No magic bullet for the bullets…

Dear Marja, I sit here across from the TV, and I hear screaming, crying, yelling, grief. Gun violence at another school, this time in Georgia–12 or so kids, babies really, shot by a 14-year-old. A 14-YEAR-OLD. Gun violence, again, but it isn’t just guns. I think it’s a mindset we have got to change, the mindset. The mentality: kids with unengaged parents, poor role models, the evil of our nature. DAMNIT. This has got to stop. We can do better than we are doing. Yes, it is a deep, long, hard road. And we have to start everywhere….every city, every town, every house. We need a plan. We can’t just go out there with a hit-home message that children are dying at a rapid pace. Children, families, our loves. I am in. But what can I do? Marching and singing haven’t done it. People need to unite, individually, behind new behaviors. We must start everywhere. Folks, we’ve got to change the direction we are heading in. What do we do, Marja?

Greta

I’m there with you…in these moments of horror. I’m every parent, I’m every teacher, and, in fact, I’m every student. I walk the hallways of my school every day. I look for potential fast exits, places to hide, places where a bullet might not reach a 3-year-old or where a 12-year-old taken by surprise at recess could run. But why? Why do I have this waking nightmare? And worse, why are these moments some parents, some teachers, and some children’s lived experiences or last thoughts?

Honestly? It takes my breath away. I have to train my faculty every year in “best practices” for an “active shooter.” We have to run monthly exit drills and pile our toddlers into carts for a fast escape every month. Thankfully, they don’t yet understand. This has become part of the Head of School Playbook and every teacher’s practice. We all steel ourselves for it. We love our children and our jobs, but never thought when we went into education that we were in fact going into live combat without true training, without protection, or (wait for it) with children.

And then it happens. It doesn’t just happen once either. It keeps happening. Present tense and again. I have to write another letter to my faculty, send the resource links to my school’s families about how to talk about school shootings with children of all ages; I have these links saved to “favorites.” What is wrong with this picture?

And now in “Ask Marja” the question I have been dreading since April 20, 1999: “What do we do? How do we make it stop?”

My typical trick won’t work this time–”Wow, what a great question, I’m so glad you asked.”–which buys me 15 seconds to think of an answer. I’ve been trying to think of an answer for 25 years. Smarter people than me have been trying to think of an answer. Here’s all I have to offer right now.

Guns

You can guess what I have to say. Yes, the cat is out of the bag. We have too many with too much access. Used with care, I suppose, there is a reason to have one (OK, I’m a vegan and that sentence took a lot for me to write); however I see no reason for assault rifles in the hands of the public. Give me one reason…. So far, no one has been able to give me a reason, other than “It’s my right,” which isn’t a reason to have that piece of equipment. For ten years, we had an assault-weapons ban, and mass shootings went down. We can look at statistics from other countries too.

How we teach and practice conflict resolution/restorative understanding

As parents, caregivers, and educators, when our lives and the typical daily demands placed upon us get to be too much, we default to top down, authoritarian, and often bullying behavior ourselves with children. We start to feel authoritarianism is the answer. Worse still, authoritarianism has become not only what is getting most of the press coverage, but what is garnering enough popular support to win elections. It is the behavior shown on reality TV–the bullying, name-calling, backstabbing, least healing and least productive means to an end, and yet there, too, it is often rewarded, literally, with money.

There is another way. When conflict occurs, we could seize more effective strategies: We can teach even small children to face one another and ask “What happened?” and, without judgment, listen to their answers. We can employ this technique with all sides in the squabble and then bring the sides together in a process that requires them to listen to one another, think about their impact on one another and the community. And then we can also include the community in the conversion and in the repair work, all without judgment. This approach creates true change. It works in families and in schools that invest the time and training, and practice it.  It works for though, and at all ages (yes, even and especially middle school).

Each and every shooting is different. I do not know why and can and will never claim to understand any of them. I can only work to improve the future in front of me here. I hope if you have read this far, you will too.

Nationally-recognized visionary in the areas of educational system improvement and innovation, educational consultant Marja Brandon has been a teacher, head of school, and founder of Seattle Girls School. She is currently the head of school at Childpeace Montessori School in Portland, OR.  She volunteers to offer advice and writes articles for TeensParentsTeachers.  

Like most of the pictures on TeensParentsTeachers, the picture posted with this article is courtesy of a free download from Pixabay.com.