Reading the New York Times article about Adam Lanza, the alleged Sandy-Hook killer, I’m in pain at how cut off from the humanity this boy was. Possible Asperger’s syndrome, no picture in a high-school year book, child of a dissolving marriage, living in a suburban box of a home. One quote by a former high-school classmate cut home: “I think that maybe he wasn’t given the right kind of attention or help. I think he went so unnoticed that people didn’t even stop to realize that maybe there’s actually something else going on here — that maybe he needs to be talking or getting some kind of mental help. In high school, no one really takes the time to look and think, ‘Why is he acting this way?’ ”

In the wake of these shootings, my immediate wish after this horror is for America to focus on reaching out to the abandoned people of the country.

I’m completely in favor of gun control, would gladly pay for better mental health care and wouldn’t mind less media violence. But, for me, the crying need is for connection. I think the most important thing in common among the countries who DON’T suffer these tragedies is community. Switzerland and Israel have guns; Germany has mental health care, Japan not so much: but all these places have intact, face-to-face societies where many people DO take the time to look and think. More about why this is so important in a second.

America can be such a lonely place — for men, particularly. I found this out when I got testicular cancer. There were more than 1,000 support groups for the female equivalent cancer (breast cancer) but not a single one for men. This observation isn’t meant to stir up gender strife; it’s just to point out that, for whatever reasons, men here don’t do a great job of helping each other in times of trouble.

Even the thinnest strands of human connection can lessen acts of violence. Those of you know about the famous Milgram Shock Experiments (Google it, if you don’t – but beware that films are disturbing.) probably are aware that authorities were able to convince about half of the population to deliver potentially lethal doses of electricity to strangers. What doesn’t get as widely broadcast is that any form of contact between perpetrator and victim radically reduced the level harm. That is to say, if the perpetrator knew the victim’s name, he or she didn’t “kill” as much. If the perpetrator touched the victim’s hand, he or she didn’t “kill” as much.

How can we — that is, Americans — better get to know and care for each other? Christian scolds like Mike Huckabee are offensive but they are probably if inadvertently right that regular attendance at a religious institution would help.

But you where and how it can happen even better?

In schools. Especially public schools.

Public schools are where kids first meet the world. If the world is kind enough to meet them right back, it can make all the difference. But is there a more lonely place in the universe than a lonely school?

I can’t tell you the number of outliers I’ve talked to over 25 years of teaching. But I can tell you that I have tried to take the time to talk with them regularly, introduce them to like-minded students, create safe, rewarding environments for them, and nudge them toward better habits. The letters and calls they send back, years later, makes me think that it might have done some good. Please understand, I’m not making any kind of arrogant boast about being able to have help Mr. Lanza and his victims. I just think that schools are institutions of social connection and that, along with so many other institutions in the USA, they can help.

I can also tell you that it’s EXACTLY this kind of human contact that the so-called school reform movement is trying to eliminate. Every time, some pompous politician declares that schools should be run like businesses, the fat that he’s talking about cutting is the “chewing the fat,” that makes schools warm places. Every extra standardized test and time-sucking set of “professional development” sessions and “implementation” periods slices the potential for teacher-student contact, too. And every one of those bell-shaped curves we fit over out students puts them in competition, not connection, with each other.

The word I’ve been using over and again here is “connection.” Now that I’m finishing, I realize that connection was a polite cover-up. The word I really mean — why was I so embarrassed to use it? — is love. What if Adam Lanza had felt loved? I think that would have made a big difference. Love comes primarily from family — but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us can’t throw more into the pot. I’m a teacher because it seems to me to be a way to create more love in the world. Schools, in my opinion, should nurture love.

That, yesterday, a school in America became a place of death leaves me in agony. But now that this unforgivably long monologue is over – I’m so sorry, guys — my response will be to get back in there and love more.