by Pa Rock
Former School Principal
I remember a time nearly forty years go when, as a principal in a large rural high school, I suspended a young man for some infraction of school policy. As I stood at my office window and watched him march across the parking lot and get into his pickup truck, I noticed that he had a couple of rifles on display in the back window of his truck. The kid had left school angry, and the guns were concerning - at least to the fellow who had made him angry - me.
The driving age in Missouri was sixteen, and many students drove their own vehicles to school. It was a hunting community where the schools even closed a couple of days during the annual deer season so students could hunt. Guns were an important part of the local culture, and many of the students, especially boys with pickup trucks, proudly kept their guns on display in their vehicles. Those guns symbolized their emerging manhood.
I mentioned my concern about all of the available weaponry in the high school parking lot to my superintendent, a wizened old cuss who had his thumb on the pulse of the community, and he quickly put me in my place with "Oh God, Rock, don't get me in a gun control flap!" So I let the matter drop - while continuing to keep a wary eye on the parking lot.
That was twenty years before school shootings started to become commonplace events in America.
One of my two favorite nephews called the other day to wish me a happy birthday. Reed is a young teacher and coach in a rural high school in Arkansas. While we were talking, the subject of guns in school came up. I told Reed of my old concern about the high school kids with their guns on display in the truck windows. He assured me that those days are long over.
Our conversation morphed into "active shooter" drills at school, and my nephew explained that his school is well prepared for that contingency. He said that they use a special "ALICE" curriculum in teaching students and staff how to respond to an armed intruder. Not being familiar with that material, I looked it up and learned that ALICE is an acronym for "Alert, Lock-Down, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate." The program was created by a police officer who was married to an elementary school principal, and it has been in use since 2001 with nearly four thousand schools nationwide adopting the curriculum.
The negative side of the ALICE program is that some fear that this type of training serves to "normalize" gun violence in schools.
There are, of course, some political options that could also be employed to make schools safer - things like reducing the availability of automatic weapons, raising the age at which individuals can buy guns, prohibiting violent criminals and the seriously mentally ill from owning guns, and requiring thorough background checks on all gun sales (even those at gun shows and sales by individuals) - but actions like that would surely bring about those dreaded "gun control flaps!"
Meanwhile my nephew and millions of other teachers and students in America's schools will continue to devote portions of their school days practicing ways to protect themselves from crazed psychos with guns - time that could be spent preparing for a successful life in a civilized society.
Former School Principal
I remember a time nearly forty years go when, as a principal in a large rural high school, I suspended a young man for some infraction of school policy. As I stood at my office window and watched him march across the parking lot and get into his pickup truck, I noticed that he had a couple of rifles on display in the back window of his truck. The kid had left school angry, and the guns were concerning - at least to the fellow who had made him angry - me.
The driving age in Missouri was sixteen, and many students drove their own vehicles to school. It was a hunting community where the schools even closed a couple of days during the annual deer season so students could hunt. Guns were an important part of the local culture, and many of the students, especially boys with pickup trucks, proudly kept their guns on display in their vehicles. Those guns symbolized their emerging manhood.
I mentioned my concern about all of the available weaponry in the high school parking lot to my superintendent, a wizened old cuss who had his thumb on the pulse of the community, and he quickly put me in my place with "Oh God, Rock, don't get me in a gun control flap!" So I let the matter drop - while continuing to keep a wary eye on the parking lot.
That was twenty years before school shootings started to become commonplace events in America.
One of my two favorite nephews called the other day to wish me a happy birthday. Reed is a young teacher and coach in a rural high school in Arkansas. While we were talking, the subject of guns in school came up. I told Reed of my old concern about the high school kids with their guns on display in the truck windows. He assured me that those days are long over.
Our conversation morphed into "active shooter" drills at school, and my nephew explained that his school is well prepared for that contingency. He said that they use a special "ALICE" curriculum in teaching students and staff how to respond to an armed intruder. Not being familiar with that material, I looked it up and learned that ALICE is an acronym for "Alert, Lock-Down, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate." The program was created by a police officer who was married to an elementary school principal, and it has been in use since 2001 with nearly four thousand schools nationwide adopting the curriculum.
The negative side of the ALICE program is that some fear that this type of training serves to "normalize" gun violence in schools.
There are, of course, some political options that could also be employed to make schools safer - things like reducing the availability of automatic weapons, raising the age at which individuals can buy guns, prohibiting violent criminals and the seriously mentally ill from owning guns, and requiring thorough background checks on all gun sales (even those at gun shows and sales by individuals) - but actions like that would surely bring about those dreaded "gun control flaps!"
Meanwhile my nephew and millions of other teachers and students in America's schools will continue to devote portions of their school days practicing ways to protect themselves from crazed psychos with guns - time that could be spent preparing for a successful life in a civilized society.
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