Becoming Sensitive to School Gun Violence by Samantha Deane and Kathryn M. Bateman

In response to recent rampage school shootings, the AJE Forum Editorial Board wished to engage in conversation regarding the impact these crimes have upon policy, curriculum, and pedagogy in K-12 education. In the coming weeks, the AJE Forum will post three essays exploring rampage school shootings from different perspectives. This week, Samantha Deane and I discuss how rampage shootings can harden and desensitize, fundamentally restructuring the nature of teaching and learning. In next week’s essay, Logan Rutten argues for the importance of considering our response to rampage shootings from a curriculum perspective in the context of a social democracy. Finally, JD McCausland examines schools’ various responses to the student protest movements that have arisen in connection with these atrocities. When crafting this conversation, it was my concern that we were missing the critical timing of the incidents in Parkland, Florida this past February. Unfortunately, last week, another rampage school shooting took place in Texas. The need for these conversations in academia is critical and must continue, not just in policy but in all areas of educational research. We, the AJE Forum invite you to participate in the conversation by commenting, tweeting, and sharing your responses to the ideas considered in these pieces. If you wish to contribute additional essays you can e-mail me (kmb1182@gmail.com.)
– Katie Bateman, Technical Board Chair, AJE Forum

On April 20th, 1999 two high school students planned and executed a massacre inside Columbine High School before committing suicide and setting off outcry across the country. They were not the first teenagers to plot the execution of their peers, but this incident resulted in the largest number of casualties since the 1966 University of Texas tower shooting.  The death of 13 students and teachers was outrageous. Society blamed guns, video games, and bullying and then projected those fears unto our teenage peers. Using monikers like “Trench Coat Mafia,” a name the Columbine shooters gave their social group, the news called attention to the social outcasts and school bullies. Calls went out to ban guns, violent video games and the music of people like Marilyn Manson and movies like the Matrix. Schools began to assess students’ freedoms and instituted procedures to prevent potential shooters from gaining access to their facilities, such as “zero tolerance” policies, lockdown drills, and the hiring of school resource officers. Movies and TV brought these ideas into their plots in both teen drama (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, One Tree Hill, DeGrassi) and procedural and crime dramas (Criminal Minds, CSI, Law and Order.) In the wake of Columbine, rampage school shootings permeated the daily lives of the education community – students, teachers, administrators, parents.

Three large scale school shootings occurred between Columbine and April 6th, 2005 when a student at Virginia Tech killed 33 people. Using the argument Deane puts forth in an earlier Forum post, we are looking here specifically at “rampage school shootings” defined as “shootings with multiple and often symbolic victims chosen at random, shootings that take place on a public stage at or within the school, and shootings that involve either students or former students of school” (Newman, 2012.)  There were a plethora of violent events involving guns on school campuses in the six years that separate Columbine and Virginia Tech, but none that matched the scale of either event. Six months prior to the Virginia Tech shooting, a man held captive a school of Amish girls in Nickel Mines, PA which resulted in 6 deaths and 3 injuries. Little attention was paid. Once again after the rampage at Virginia Tech the nation was engrossed with details about the shooting. We offered thoughts and prayers, blamed the shooter’s mental health, the guns, and the NRA. As a nation we were quick to point fingers but slow to act in any meaningful way. Again, Americans went back to their daily lives and five years later, it happened again. We sent thoughts and prayers and snowflakes to Newtown, Connecticut in 2012 after an adult shooter entered Sandy Hook Elementary School and ended the lives of 28 people, mostly five and six year olds. And the cycle repeats. Again on February 14th, 2018, at Parkland High School a 19 year old former student with a semi-automatic rifle attacked the school. Once again, we posted memes on social media for or against banning assault rifles, for or against increasing school safety measures, for or against supporting mental health supports.

In the wake of the February 14th rampage school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida the student survivors activated their social networks and tweeted at the President, their representatives, and the world at large to say this will not continue. Since February 14th, 2018 the Parkland students have forced a town hall with Representatives of Congress, organized a student walk-out, sparked a set of marches around the country, and generated the interest and donations of major Hollywood figures such as George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg (Lithwick, 2018). Unfortunately it as this piece goes to press it happened again. On Friday, May 18^th 10 were killed by a former student at Sante Fe High School near Huston, TX, leading the Washington Post to publish an astonishing statistic, 2018 has been deadlier for American students, than American soldiers (Bump, 2018).

Of the challenges facing American education today, none causes more horror among parents, educators, and citizens than rampage school gun violence. Rampage school gun violence exploded in the 1990’s. Between 1992 and 1999 there were at least 11 instances of rampage school gun violence which resulted in the death of 43 students and teachers and the injury of many more(Fast, 2008; Newman, 2012). Since Sandy Hook there have been over 150 school shootings, yet few have made the news (Lee, 2015).  In between regular school shootings, rampages burst on the scene, like the one in Florida on February 14, 2018 where 17 high school students were killed (Bidgood, Harmon, Smith, & Salam, 2018). Although rampages catalyze the issue of gun violence in schools, the challenge of addressing school gun violence has resulted in stop-gap policies rather than changes that would stop the rampaging. For nearly two decades rampage school shootings have continued unabated. Sure, American schools have instituted preparedness drills and discipline policies, moms have marched and organized, but by and large it appears Americans are desensitized to this kind of school gun violence. In this brief piece we wonder, what might it mean to become sensitive to rampage school shootings?

Post-Rampage Schooling

Many contemporary American schools have locked down auxiliary entrances leaving one monitored door, some have installed metal detectors or hired armed security guards, others have armed teachers, installed new intercom systems, and taught students the fundamentals of self-defense (Cornell, 2006; DeBrabander, 2015). Companies are peddling bulletproof whiteboards and interactive rampage school shooting video games. (DeBrabander, 2015; “Homeland Security Rolls Out Virtual School Shooter ‘Game’ to Teachers,” 2018). Despite the varied scope and scale of these physical measures, nearly all American schools have implemented some kind of post rampage preparation. In fact, in his book about guns and democracy political philosopher, Firmin DeBrabander argues a major new element in 21st century American school is the, “concentration of security- fear- and defensive measures”(DeBrabander, 2015, p. 170). On this note, Dewey Cornell’s book School Violence: Fear Vs. Fact is dedicated to dispelling the fear that has gripped school administrators and led to the rise ineffective policies that harden schools, but do not prevent school shootings. In Cornell’s words, “the fear of violence is important because fear has driven schools to make radical changes in how schools function and how students are disciplined,” (Cornell, 2006, p. 7).

Beyond the building level changes that have affected the physical school environment, in 1994 Congress passed the Gun- Free School Act which mandated a “one-year expulsion for any student in possession of a firearm on school property” and paved the way for inflexible disciplinary policies (Stader, 2006) . For instance, Cornell reports that in the 1996-1997 school year “6,093 students were expelled for firearms violations”(Cornell, 2006, p. 7). The fact that many of these expulsions did not involve firearms, but firecrackers or pellet guns is illustrative. If a student takes a pellet gun to school with the intent to harm, they should be disciplined. But one-size fits all discipline, removes all attempts to understand or educate out of the equation. An educator’s practical judgement is replaced with mandatory minimum sentencing. Cornell and DeBrabander agree that zero tolerance policies- which have been a feature of American education for nearly three decades – have done more harm than good. Not only have children been disciplined for minor and innocent infractions, zero tolerance policies have been used in urban areas to suspend children of color at much higher rates that their white peers. Although the racial disparities in expulsions is important, our quarrel with zero tolerance policies is their educational significance. Instead of allowing educators to make practical and educated judgements about infractions, educators are disciplined and taught to see all children as potential shooters. Fittingly, DeBrabander puts it this way, “Schools that are armed and fortified teach children that the world is a dangerous place—they teach students to see manifold defensive gestures as second nature”(DeBrabander, 2015, p. 171). We would add post rampage schooling, that is schooling in the wake of rampage school gun violence, educates students as much as it does teachers.

Both teachers and students participate in post rampage schooling. Both are disciplined by zero-tolerance policies, recommendations to arm adults in the school, the installation of bulletproof whiteboards, the sight of armed security guards, and the practice of lock-down drills. Both imagine what it might be like to see someone they know aiming a semi-automatic rifle at them and their peers. All are disciplined to think about education and schooling in an armed society and given recent events it would be irresponsible to ignore this charge.

In a recent conversation with a teacher he put it this way, “we are taught to hide from the shooter in drills, because teachers are too prone to try talking the shooter down.” In fact, following Parkland there have been dangerous calls to “walk up” to the shooter in an effort to talk them down. This is not what we are calling for. When a shooter is rampaging, they have a plan and loads of guns. It is very unlikely anyone will talk them down, although it has been done. What we are saying is post-rampage schooling, wherein the school is hardened, locked down, and secured, teaches students and teachers to fear one another and the potentially violent world. Although it is wise to give rampage school gun violence due consideration, we contend the hardening of school, and not the continuation of the events alone, has resulted in the desensitization of Americans to rampage school gun violence. The effect of which is public resignation to the likelihood of a horrific school shooting every couple of years.

Becoming Sensitive

In school, children are practicing active shooter and lockdown drills. They pass through metal detectors, say hello to armed security guards, and expect daily visitors to be buzzed in through monitored doors. Many worry about what might happen if a classmate decides to open fire. Urban students practice active shooter drills in school, and then traverse their block. For them gun violence threatens their walk home, to the corner store, and to their swimming practice.  As we see it, American children are being taught to expect gun violence with their education.

The Parkland students have reminded the public, their peers, and teachers across the nation, that it does not have to be this way. We did not attend Columbine or Virginia Tech, but we did come of age in the era of rampage school shootings. Whereas our parents were taught to duck and cover, we learned to access our exits when walking into a school building, to run, hide and fight, and as teachers to monitor our engagement with students who might (based on our biased judgements) be the next shooters. We agree with the Parkland students (and the enormous amount of young people protesting across the country), this is unacceptable. Post-rampage schooling perverts the purpose and place of education in a plural democracy where children ought to be learning what it means to make democracy work in an increasingly diverse world and violent world.

What we educate for matters. American schools have become forts in a world marred by gun violence, and as such educate children to accept and perhaps perpetuate that violence. Schools are more worried about education for self-defense, than education for pluralism, democracy, or peace. Given the reality of rampage school gun violence, the schools’ obligation to protect students, and the entrenched place of guns in American society (there are roughly 280 million guns in the United States) we had a modest goal here. That goal was to highlight the public reckoning recent rampage school gun violence has inspired. Our hope is that it will continue.

In an interview with Here & Now, Ivy Schamis, a teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida spoke about one of the courses taken by her students, many of them in the spotlight for their roles in March for Our Lives and media appearances. Many of these students were currently or previously enrolled in her History of the Holocaust class, where they discussed being an upstander, rather than a bystander. Moreover, Schamis believes a school’s culture encourages students to stand up for their beliefs, as they have with  #NeverAgain. Jointly curricula that encourages students to consider the human impact of violence and war, and a school culture that encourages students to articulate and stand up for their beliefs might be the first steps to softening schools. Although teachers and administrators are beholden to many stakeholders, teachers might look at the framing of their curriculum and pedagogy to examine how they might adapt to a more democratic or anti-war approach. Philosopher of education, Nel Noddings advises educators to resist and expose the romanticizing of war and urges educators to integrate “critical war studies” into their teaching (Noddings, 2011). We are not saying these moves alone will eliminate rampage school gun violence. Rather, as we see it one way to soften the increasingly rigid school environment which aims to treat students as soldiers and schools as forts is to subvert the overt militarization via pedagogy.

Perhaps then, more students can and will see that how they might stand up for their beliefs, while working together to create change. Importantly they might learn how to cooperate, communicate, and form publics as the youth from Chicago and Parkland have done. Students and teachers across the United States might rally behind causes they have been fighting alone. Those with the mic might leverage their platform to highlight new voices and old struggles. Together a wider public of anti-war, peaceful, and strong democratic activist might rise. Without a concerted effort to make school places where democratic publics can form this awakening will be short lived.

Works Cited:

Bidgood, J., Harmon, A., Smith, M., & Salam, M. (2018, February 15). The Names and Faces of the Florida School Shooting Victims. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/15/us/florida-school-victims.html

Call for Action to Prevent Gun Violence in the United States of America. (2018, February 28). Retrieved April 28, 2018, from https://curry.virginia.edu/prevent-gun-violence

Bump, P. (2018, May 18). Analysis | 2018 has been deadlier for schoolchildren than service members. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/05/18/2018-has-been-deadlier-for-schoolchildren-than-service-members/

Cornell, D. G. (2006). School Violence: Fears Versus Facts (1 edition). Mahwah, N.J: Routledge.

DeBrabander, F. (2015). Do Guns Make Us Free?: Democracy and the Armed Society. New Haven, CT : London: Yale University Press.

Fast, J. (2008). Ceremonial Violence: A Psychological Explanation of School Shootings (1 edition). Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press.

Kupchik, A. (2012). Homeroom Security: School Discipline in an Age of Fear (Reprint edition). NYU Press.

Lee, M. Y. H. (2015, June 29). Analysis | Has there been one school shooting per week since Sandy Hook? Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/06/29/has-there-been-one-school-shooting-per-week-since-sandy-hook/

Lithwick, D. (2018, February 28). Why Are the Parkland Teens So Good at This? Their Public School Prepared Them For It. Retrieved March 13, 2018, from https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/02/the-student-activists-of-marjory-stoneman-douglas-high-demonstrate-the-power-of-a-full-education.html

Newman, K. S. (2012, December 19). Roots of a Rampage. The Nation. Retrieved from https://www.thenation.com/article/roots-rampage/

Noddings, N. (2011). Peace Education: How We Come to Love and Hate War (1 edition). Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press.

Stader, D. L. (2006). Zero Tolerance: Safe Schools or Zero Sense? Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice, 6(2), 65–75. https://doi.org/10.1300/J158v06n02̱05