Keeping our students safe

             

While the images in the Los Angeles Times of thousands of students participating in the National Student March in protest of gun violence were grimly impressive, the most powerful image for me was a mental one inspired by the quote of Parkland, FL resident Marc Harris on why he marched:

My daughter, Jenna, is a sophomore at Douglas and was cowering in a closet

during the murders at her school

As an educator who has spent 40 years working with teenagers, I can’t think of a more chilling image of what is wrong with the world they will inherit than that of Jenna cowering in a classroom closet. It is hard enough for parents and teachers to equip teenagers to move through adolescence without being overwhelmed by the corroding effects of traditional and social media messages that encourage them to act in irresponsible ways; much less have to worry about keeping them safe at school. Between the triple challenges of adolescent development, increasingly more rigorous academic expectations and the fragmented social structure confronting teenagers on a daily basis, the high school experience is sufficiently intimidating that our young people shouldn’t also have to learn to be afraid of what might happen to them if they encounter an unbalanced individual armed with rapid fire weapons. Cowering in a closet is not the answer.

              Some may be quick to point out that the solution to gun violence is increased funding for enhanced behavioral health services. Yes – that is a solution – one that may reduce gun violence many years from now. However, our children need to be safe now. On average, 12 young people a day die from gun violence. The National Association of Social Workers makes the argument that the issue of reducing gun violence is distinct and separate from the right to own firearms.

I agree.

Having spent a fair amount of my teaching career in Upstate New York where the opening day of hunting season regularly witnessed an increase in school absences, I respect the responsible use of firearms. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously argued that “falsely shouting fire in a movie theater” is not protected free speech, demonstrating that there are limits to the First Amendment, we already have limitations in place with respect to the Second Amendment. Making the case for the prevention of certain arms acquisitions by individuals who don’t have a clear and obvious reason to use them shouldn’t be in conflict with the prerogatives of the Second Amendment. Just as we all desire safety in theaters, we should also desire safety in schools. This argument is increasingly being made by a wide variety of professional educational, religious and medical organizations, including:

·       The Catholic and Episcopal Bishops

·       United Methodist Church

·       Presbyterian Church

·       United Church of Christ

·       Rabbis Against Gun Violence

·       National Catholic Educational Association

·       Jesuit Schools Network

·       Dominican Sisters Conference

·       Franciscan Friars

·       Lasallian Association of Secondary School Chief Administrators

·       National Association of Independent Schools

·       California Association of Independent Schools

·       National Parent Teacher Association

·       American Association of Nurse Practitioners

·       National Association of Social Workers

These and other organizations are asking for a national conversation regarding effective measures necessary to reduce gun violence. This conversation shouldn’t be about an “either/or” dichotomy (as currently appears to be the case) but a “both/and” dialogue in which competing individual rights (to bear arms/to go about one’s business in safety) are addressed in common sense ways. It is not common sense, for example, to argue on CNN (as one politician did) that the Parkland students should learn CPR rather than marching in the streets.

              Which brings me to the question of student protests. Those of us who grew up as “Baby Boomers” well remember the ugly protests against the Vietnam War that took place on college campuses across the Nation. Those demonstrations – regardless of their merit – fanned the flames of a country already divided over Vietnam. The student protests against gun violence, however, were led by articulate and thoughtful young people who had a story to tell the nation about the personal toll gun violence was exacting in their schools. I am reminded of the student walkout at La Salle on March 14^th. Teachers and administrators spent a great deal of time thinking about how to approach this event. We knew we wanted to be supportive of students’ exercise of Free Speech, but we also didn’t want the event to become an incoherent example of adolescent anarchy.

              Therefore, I was gratified to observe how student leaders Isabella Marez ’18 and Katrina Yuzefpolsky ’19 approached the walkout. Students quietly left the building and stood in front of the campus while Bella and Katrina read out the names of the 17 victims. They observed 17 minutes of silence and then concluded with a prayer service. Students re-entered the building and quietly continued on with their school day.

              This moment was all the more powerful because of Katrina’s own story. Ten years ago, on Christmas Eve, Katrina opened the front door to be greeted by a man dressed in a Santa suit (her aunt’s ex-husband) who began firing one of four semi-automatic weapons, striking Katrina in the face and killing nine of her relatives. To see Katrina quietly, politely and thoughtfully organize her peers on March 14^th was to know that, while we may not leave them a more humane world when they reach adulthood, they will certainly act in a manner consistent with Martin Luther King, Jr’s famous observation:

“…the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Remembering the quiet authority Bella and Katrina exercised that day is, for me, a far more hopeful mental image than that of Jenna Harris cowering in a closet.

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