One of the problems I have with articles like this is he takes a couple of examples and then labels this as a problem of the public schools. These examples seem extreme, but schools, both public, charter and private all deal with these types of issues. Most of the time the only thing we see in the media are the extreme cases. Also, for the most part we only get one side of the story.
I am not condoning what these schools have done, but working in schools for years, I know that weapons issues come up and are dealt with in the manner prescribed by the school board (in most cases)
A proper response would take much more space and more time than I have. (on a side note, we have had shooter in the school training where I work and you do begin to look around your classroom and realize how difficult it would be to stop someone who wanted to come in. However, South Dakota and other states who are considering arming school employees are on a very dangerous road. It opens the potential of guns being use in cases where other interventions would work, of students stealing a gun (example a fight situation which the teacher tries to break up and someone grabs his gun), of students who don't like a teacher claiming that he/she threatened them and more.
Actually, the article cites more than just a couple of incidents. And the frequency of the stories is growing. I should make a point of linking to each and every one as they come along. That said, I presume these cases represent the exception and not the rule — though my wife, who is a retired teacher, read the article and was not exactly surprised. One of the reasons she retired was the extent to which bureaucracy had come to interfere with teaching. The fact is you can't really prevent irrational persons from acting out, and trying to can only result in a kind of imprisonment for all concerned. Moreover, administrators of every stripe — not just school administrators — tend to be precisely the unimaginative types one would not want to give unnecessary power to. And the only way to keep that from happening is to hold up the kind of people described in these stories to the ridicule they so richly deserve.
Your point about a student grabbing the gun from whomever is breaking up a fight while armed, has a serious problem with it. It assumes that the person holding the gun for the students' safety is poorly trained. Your argument, for instance, would fail also against armed guards anywhere, that someone could take the gun in a scuffle, in a nightclub, in a park, in a mall, and so forth. Yes, of course, if the officer happened to be in that new Kevin Bacon TV show, this would be likely.
The issue here seems to be that these examples of extremely poor judgment on the part of school officials, and I have been running into them as well, are coming up following the Sandy Oaks incident, and are politically motivated, local politics following party stances. Here's another example of such political insanity: Courtni Webb, San Francisco High School Senior, Suspended For Writing Poem About Sandy Hook Shooting.
We can assume now, that because these stories are coming out, and that other school administrations can see the poor decisions being made and how they must appear to the press and public, and that they will be outed if they do something similar, they might be less to make similar misjudgments, hopefully.
One of the problems I have with articles like this is he takes a couple of examples and then labels this as a problem of the public schools. These examples seem extreme, but schools, both public, charter and private all deal with these types of issues. Most of the time the only thing we see in the media are the extreme cases. Also, for the most part we only get one side of the story.
ReplyDeleteI am not condoning what these schools have done, but working in schools for years, I know that weapons issues come up and are dealt with in the manner prescribed by the school board (in most cases)
A proper response would take much more space and more time than I have. (on a side note, we have had shooter in the school training where I work and you do begin to look around your classroom and realize how difficult it would be to stop someone who wanted to come in. However, South Dakota and other states who are considering arming school employees are on a very dangerous road. It opens the potential of guns being use in cases where other interventions would work, of students stealing a gun (example a fight situation which the teacher tries to break up and someone grabs his gun), of students who don't like a teacher claiming that he/she threatened them and more.
Actually, the article cites more than just a couple of incidents. And the frequency of the stories is growing. I should make a point of linking to each and every one as they come along.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I presume these cases represent the exception and not the rule — though my wife, who is a retired teacher, read the article and was not exactly surprised. One of the reasons she retired was the extent to which bureaucracy had come to interfere with teaching.
The fact is you can't really prevent irrational persons from acting out, and trying to can only result in a kind of imprisonment for all concerned. Moreover, administrators of every stripe — not just school administrators — tend to be precisely the unimaginative types one would not want to give unnecessary power to. And the only way to keep that from happening is to hold up the kind of people described in these stories to the ridicule they so richly deserve.
Hi Tom,
ReplyDeleteYour point about a student grabbing the gun from whomever is breaking up a fight while armed, has a serious problem with it. It assumes that the person holding the gun for the students' safety is poorly trained. Your argument, for instance, would fail also against armed guards anywhere, that someone could take the gun in a scuffle, in a nightclub, in a park, in a mall, and so forth. Yes, of course, if the officer happened to be in that new Kevin Bacon TV show, this would be likely.
The issue here seems to be that these examples of extremely poor judgment on the part of school officials, and I have been running into them as well, are coming up following the Sandy Oaks incident, and are politically motivated, local politics following party stances. Here's another example of such political insanity: Courtni Webb, San Francisco High School Senior, Suspended For Writing Poem About Sandy Hook Shooting.
We can assume now, that because these stories are coming out, and that other school administrations can see the poor decisions being made and how they must appear to the press and public, and that they will be outed if they do something similar, they might be less to make similar misjudgments, hopefully.