boy’s diagnosis of ADHD?

Ultimately, the use of diagnosis is frustrating to me because there is a great extent to which children are pathologized for being children. Diagnosis is relevant to the extent, and only to the extent, that it gives clarity–to the providers who diagnose and the people who are diagnosed–on the best courses of treatment and self-care. But the clinical terms come loose from the conditions they describe; instead, they are tossed around as insults and anxieties.

In the end, diagnoses increase the more that a society places demands for efficiency, as that society will isolate and seek to obliterate any obstacles to a person’s performance. (People will also seek diagnoses for themselves, the less they are able to meet the expectations of others, and the more that they place impossible expectations on themselves.) And so I am wary that we turn to diagnoses when the issue depends on the excessive demands that adults place on children. The temptations to diagnose are made more powerful, because, recently, in the aftermath of burnout, grief and isolation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, educational institutions have set goals that are and were impossible for both students and teachers to achieve.

And another, significant problem, only tangentially related to this story, is the strong divergence between the motivations for which parents have children and the unpredicted (if not unpredictable) reality of caring for a child.

One way of posing the situation is to create a version of John Rawls’s thought experiment, called the veil of ignorance. In that thought experiment, Rawls argued that resources would be more justly shared if individuals made decisions about resource distribution from behind a “veil of ignorance.” In other words, stakeholders would have to decide what resources are to be awarded to each position, without knowing what their ultimate position will be. If we applied that logic to this narrative, how would Americans invest in child welfare differently, if they all thought that their child had the possibility of acting as this child did, of shooting his teacher?

Though many people will want to defend themselves as parents, and blame Ms. Taylor, I want to ask that we keep this reality in mind. What if, despite your own efforts, due to the internal struggles of this young child, the outcome were the same, and your child shot his teacher? What would you want for that child? For yourself, as that child’s parent? Would the results look like what we are seeing now?

I pose this thought experiment because, even though most people’s children will not go on to shoot their teacher, nearly every person’s child will behave in ways that are unexpected, harmful, and potentially shameful. And, most of the time, those behaviors will happen without the fault of the parent, and without, really, the blame of the child–because life is not infrequently messy, even disturbing. Posing the thought experiment may allow us to be more compassionate and understanding towards parents, when we see a child acting out in ways that are harmful and disruptive. It may also allow us to create a better culture, where parents can be compassionate, rather than defensive, when their children act in ways that are harmful.

From that same interview, I found the following interaction, between Linsey Davis and Deja Taylor, particularly difficult to swallow:

Ms. Davis poses the question directly: “Do you feel, in any way, responsible for the shooting?” Ms. Taylor responds with honesty and caution: “Yes, of course. That is my son, so I am, as a parent, obviously willing to take responsibility for him because he can’t take responsibility for hi[m]self.”

Because Ms. Taylor is forced to place the blame on someone, either herself or her son, she is caught in an inescapable dilemma; though she would like to place the blame on someone else, that’s not really an option, “because he can’t take responsibility for hi[m]self.” Ms. Taylor’s hesitation expresses the ambivalence that all parents may have towards their children, particularly when they are held responsible for more than what they or their children can possibly bear.

Neither the language that Ms. Davis has available to her in order to pose the question, nor the language that Ms. Taylor has available to respond, is adequate to the reality of the situation. American society has yet to differentiate between atrocities that happen by human hands, and tragedies that happen through human hands. When children are involved, I believe, it is always the latter, not the former.

In reading public statements about this case, I saw that, according to a source close to her, Ms. Zwerner “was frustrated because she was trying to get help with this child, for this child, and then when she needed help, no one was coming.” And I think that the key turn of phrase–the simultaneity of suffering with someone, and for someone–carries well the meaning of experiencing a tragedy that occurs through human hands, rather than by them.

I think that this experience of suffering with people, for them, is one of the most spiritual experiences that we can have as human beings. I do not mean to say that it is always wisest to remain in the presence of those who cause us harm, that we ought to remove accountability from them. I mean only to say that great wisdom is gained in experiencing how another can cause harm without blame, and putting in the effort to help that person change; in seeing, also, one’s capacity to withstand suffering without loss of resolve or character.

I do not consider myself a sentimental person; my body rarely allows itself the solace of tears. And yet, when I first read this statement, that Ms. Zwerner was suffering with this boy, for this boy, I noticed myself become, in my grandmother’s words, verklempt. And as I found myself becoming overcome with emotion, I was wondering why we don’t really have a better way to describe it, something other than “choked up.” I felt that the experience was something more beautiful than our name for it; that, rather than a painful thing, getting “choked up” provides us with the visceral proof that there are things which matter to us, people who matter to us, more than our own breath.

So the capacity to get “choked up,” to have things that matter to us, is a matter of being able to suffer with someone, for someone. I think that, for most people, this experience occurs when raising, or caring for, children. And since children do not choose to enter this world, I think it to be our most noble impulse to create a welcoming space for those who have already arrived here. Plato once said that, in the ideal society, children would be held in common. For myself, I regard it as the peak of civic society when we trust each other with the care of our children. And perhaps that was what made me most fearful about this story. I was fearful that the trust in this noble task, the capacity to care for each other’s children, would be incorrectly challenged as a result of this tragedy. That the story would make us lose, due to our outrage and our ignorance, faith in parents and teachers, as well as the inherent worthiness of children.

I take this tragedy to be a result of a more diffuse, systemic responsibility. The fault is that we have yet to regard public education, the caring for each other’s children, as a noble task, something worth care, curiosity, and investment. We may be quick to blame the teacher, the parent, or the child. In reality, all three probably felt stuck together, with inadequate support. We do not hear the story correctly if we do not pay attention to the statement of the source close to Ms. Zwerner: “when she needed help, no one was coming.”