ADULTS NEED CLOSE CONTACT WITH STUDENTS

As news of school shootings peppers our nation's front pages with increasing frequency, districts would do well to note one fact.

None of the shooters has been described as an outgoing, popular and beloved student. Each of them has been an outsider, different -- in short, the targets of verbal and physical bullying.

Local school counselors spend time in classrooms teaching conflict-resolution and anger-management techniques to students. They talk about tolerance of differences.

In some districts, teachers aren't chatting in the lounge during breaks anymore. They're mingling with students throughout the school so they know what's going on.

That strategy can keep children from re-enacting "Lord of the Flies" and forming their own little societies where the strong torture the weak.

And sometimes the physical intervention of an adult can mean more than hundreds of lessons in conflict resolution.