Did we learn anything?

I recommend biting off more than you can chew to anyone
I certainly do
I recommend sticking your foot in your mouth at any time
Feel free
You Learn – Alanis Morissette

In the mid-1990s, if you didnt know the name Alanis Morissette, youd certainly heard her music. Her third studio album, Jagged Little Pill, exploded on the music scene, giving the Canadian one of the best-selling albums of all time, with more than 33 million copies sold worldwide. Its even been re-released twice!

The tune of Morissettes first two albums was folksy, singer-songwriter music, and the quality was good, but it just didnt seem to have the hook. After a major breakup, the album flowed, and the angst expressed in her lyrics came through in a change in style to a more pop ballad backing to her vocals.

You Learn was the final single released on the record, and it definitely piggybacked on the success of the other songs on the record, reaching number six on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was written after Morissette was robbed at gunpoint and went through post-traumatic anxiety. She wanted to express her healing path through this song, expressing how even the tough things bring lessons.

Did you learn anything?

That phrase was uttered by my father, often with an accompanying chuckle, many times in my youth – and has continued into my adult life. Put your hand on an electric fence? Did you learn anything? Get kicked when you werent following a cow correctly in the chute? Did you learn anything? Drop the corner post on your toe as you were trying to line it up for the post hole? Did you learn anything?

Of course, that phrase has translated now as Im a father. Put your hand on a warm pan, fresh out of the oven? Did you learn anything? Trip over a dog because you were staring at the television? Did you learn anything? Shut your hair into the car door (not an issue my father or I ever had to worry about)? Did you learn anything?

The point of the phrase is to add some levity to a moment that certainly feels devoid of it, but theres also some encouragement in the moment. Sure, you screwed up, and there was some physical or emotional pain involved, but rather than curse out the pain for existing, learn from the moment in order to avoid that pain happening again.

Those who read the almanac provided below by the Associated Press each day will see that the lead story of the items that happened on this day was the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut on this day in 2012.

That tragedy ended up with 27 lives lost, 20 of them first-grade children.

In the office that day as the news came in, one of my coworkers was overcome and emotional. After our afternoon staff meeting, she left to pick up her children at school. Noticing my concern, a fellow coworker stated, Stuff like that just hits different when you are a parent – or a grandparent, Ben. He then added, Someday, youll understand.

How prophetic that last statement was. Ive been in jobs since we began fostering and eventually adopted our children where my hours often had me busy after my children were out of school in the evening. An excuse to drop them off in the morning or pick them up from school in the afternoon was certainly appreciated as events like Parkland, Uvalde, and the hundreds more school shootings happened around our country.

Incredibly, we are now 30 years into the change in school violence. Many would remember Columbine High School in Colorado as the first nationally-known school shooter incident, but as data put together by David Riedman of the K-12 School Shooting Database notes, the incidents by year crept up bit by bit through the 1960s to 1980s, with 38 school shooting incidents reported nationally in 1988, the first time there had ever been more than 25 reported in the country. The 1990s would see four straight years of 30+ incidents, peaking at 47 in 1993 before dropping down the rest of the decade. Thirty-one incidents in 1998 (the year before Columbine) was the only year after 1994 in the decade with 30+.

Then there were more…and more…and more.

Incredibly, 2012 was a year with very few reported school shooting incidents, but they simply exploded after that year, and every year since 2018 has reported at least 100 incidents, with the last three years topping 300 (319 reported in 2024 through November)! These numbers are all echoed in the numbers of those who have been killed or wounded by an incident on school property, with a drastic leap occurring in 2018.

Voices from all sides will give their reasons why this increase has happened – from guns to mental health to taking God out of schools to immigrants, to a thousand more reasons. The real truth is that the reasons are multi-faceted, but actual good faith efforts neeed to happen before this trend will slow down and, hopefully, reverse.

In business school, one of my professors in operations management once told us that when a system isnt working that has previously worked, you really need to take a look at three things – what has changed on the inputs, what has changed with the business, and what has changed with the people.

Unfortunately, we seem to be attempting to address this problem by pushing for more systems that have previously failed, without really doing a full evaluation of the environment and the people (students) involved. This is primarily because any potential solution has to have a political villain. Unfortunately, this could be akin to those movies where the villain all along has been standing in plain sight, but everyone was too focused on other suspects to even see it.

Were going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies, regardless of the politics. Thats not a new sentiment, however. Thats a line directly taken from President Barack Obamas address to the nation following Sandy Hook.

Did we learn anything?