Have Gun, Will Teach

Illustration by Barry Gremillion

 Columbine. Virginia Tech. Aurora. Oak Creek. Tuscon. Mass shootings, school shootings, domestic terrorism, and domestic violence. They float through the news cycle daily, and I don’t pay much attention any more. Then came Newtown. At first, it seemed like all the others: some crazy guy with a semi-automatic weapon shoots and kills and wounds, then takes his own life. I’d heard it all before.

      Until I read that it happened in an elementary school. Until I learned that most of those killed were children under the age of 6. I couldn’t hide from that. It has taken a few months to be able to write about it. As expected, the shooting has ignited the debate on gun control and safety in schools. Again.

     And even now, one idea is taking root across the country, and it makes me boil: teachers can stop school shootings if they are allowed to carry weapons. Yes, of course, that’s the answer. Let teachers have guns. If the teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary had been armed, they could have stopped Adam Lanza, or at least prevented him from targeting the school in the first place. That’s bullshit. There’s no denying the acts of heroism that occurred at Sandy Hook that day: from the principal and the teachers who died protecting the children, to the neighbor down the street who sheltered six students he found sitting at the end of his driveway. But giving teachers guns to prevent school shootings is insane.

     And guess what? It’s already happened in the Harrold Independent School District, a small community northwest of Dallas, Texas. According to an article written by Philip Hodges (Texas School District Arms Faculty with Concealed Handguns, 12/18/2012), Harrold has 110 students, 15 teachers, “specialized security locks, video surveillance, and an undisclosed number of teachers carrying concealed handguns.”

     Implemented in 2008, only the superintendent and the school board know which teachers participate in the “Guardian Plan”. The Guardians have conceal and carry permits from the state, receive a small annual stipend, and use only frangible bullets, which crumble into small pieces on impact with a target. According to the superintendent, David Thweatt, “We insist upon them because we don’t want a bullet to ricochet and hit a child.”  He makes this sound perfectly reasonable. The fact that guns might be fired in a classroom with twenty-two children doesn’t seem to be a problem at all, as long as the bullets don’t bounce around, which, I’m sure, isn’t something a shooter thinks about before entering a school with his semi-automatic AR15 assault rifle.

     The district couldn’t afford a security guard, but they did provide training and handguns for the teachers. “As educators, we don’t have to be police officers…we just have to be accurate. We are 18 miles and 30 minutes from the nearest police station,” says Thweatt, “so we are our first responders. If something happened, we would have to protect our children. The police are true, everyday heroes, but often get to the scene when it’s too late.” Parents embraced this plan in Harrold because they believe shootings happen in places where a gunman knows there’s little resistance.

    But something is missing from the conversation here. Once a child crosses the threshold into the classroom, there’s a relationship between teachers and students that allows learning to happen. Teachers work to create an environment of trust and safety and respect, a community of learners where it’s okay for everyone to make mistakes, take risks and be curious. If teachers carry guns, the learning relationship changes. As a kid, if I know my teacher is carrying a gun, I would work really hard not to make him or her mad, do what I was told, and not question anything. Kids will know who those teachers are, no matter how much adults convince themselves they don’t. If teachers are armed, children will lose the ability to speak out. Schools won’t be places to think or create or challenge. It won’t happen if teachers have guns. Guns mean power.

     As a teacher, especially on those long, stressful, exhausting days with a thousand demands on my time and sanity, it would be tempting to use the concealed gun as a disciplinary tool, maybe just a pointed finger to where the gun rests against my ribs. Just a warning for those children with behavior issues I don’t have the time or energy or patience to deal with. No one wants to think a teacher might do this, and many would deny it’s even possible. But teachers are human and carry enormous responsibilities along with long hours and little recognition. They are overworked, and it doesn’t matter how much training they receive in hitting a target accurately. I worry about how effectively they can actually respond to an emergency situation as frightening as a gunman loose in the building. A handgun issued to a teacher is no match against the semi-automatic weapons favored mass shootings.

     Yet, five other states, along with other districts in Texas, are looking at training and arming teachers. What are we teaching children when we barricade ourselves inside fear?

     Of course, other possible solutions like gun control are met with lots of shouting and hysteria. We need to be armed and ready against crazy people, because having a gun is a constitutionally protected right. And that kind of thinking around the second amendment, says Beverly Bandler, (The Second Amendment’s History, 1/25/13), is why practical solutions to gun control remain difficult. Gun lobbyists and the NRA have been very effective in promoting the second amendment as sacred by lifting out only those parts that support its agenda: to sell guns. To do that, the individual must have a right to buy them. If you look at the history, as Bandler writes, the second amendment was actually about collective rights and the establishment of a militia. But in 2008, the Supreme Court upheld the interpretation put forth by the pro-gun folks – that the second amendment protects the individual’s right to purchase guns.

     Except that reducing gun violence doesn’t diminish the second amendment at all. Lots of people use guns safely and responsibly. The President’s plan to protect our children by reducing gun violence acknowledges this and includes four reasonable steps: close background check loopholes, ban military style assault weapons and high capacity magazines, make schools safer by providing funding for resource officers, counselors, and social workers, and increase access to mental health services. Let’s put money where it might actually do some good.

     When will we be able to throw away what doesn’t work and do what’s right to protect all citizens? A gun in the hands of the mentally ill is just too easy, and we’ve learned to cope with isolation, poverty, fear, anger, despair, and rejection with violence. In this, there is no sacred constitutional right.

     It’s possible teachers will be expected to put their lives on the line, and when they do, they will be applauded for their heroism. But teachers respond in classrooms with heroic acts every single day. They see and help children deal with the horror of domestic violence and abuse, drugs and poverty, bullying and pregnancy, learning disabilities and mental illness. Heroism doesn’t only show up when a shooter does.

     I don’t know if there’s one best way to protect children from shootings at school. I don’t know if the Obama Administration’s proposals will help. But arming teachers isn’t the answer.

Go, Texas, Go!

     The one thing scarier than the Republican education platform is the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE).  A friend of mine brought this up one day over coffee after she saw a new documentary called The Revisionaries. The movie chronicles how the SBOE ends up deciding what children in grades K-12 will learn in the state of Texas, which doesn’t sound so bad until you look at how the process works and who is on the board.

     Basically, it goes like this: the fifteen members of the SBOE establish curriculum standards for the content areas (science, history, etc.). Once the board has the standards in place, they are given to textbook publishers who offer samples of their books incorporating the agreed upon standards. If a book doesn’t meet the standards, it won’t make the state list of approved textbooks that school districts use to make purchase decisions.

     Well, so what? The problem, according to the Texas Freedom Network (TFN), is that “most Texans know little about the state board or who is on it.”  Texas is the “largest buyer of textbooks in the country”, so what Texas buys, other states buy as well. Texas controls the market and thereby controls what students read, which gives the SBOE a lot of power. Christian Fundamentalists have been elected in recent years to this board, and they are using this forum to promote their moral agenda in the public schools instead of relying on the expertise of teachers and scholars.

     Uh oh.

     Let’s take a look at a few of the changes to the social studies curriculum standards the SBOE made in 2009-2010 according to the TFN.

1. Adoption of a new standard for high school American government that suggests the separation of church and state is not a key principle of the Constitution, but rather, in the view of the SBOE, “a myth.” The board rejected a proposed standard requiring students to examine how the Founders protected religious freedom by barring government from favoring any one religion over others.

2. A new standard that downplays the central role that slavery played in causing the Civil War. According to one supporter, this puts slavery in a “positive light” since it shows how American spirit overcomes evil.

3. Revised standard suggesting witch-hunts by Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950’s were justified.

4. Removing the concept of “responsibility for the common good”, which one board member criticized as too communistic.

      This is what educational malpractice looks like. Here’s another example of SBOE reasoning:

     Oscar Romero, an archbishop in El Salvador in the 70’s, spoke out against poverty and social injustice. Death squads killed him in 1980.  He was a Latin American role model who stood up against oppression, and the SBOE objected to his inclusion in the curriculum standards. Why? Because he was not as well known as Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi, and therefore, shouldn’t be included with these men. Shouldn’t we teach children that ordinary people do accomplish extraordinary things? That integrity matters, not fame? Doesn’t Texas have a significant Latino population that’s growing? Shouldn’t we honor and include role models that reflect diversity?

      Apparently not, especially if the far right doesn’t like it. Students in Texas won’t hear about Oscar Romero. He has disappeared. The adoption of these standards dictate what students learn in social studies over the next decade.

     Don McLeroy is a dentist and former member and chair of the SBOE. He is the focus of the documentary film, and I watched a couple of excerpts of his reasoning at meetings of the board.  He identifies himself as a Christian Fundamentalist and believes that  “someone needs to stand up to experts.”  I guess scholars and teachers aren’t qualified to develop curriculum, but he is? Okay.

     Part of McLeroy’s education agenda is to minimize what students learn regarding the role of women and minorities in social studies.  He said, “ The majority vote gave minorities civil rights.  Women didn’t earn the right to vote, because they couldn’t vote. Men passed it for the women.”  This brand of insanity completely negates the Women’s Suffrage movement and the fact people gave their lives for Civil Rights. Children shouldn’t know about this because history is all about the white guys? Wow. How will we teach about the importance of justice and protest if we give our power away to the views of one group?  We will and are raising a nation of people who will placidly go along with whatever the majority tells them to think. 

     And even though McLeroy agrees that the fossil record is evidence of evolution, other patterns cannot be explained by evolution, like the sudden emergence of other groups in the fossil record and that some groups remain the same. This information should be added to the curriculum standards, he argues, “so that we’re honest with students.”  I’m guessing Mr. McLeroy hasn’t read Jonathan Weiner’s Pulitzer Prize Winning book, The Beak of the Finch. This book documents the work of Peter and Rosemary Grant and their years of research on the Galapagos Islands. Their data not only supports the research of Charles Darwin, but demonstrates how they were able to observe and record evolution actually happening. Luckily, the “phony weaknesses” of McLeroy’s arguments did not appear in the science curriculum standards in 2011.

     If we educate so narrowly, children will not grow up to think and follow their own life path. They will perpetuate fear, lies, hate, and myth. While this in itself is frightening, there is hope, especially with the Texas Freedom Network, who is working hard to thwart this twisted agenda. Go, Texas, go!

Platforms

Next month, we’ll hold an election to determine the direction of our country for the next four years. Last week, the two presidential candidates faced off in the first debate. I couldn’t watch it. I barely made it through the conventions. I want to believe that public education matters in this election, but I’m not sure. When I watched Bill Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention, I loved the way he countered every Republican lie with facts and specific information. It made me feel a lot better to know what the Democrats stand for, especially during such difficult times: equality of opportunity, good paying jobs, an economic system that benefits everyone, and a world-class education.

     But what is an excellent education? How does a child get one? I decided to read the platforms, both Republican and Democrat, to see what each party has to say.

     First up, the Republican platform. Many items came as no surprise: parents are responsible for their children’s education, they should have choices about where to send their kids to school since a one size fits all approach doesn’t work, American dominance requires a top-notch system with high standards and accountability, along with high expectations and a rejection of the “crippling bigotry of low expectations.” 

     But there were a few things that left me reeling. Are you ready?

• Education is more than school- it is a range of activities by which families and communities transmit to a younger generation ethical and behavioral norms and traditions. (God help you if you’re gay and prefer to be a Buddhist.) Texas Republicans take this one step further: they oppose the teaching of critical thinking skills because it challenges students’ fixed beliefs and undermines parental authority. Well, there goes a world-class education: no diversity and no ability to think for yourself.
• The federal government has spent $2 trillion dollars since 1965 with no substantial improvement in academic success. Overall results do not justify that spending. We know what works: accountability, high standards, character development, and assessments on the fundamentals in math, science, reading, history, and geography. Hmmm… let’s see no mention of the arts as important to education and…all of the standards and testing and accountability in the last twenty years have not significantly improved student performance, and these were all Republican initiatives.
• There should be a renewed focus on the Constitution and the writings of the Founding Fathers with an accurate account of American history. Oh yeah, America is a Christian nation. I guess this version of history ignores religious tolerance, slavery, women, and Indians.
• Replace family planning programs for teens with abstinence education. Waiting until marriage is the responsible and respected standard of behavior. Isn’t it funny how they talk about choice but insist on a one size fits all morality?
• Legislation is needed to change the definition of “Highly Qualified Teacher” from one based on credentials to results. Schools should recruit teaching talent from business, core subject fields (science, technology, etc.) and the military (veteran)s. Ah yes, the highly qualified. Bring ‘em on! Let’s see how they manage a classroom of 30 students.
• And finally, a note on higher education. Ideological bias is deeply entrenched in    the university system. Trustees need to see that funds for public colleges are not abused for political indoctrination. Public colleges and universities should be places of learning and exchange of ideas, not zones of intellectual intolerance favoring the Left. What??? OMG, this is about intelligent design, creationism, and evolution! So, a college education becomes a means, not for deepening the intellect, but for spreading lies and conformity to one set of beliefs.

     So Republicans want education to be the foundation of morality. Democrats, on the other hand, tie education to economics. In their platform, they provide a list of their philosophy and accomplishments, which, I must say, are more reasonable and sane. And while I agree with the Democratic philosophy, we are a long way from a society that provides opportunities for all.

·     Democrats recognize education as the most pressing economic issue in America’s future, and we cannot allow our country to fall behind in a global economy. But it’s already happening! We must prepare the next generation for success in college and the workforce, ensuring that American children once again become global leaders in creativity and achievement. Great, but how?

·    Our country is strongest when workers are trained with the knowledge and   ingenuity to perform at the highest levels. What does this look like?

·    In 1944 Democratic president Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the G.I. Bill providing World War Two Veterans with opportunities for higher education. This helped create the modern middle class in America. It moved my family out of poverty for sure.

·    Our emphasis is access to higher education. In 2010, we enacted student loan reform ending subsidies to big banks and making college more affordable to millions of Americans. This saves $68 billion dollars over the next ten years.

·    We are overhauling No Child Left Behind to provide teachers with more support and resources while also holding them accountable. Race to the Top provided incentives for improvement and through the Recovery Act we are investing in early childhood through Head Start, child care and programs for children with special needs. All of this is simply not enough.

     For me, it comes down to why the Chicago teachers went on strike. Even after an attempt by Rahm Emanuel (isn’t he supposed to be Democrat?) to make teachers look like bad guys for keeping children out of school! Lauran Clawson wrote in the Daily Kos: When you make me cram 30-50 kids in my classroom with no air conditioning so that temperatures hit 96 degrees, that hurts kids. When you take 18-25 days out of the school year for high stakes testing that is not even scientifically applicable for many of our students, that hurts our kids. When you spend millions on your pet programs, but there’s no money for school level repairs, so the roof leaks on my students at their desks when it rains, that hurts our kids.

     A first rate education begins with having a comfortable, functioning school and providing teachers with the resources they need. It seems like this should be simple. So, Republicans and Democrats, what will you do about this?

     Governor Romney? President Obama? Anyone?