TULSA, Okla. -- Students who cheered the news that President Reagan had been shot were unable to understand the 'reality of violence,' their school principal said.
Teachers at the Academy Central School said several students cheered, laughed or made light of the announcement Monday that the president and three other people were wounded by gunfire in Washington.
Principal Tom Hayes said the students' reaction was connected with the violence children see daily on television.
'It was a result of the children not understanding the reality of violence,' Hayes said.
A teacher, John Zannini, said about 10 of the 16 students in his seventh-grade language arts class cheered the announcement.
'It was like television to them,' Zannini said. 'Someone shot J.R. and they cheered. Someone shot Reagan and they cheered. That's scary.'
Zannini said he was stunned at the children's reaction.
'I was dumbfounded. I didn't know what to do,' he said. 'Here were these kids cheering that the president had been shot. I didn't know what to say.'
Another teacher, Lynn Morris, said she was out of the classroom when the announcement was made and 'three or four' of her eighth-grade science students were laughing about it when she returned.
'They asked me if he was dead and when I said no, that he was doing well, they snapped their fingers and said, 'Well, shucks,'' Mrs. Morris said. 'I was stunned and shocked.'
Hayes said he made the announcement 6 minutes before the end of the school day.
'I tried to make it as soft as possible,' Hayes said. 'I told them the president had been injured, but that he was doing well. And I told them three others had been shot.'
