These papers are really creepy.

My daughter tells me that in her freshman speech class, there was a boy who, apart from his speeches, never said anything to anyone, ever. I suppose he was not nearly as off-putting as Cho, since he did give his speeches, but the students all gave him a wide berth. She made a point of asking questions after his speeches in order to keep it from being so obvious that he was shunned. Being fairly shy herself, perhaps she had empathy for him. She said he gave a speech about lizards, for instance, and she put her hand up afterward and asked questions. And then they had psychology together the next semester. He came to the door the first day and viewed the class silently, she said "Hi, Dan," and he went and sat by her - sat by her all semester and never said one word, to her or to anyone else. He's not at that school anymore. I suppose that for every nonverbal person like Cho who turns out to be a killer, there are several hundred silent and miserable people who don't, and maybe a kind word might abate their misery by a few molecules? Or maybe one might end up stalked by a psycho, who knows.

The papers indicate that Cho's teachers knew he was troubled and tried to understand and help him, both academically and socially, while shielding the other students. Unfortunately, they didn't realize the extent of his mental illness. He didn't need counseling - he needed hospitalization and serious meds. One doesn't want to think that someone one interacts with could be that broken.