Longreads: "Is He Coming? Is He? Oh, God, I Think He Is."

There were few education-related stories among the many "best feature stories of 2012" roundups that I skimmed (on Longform, Longread, etc.), but this GQ piece (The Anders Behring Breivik Story) about the summer camp massacre in Norway last year includes lots of school-related elements;  children, adults in charge of caring for them, mental health issues, and weapons.  

"The island, named Utøya, pokes out of a glacial lake called Tyrifjorden twenty-five miles west of Oslo. It slopes up steeply from the jetty, and Adrian Pracon is at the top of the hill, near the cafeteria. He is 21, though it's only his first year at the summer camp for young liberals. Already he is charmed, almost smitten, by the place. This, he thought after he arrived on a clear Norwegian day, really is a piece of heaven on earth.

"There are three more bangs. Adrian sees six or seven people—he's not counting—sprinting up the slope toward him. "Run," they're screaming. "He's shooting! Run!"

In the end, 27 people died.  The whole thing took only 198 minutes.

Comments

[Education Realist]

In the end, 77 people died, not 27.

And the monster who did it got only 21 years. Welcome to Norway.