Children may be quick learners, but every so often some will crack under pressure and the consequences are frightening and most distressing.

THE sad tale of the 13-year-old French boy, who wanted to mow down his teachers with a shotgun in the small town of Beauvais north of Paris on Tuesday, is actually a story of good fortune. It’s because there have been similar cases all over the world where the child was not stopped in time.

In this case, the parents found his note early and noticed the missing gun. They then alerted the police, who surrounded the school and thus saved the day.

The boy, a video game enthusiast, is said to have been upset with his teachers “for quarrelling with him for no reason,” and wanted to kill his teachers to prevent a parents-teachers meeting planned for that day. Others said the boy was worried about his bad grades, as his school was one of those academically high-achieving schools.

On March 11, a 17-year-old school dropout killed 15 people including eight girls and a teacher at his alma mater and at a car dealership in Winnenden, Baden-Württemberg, in southwestern Germany. The boy then committed suicide by shooting himself.

In his case, authorities and friends blamed his poor grades and the feeling of rejection as the reasons for his action.

One of the most prominent school shootings was, of course, the Columbine High School massacre near Littleton, Colorado in the United States. On Tuesday, April 20, 1999, students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot dead 13 people on the school campus before they committed suicide.

But the US Federal Bureau of Investigation dismissed this case as the work of two psychopaths.

There have been scores of such school shootings and massacres in the past century, with the earliest recorded one in Germany in 1913.

The worst case was what is now called the Virginia Tech Massacre that took place on April 16, 2007 on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia.

In two separate attacks, approximately two hours apart, Cho Seung-hui killed 32 people and wounded many others before committing suicide. The massacre is the deadliest peacetime shooting incident by a single gunman in the United States.

There have been numerous studies as to why such shootings take place especially when the gunman is a young person. The findings have not been conclusive, although Princeton University psychologist Dr Katherine Newman points out that such children had made attempts at social integration but failed.

“The shootings seem as though an attempt to adjust their social standing and image, from ‘loser’ to ‘master of violence’,” she said in her study Repeat Tragedy: Rampage School Shootings 2001-2007.

We in Malaysia have been fortunate that there has yet to be such an incident. However, we have had our own tragedies involving schoolchildren – the scores of cases where Malaysian students have resorted to violence to resolve their problems.

When our public examination results are released, there would be cases of those failing to make the grade taking their own life. Sadder still are the 12-year-olds who kill themselves because they did not do well in the Year Six Assessment Test or UPSR.

The World Health Organisation estimates that in Malaysia there are about 2,500 suicides annually, while the global figure stands at about one million. The country with the highest suicide rate is Japan at about 19,000 annually, including teenage suicides because of public examinations.

In Singapore, where parents place as much importance on public examinations as their counterparts in Japan, a study shows that 20 primary school pupils had jumped to their deaths between 1997 and 2001.

Out of 142 attempted suicides recorded by hospitals in the past seven years, more than 100 were by teenagers. About half took place between August and October, the period for annual final exams.

Experts in Singapore recommend that parents should set realistic goals for their children instead of changing the “pressure-cooker” style Singaporean education system.

As this is written, it was the first day of our Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia examination. We can be sure that out of some 465,000 students sitting for the examination and the more than 55,000 who will sit for the Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Malaysia, some will feel suicidal by the time the results are released next year.

Maybe it is time for us to take the advice of the Singaporean experts – we as parents should set more realistic goals for our children.

One career guidance expert told an education seminar that parents must realise that not every child will end up being a doctor.

“Not everyone can be a medical doctor. Someone must be a lawyer or an engineer. Someone has to sweep the streets because if no one wants to do it, then road sweeping will become the highest paying job – more lucrative than being a doctor,” he said to the cheers of students present but to the mumbling of the parents.

During such a high pressure time as public exams, parents should ensure that they support their children rather than pressure them.

In 1976, it was exam time for my family as I was in Form Three and my sister was in Form Six. It was in the middle of my exams when my mother surprised us all by taking us to the cinema to watch Star Wars. It was such a relief of pressure for me and my sister.

Coincidentally, this week Sir Bob Geldof of Band Aid fame was in town to address the Youth Engagement Summit 2009 held in Putrajaya. Geldof was once a member of a band called the Boomtown Rats, whose biggest hit was the song I don’t like Mondays.

It was a song written about a 16-year-old girl who opened fire on children playing in a school playground across the street from her home in San Diego, California. She killed two adults and injured eight children and a police officer.

The girl, Brenda Ann Spencer, showed no remorse for her crime. She explained her actions with: “I don’t like Mondays; this livens up the day.”

“I was doing a radio interview in Atlanta in 1979 and there was a telex machine beside me,” said Geldof.

“I read it (about the shooting) as it came out. Not liking Mondays as a reason for doing somebody in, is a bit strange. It was such a senseless act.

“It was the perfect senseless act and this was the perfect senseless reason for doing it,” as Geldof reportedly explained why he wrote the song.

Spencer was given a sentence of 25 years to life and failed to get parole four times.

Maybe the words of Geldof should ring in every parent’s ear during this time of year, to remind them of the need to be supportive especially since today is also World Children’s Rights Day.

“The silicon chip inside her head gets switched to overload

And nobody’s gonna go to school today

She’s going to make them stay at home

And daddy doesn’t understand it

He always said she was good as gold

And he can see no reasons, ‘cause there are no reasons

What reason do you need to be shown?”

(From the song I don’t like Mondays written by Sir Bob Geldof)

Deputy Executive Editor Wong Sai Wan is upset that parents put so much importance on the UPSR when it is a meaningless test.

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