Mark Naison writes:
Suicide Path
The way I see it this country is on a suicide path.
First of all, the people shaping education policy in this country, during the last twenty years, have done everything possible to create more wounded children like Nikolaus Cruz
They have deluged schools with standardized tests that squeeze every ounce of joy out of classrooms
To pay for the tests, they have cut back on counseling, libraries, the arts, sports, physical education, all activities where young people in trouble can find refuge or a place to express themselves
They have deprived more and more students of meaningful social interaction, either with teachers, or one another, by having them sit in front of computers all day.
They have adopted zero-tolerance disciplinary policies and throw out students who cannot adopt to the test and punish regimes that dominate more and more schools
The result, more and more students who have emotional issues or learning disabilities are given little support, little mentoring and few outlets for their emotions or talents, and are pushed out or pushed aside
And then, if they are angry, what is there to greet them?
Easy access to drugs
Easy access to guns, including assault weapons
We are creating an army of outcasts and then arming them to the teeth
And unless we do something about both issues, a rigid, test driven education system, and easy access to guns, we are going to see more and more acts of terrifying violence in our schools and communities
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I was at Aztec High School last week, visiting with staff that I work with and listening to their experiences during and after the shooting. One of the things that has impressed me most is how the school community is pulling together to use the tragedy to affect change…not just more security, etc. Instead, they realize it is the loner, isolated individual who snaps and are implementing approaches to help everyone in the school feel they are valued and that someone truly cares about them. The Sandy Hook Foundation is one of the resources they are looking at. They are also pulling together to help traumatized staff try to return to some sense of normalcy, as well as take care of one another. Would you believe the hero janitor Emery Hill didn’t even have a car to get to work??? So the staff and the community pulled donations, etc. together and got Emery a used car as well as 1 year’s worth of insurance. Made me cry…
Mark is right – never mind the school to prison pipeline. At the rate we are currently going, the country is in suicide mode, not just schools. Using the Aztec staff as an example, it is our caring for one another and taking care of one another that will make a difference. At least it’s a start…
AGREE! We have become Ameri-DUH and on a suicide path. KA-CHING for the few.
Last night as the pundits were on the news discussing (well, actually talking PASS each other is more like it), I walked away from the “TV news” IN DISGUST.
I told my husband, “I can’t listen any more. They are talking in circles and have NO CLUE. This violence in schools has been brewing for years, because of the pundits who make $$$$$$ off of our public school students. There’s common gore, testing, charters, and vouchers. There are ridiculous no-nonsense rules, which are abusive. I am disgusted.
“So, I am going to bake cookies instead.” BTW, making the oatmeal, raisin, chocolate cookies saved my sanity and are delicious. Gotta consciously make small joys these DAZE.
Don’t be forget to include the disastrous closing of public schools and replacing them with Charter Schools – as in Chicago. Kids that don’t fare well in the Charters are kicked back into public ed, most times nowhere near their homes. This results in delinquency, drugs, anger, failure.
Beth Forrester
Our society only values it’s young people as consumers.
It places no value whatsoever on those with no expendable income.
Even in the Olympics, those who do not “perform” up to expectations are treated as “losers”.
Mikaela Shiffrin got a gold medal in the giant slalom, but news media like NY Times, USA Today, NPR are focussing on how she “failed to medal” in the slalom.
“Violence in Schools”
While shootings make the news
The efforts to abuse
Are largely unreported
And, by and large, rewarded
The endless hours of testing
And art and song divesting
Produce a place that’s sterile
And putting kids in peril
Yes, Poet. Sadly, yes.
art and song divesting. YES.
Hypocrite- and Idiot-in-Chief ….
How long has it been since we had a president who worked with Congress to increase financial security for the poor and middle classes, and other supports for the citizens who elected him, rather than to avoid being “soft on crime” by enacting laws that required more capital punishment, domestic spying, minimum sentencing, test and punish “rigor” in schools, more “war on drugs”, and even giving military equipment to domestic police? Forty years? Fifty? Seventy? We treat our citizens like criminals, our criminals like animals, and our animals like inanimate objects. Our schools are portrayed — to us – as war zones. Our children supposedly need tons of homework and after school tutoring to be kept “off the streets.” “No excuses” charter boot camps punish individual differences. They’re not the only ones that do. Millions of people have their entire lives considered a crime just for being in this country. Many call them “illegal” people. We ‘poke’ each other all day, everyday on social media. That’s “entertainment”. We lock our doors. We are afraid of our neighbors. We are afraid of their children. We think they’re on drugs. We think they have knives. We think they have guns. We cross the street to the other side when we see them coming. They know we do. They fear our loathing. Eventually, everyone fears himself. And the vicious cycle continues.
LBJ until Vietnam became an obsession.
NPR’s Morning Edition had an interview today with Brian Mast, a member of Congress from a district near Parkland. Mast responds to NPR Host Rachel Martin’s lead off question:
“MARTIN: What have you been hearing from local officials in the area where this all happened? What have your conversations been like?
MAST: You know, I haven’t had a chance to speak to local officials yet. I do know Sheriff Israel quite well. But being up in D.C. this week, I have had the chance to speak with families and people that I know down there on that level. And I guess maybe surprising to me, or, not surprising, but the biggest thing that I’ve heard as a message from so many has been school security. And the very simple question is, how do we secure our schools? What are we going to do with school security? And I think probably one of the most striking comments that I had one person say to me was – and, if you know the South Florida area, you know that so many of the neighborhoods here are gated with security guard shacks and roving security and things like that – this somebody that said to me, you know, our neighborhoods have more security than our schools do. And that was something that really struck me, when they said that.”
So is Rep. Mast saying that our schools should have gates with security shacks and roving guards? What next? And, what does all this say about the values of our society?
Put a wall around our country then start building walls around our schools and other public buildings? All of our homes? At what point do we, the people, actually start to become prisoners inside of all these proposed walls? There’s got to be a better answer.
Here’s the link to the interview https://www.npr.org/2018/02/16/586315557/gop-rep-brian-mast-on-florida-school-shooting
I heard the same interview and had a similar response to the gated community thing. It reminded me of riding a bus to the family Cemetary at a family reunion. It was one of those reunions where you are barely related to most of the people, where you you have to go back six generations and you only know you are related because you have a weird name. She had been living in the rural community all her life, that was her Baptist church we passed as we went deeper into the country. We passed a gated development about ten minutes outside of town. Suddenly, she stopped our chatter and she gazed at the new neighbors somewhat sadly. “What are they afraid of?” She mumbled more to herself than to me.
We will not solve this school problem without togetherness. Walls and gates have brought the ancestors to their knees time and again in our human history. Children will not quit shooting up schools because we increase security. We will not even solve the problem with gun control, although common sense suggest we should have some of that. We must solve this as a community problem with a community solution. So many of our communities are broken places with dreams dispersed by our attitudes that divide instead of unite, that push us into stacks and classify us. This is not the stuff of community.
Well put.
Roy
This case is particularly good evidence for your argument.
Alarm bells were ringing all over the place, but only a few people paid attention and unfortunately, they were not the ones in a position to change the outcome.
I would categorize this as a complete systemic breakdown.
Thank you, Dr. Naison. I became a teacher at 48. I wanted to give back after surviving Hodgkin’s Lymphoma at 25. I tried so hard to get my students the help they needed, and instead I was made to feel inadequate and unable to handle these difficult students. I had students who had parents in prison and were very angry, I had students from other countries, who had been through horrendous trauma trying to escape from a war torn homeland, a mid-range autistic girl, who had never been diagnosed and was now in 4th grade. Any change to our schedule and she would become upset and run out the door. When I involved the school psychologist, I was reprimanded for not asking permission from the new principal, to involve the school psychologist. Eventually, I couldn’t fight anymore, so I retired a few years early. This is AZ, so it may be worse than other states. I just know that our children are suffering. I am still trying to help through my church.
I became a teacher at 49. I also teach in a title one school. I too have dealt with several children who are dealing with TRAUMA. They have huge emotional, acedemic and social problems. They are at best disruptive and at worst violent. It takes months of interventions and data collection to get them any help. All these interventions are time consuming and stressful. And the other children live in daily fear of being bullied or assaulted. I am tired of being told that if I were a better teacher, they wouldn’t have these problems. That It’s all just an excuse for low test scores. In my 10 years of teaching, I have have seen several teachers and an administrator take leaves of absence due to severe depression and anxiety. I am tired of working 80 hours a week to meet the basic demands of the job only to be told that I need to give more. I am exhausted and my eyes are looking for a better opportunity outside of the classroom.
You ladies should know that not all teaching is as demeaning as your situations. Teaching is challenging, and I taught newly arrived ELLs and many from war torn countries, but this was before the worst of “reform.” I agree with Roy above. It takes a village, but you have been left on your own with scant resources. “Reform” has been a waste and distraction. We need a policy that supports teachers and families. We need to respect communities, children and teachers. Schools with lots of poor students need wrap around services. This can only happen if we stop the scapegoating and work together to improve outcomes for all children. Then, we will show we care about children.
If you were to walk the halls of the elementary school where I teach, you may be surprised by what you see and hear. It could be a group of children (some on the way to the library, others on the way back to class) in the middle of the hall talking about the awesome books they just checked out or showing their favorite pictures in the books they are returning. It could be a child hurrying to class because she came in tardy. Maybe it is a special needs student walking in the hall without his walker for the very first time while his class cheers him on. Or, it is just as likely that you hear screaming and crying because a child is not getting her way. It could be the blur of a student as he rushes past you with a mad expression and body language telling you not to interfere. Whatever it is that you see and hear, I can promise you that not far from the children you will see a teacher who is beaming with pride, a teacher who is getting a cereal bar from his cabinet for a hungry child, or a teacher celebrating the success of her student. You will also see a teacher who cares, a teacher ready to console the child who is broken emotionally. Despite the craziness of society today or the educational policies put in place by people who do not understand, teachers “get it.” We are the only safety some children will ever know. The only adults that can be relied upon no matter the circumstances. So many discussions over the last several days have been about mental health and gun violence. I am not discounting the need for either, but I do want us to remember that there is a group of people who long to be the champion for the children. Teachers.
Thank you for saying this. So often teachers are demeaned in the press as being uncaring. Why else would we put in so many unpaid hours and give so much of our own funds to support student needs.