March 15, 2002

Lessons From Children on the Front Lines of Terror

By RICHARD A. COUTO

Recently, I was reading a student's journal about his community service. In it, he described an inner-city middle-school child whom he tutored and whose uncle had been shot and killed the year before. My student reflected on a parallel universe of violence-filled streets with which he was totally unfamiliar.

His words reaffirmed the lessons that I, too, have gleaned from the children of inner-city Richmond, Va., about vulnerability to terror and violence that are especially relevant