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Thoughts on “What Can We Do?” After Newtown, CT
Jim Ott
Friday was a tough day for those of
us who are working in schools or who are parents of kids who attend
school. In fact, the whole weekend was
tough. Coming back to school on Monday
wasn’t all that great either! While I am
far from Newtown, CT, and can’t begin to know what it is like for the residents
of that community, I know that my experience in processing through what
happened there on Friday was similar to many who work in the many thousands of
other schools around the country. It did
not take much for me to change the faces on the parents and kids I saw on TV
and think, “I know those people. I know
those kids.” This could have been
us. That could have been me.
At the
same time, we know the statistics.
Schools are very safe and there are very few places where kids are safer
from physical harm than in the school building during the school day. I know that there is very little likelihood
that I will ever have the need to intervene in a school with a crazed
gunman.
But I have to do something.
The first response on Monday morning is what I
saw happen in my schools. “Remember to
check your crisis procedures to ensure that you are making our school as safe
as possible” memos were sent. Door were
locked that maybe should have been all along.
My ID was checked in buildings where it never was before.
These
actions are understandable and make sense in context. Schools want to do what they can to protect
the kids. But on some level, making sure
the doors are locked and related security measures as a way to protect the kids
from a malicious intruder is a bit like revisiting the way you pick the numbers
for the lottery when you don’t win the big jackpot. In a similar way to it being true that I will
never win the lottery, the statistical truth is that none of the kids I work
with are going to be threatened by a malicious intruder with a gun. If it ever does happen, I pray that I will
do what I can to intervene and protect the children and demonstrate the courage
that the adults at Newtown did. But I
have already done everything I can do to protect kids from this kind of
threat. The staff and the students at
Sandy Hook Elementary are worthy of a better legacy than making sure the doors
are locked.
So what
can we do? As educators? As parents? As a culture? The sudden impact of attacks like the one at
Sandy Hook Elementary School is what shakes our lives. In less than a second, a foreign object
entered a child’s body, did irreparable harm, and took away his or her
life. And it happened to many all at
once, which is what brought it to the nation’s consciousness. Certainly we know that kids are being killed
every day in a variety of senseless ways from gang violence to drunk driving to
simple carelessness. Most of these
children’s stories are never known outside of their communities perhaps, and
sadly, because those stories have become too commonplace to be reported on a
large scale. Even in these cases, it is
the immediacy with which it all happens that is difficult.
I work
as a school psychologist. As I reflected
on the implications of Sandy Hook for my own job, I realized that there is
little I can do to stop incidents of senseless violence or accidents that take
away children’s lives. What occurred to
me is that every day I go to school, I see kids dying slow deaths right in
front of me. I started thinking about the
slow motion bullets that are killing children right before my eyes. Many of these kids will not die physically
but they are dying emotionally and spiritually, sometimes taking others with
them. Maybe we can do something about
those bullets. When people are shot but
not killed, surgeons work with all their skill and passion to undo the damage
that has already been done. Maybe we can
redouble our efforts to undo the damage that has been done to so many children
by the bullets our culture has fired into the lives of so many young
people. Examples of these bullets?
- · Physical and sexual abuse
- · The prevalence of drugs and alcohol as the entertainment of choice not only for kids but for whole family systems.
- · The outrageous exposure that so many kids have to violence and sexuality through media and gaming. When I have seven year olds telling me that their favorite game is “Call of Duty 3”, I feel like I have already lost the battle. The sexualization of little girls in advertising and entertainment is another example.
- · A hierarchy based adult social world that promotes celebrity, “cool”, and popularity (think voting on American Idol and the like) which is modeled to kids who we tell that they should not live that way. Many a parent’s most significant fear regarding school is not that their child will not do well but they their child will not be popular.
- · A culture of non-committed adults resulting in kids being raised in broken homes, sometimes broken several times resulting in a level of personal and relational insecurity that those working with children recognize all too well.
- · A bureaucratic and self-serving school system that far too often sees children as scores to be raised and data points to be plotted rather than precious lives to be nurtured, cherished and celebrated regardless of reading level or math skills.
- · Kids being raised by television screens, games systems, and computers. A culture of technology addiction. I saw a nice youth group ringing bells at a Salvation Army kettle this last week. Actually the adult chaperone was ringing the bell. Four of the five high school kids were staring at their phones. The other one was holding hers apparently waiting for the next opportunity.
- · Parents who primarily want to involve their kids in everything, occupying their every waking moment resulting in little time actually spent with their parents and little ability developed on the part of the kids to occupy their own time and thoughts.
- · Disconnected kids who turn to gangs, fantasy, sex, drugs, anger, and violence in an attempt to fill the emptiness within.
- · Helicopter parents who never allow their kids to experience the reality of life and the consequences of their choices. More and more kids for whom it is never their fault and someone else will solve this for me.
Of course, this is a partial list
based on my own experiences and concerns.
But these figurative bullets are being shot into the lives of many
children and doing incredible damage to kids on a daily basis. They are slow moving and slow acting compared
to bullets from a gun, but they are killing the lives of precious kids I work
with every day. For most of these students,
I can’t go back in time and keep the bullets from being shot. But I can spend as much of my energy and time
as I have available to do as much “surgery” and I can to repair the effects.
Friday morning of the shooting, I
was at an alternative high school and worked with several kids before I even
heard of the tragic events in Connecticut.
One girl in particular symbolizes for me this whole concept. She can read, write and do math just
fine. But she is dying. She has talents and abilities and passions
she has only begun to suspect. But the
bullets are killing her future. Monday
morning, I met with another young lady, a senior in high school. Very similar story. I can’t get in front of the bullets that have
been shot into their lives, some of which are listed above. But as an educator and a parent, if I am
serious about saving kids lives, I can get serious about doing what I can to
save those dying the slow death. I can
do whatever it takes to replace brokenness, despair and yes, even death with
hope and promise. It won’t bring back the students and staff
lost at Sandy Hook. But maybe it will be
a small way to honor their memory and respect their sacrifice and the sacrifice
of their families.
Jim Ott
Jmott30@aol.com
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