Mother of murdered son chooses love to combat school mass shootings

KIHEI -- Six years ago, Scarlett Lewis lost her 6-year-old son, Jesse, in the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting massacre in Connecticut.

Adam Lanza killed her boy, who was full of energy and had an affinity for yellow rubber ducks and small toy military men. Lanza also murdered 19 other children and six staff members before turning the semi-automatic rifle onto himself. Earlier, he had shot and killed his 52-year-old mother, Nancy Lanza.

On Wednesday, Lewis was at Lokelani Intermediate School's band room to speak to at least 50 staff members and educators from Lokelani and other Maui schools.

"I am focused on a solution that has been proven to be effective and addresses the causes why a student would want to come into a school and harm an educator or another student, not just the effect," she said.

Mass shooters such as Adam Lanza lack social and emotional intelligence, she said.

"That's exactly what we teach," she said, of her "Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement." With the help of educators, Lewis has established school-based educational programs to change the current culture of violence to one of safety, peace and love. The programs facilitate social and emotional learning, including forgiveness and compassion.

Lokelani is the first Maui County school to implement the free curriculum of the Choose Love Enrichment Program. More than 20 schools on Oahu already are participating, said Kelley Oshiro, the Choose Love ambassador for the Pacific region.

The prekindergarten-through-12th-grade program is in all 50 states, and Washington, D.C., and more than 50 countries.

Lewis founded the movement in 2013, a year after the Dec. 14, 2012, shootings in Newtown, Conn. Jesse helped save some of his classmates by yelling "run!"

After his death, Lewis discovered that Jesse had written three words on a chalkboard at home. They were: "Nurturing. Healing. Love."

The single mother told educators that those words are not something that would come from a typical 6-year-old, but she thought Jesse had a sense his time was limited.

"It was a message of comfort for this family and friends. I knew I would be spending my whole life spreading this message," Lewis said, adding that she believes she's fulfilling Jesse's purpose in life.

The curriculum is based on courage, gratitude, forgiveness and compassion, which are part of the choose love equation.

Lewis told the audience that "everything starts with a thought." But for humans, 70 to 80 percent of our thoughts are negative, and many thoughts are repetitive.

But "the amazing thing about that is for all of us and Adam Lanza, a thought can be changed," Lewis said, adding that the Sandy Hook tragedy could have been avoided if Lanza had anger-coping skills.

"There is something we can do," she added. "This whole thing really started with an angry thought and a thought can be changed. . . . Change one angry thought to one positive thought."

Lewis said that a mother of a mass murderer had attended one of her sessions. The mother told Lewis that if her child had been part of the social and emotional learning curriculum that child would not have turned out to be a criminal.

Overall, Lewis, who also has an older teenage son, said educators and parents will have to lead the way for change because school violence is still on the rise.

When Jesse died, Lewis told herself, "This can't be the new normal. . . . Kids killing kids can't be our new normal. Five years later, I'm saying this is our new normal," she said.

She cited statistics saying that there have been more than 239 school-related shootings since the Sandy Hook incident, or one per week in the United States.

Lewis said she thought that, after her son's death, something would have been done, but by someone else.

"We live in America. We live in a civilized society. This is a one-off," she said of her thoughts after the shooting.

But she said she has realized there is no one else who will take care of the problem. Individuals, parents and teachers have to do something.

And teachers at Lokelani embraced the message.

Teachers Jaclynn Phillips and Stephanie Kamake'e'aina, who are part of the "Choose Love Cadre," a group at the school that is helping put together the program for other staff members, said they're excited and energized to take part in the yearlong program.

"It has to start somewhere, why not with us?" said Kamake'e'aina, who teaches 7th-grade science.

"Maybe once we do it for a year, the other schools in Maui will do it," chimed in Phillips, who teaches 6th- and 7th-grade math.

Asked whether students may benefit from the program, Phillips said that every student and every adult in the school will benefit.

Student activities coordinator Cathy Fitzpatrick said the curriculum will be taught in each homeroom during the advisory period.

Fitzpatrick said she went to Oahu and observed the Choose Love Movement being used "with great success" at Kaelepulu Elementary School.

The program was brought to Kihei because Lokelani was looking for a strong social emotional learning curriculum.

"We want to be proactive and address the needs of the whole child," she said.

For more information, visit www.jesselewischooselove.org.

* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.