Every time a school shooting happens people present the idea that we should arm teachers to defend our children. I think having armed professional security in schools is a better idea personally (but with the scrappy funding schools get some can't even afford to heat their buildings), though I am not opposed to teachers caring for this reason if they are properly trained and proven to be responsible. I feel that too much crap is already piled on teachers and expecting us to have the training of a police or military professional as well is simply over the top. Having said that, I would have given my life to defending the lives of any of my students had there been the need. I already gave a large portion of my life to teach them and attempt to inspire them, and I hope I was successful in some measure.
With all the attention in the media about school shootings there seems to be something everyone is missing: mass shooters don't usually expect to survive and often kill themselves afterwards. These individuals are not only homicide then are also suicidal, and chances are the suicidal issues started first. All arming professionals could do is prevent mass casualties (which is definitely an improvement), but there's a bigger problem here: what actually drives people to the breaking point where they feel the need to take out their aggression frustration and hate in our public schools in such a horrific manner?
Mass shootings are not even close to the number one killer in schools....
The #1 cause of death in teenagers are accidents (automobile accidents being the highest).
Suicide is second leading cause of death in teenagers and young adults.
Tens of thousands die each year from suicide. I'll repeat that: tens of thousands!!!
Many mass shootings are accompanied by suicide (no shooter expects to survive a mass shooting). It's not uncommon for suicidal individuals often seek to take the lives of others before (or with) their own.
But hey, let's just ignore the uncomfortable truths and go on believing that arguing about guns on facebook is going to make the world a safer place. It's all part of a political agenda to control the population. It's a distraction technique the government uses to keep our minds off the issues we can actually do something about.
I find it so ironic that we trust a government that has so clearly lied to us over and over again for decades with the most destructive weapons on earth, but we can't trust ourselves with guns.
I find it so ironic that a few lives taken by a few murderers get so much attention from the media but tens of thousands of lives lost from suicide get nearly zero attention.
Oh, did I mention that about 50% of suicides are carried out by guns? So, yeah over 19,000 gun related suicides per year in the US, which by the way is over half of the gun related deaths in the US. This number is more than 10 times the number of deaths from mass shootings. So, statistically speaking people are more likely to kill themselves with a gun than kill someone else (which if I am to be completely honest is the reason I will never own a firearm and have never shot one in my life because I have struggled with suicidal thoughts for much of my life).
Mass shootings are tragic. I'm not downplaying that at all... but we've got a much bigger problem here (that might even be the root cause of many or most of these shootings) and this narrow focus is nothing but nonsensical.
I started teaching when I was in high school: tutoring special education kids in math.
I continued to teach as a TA and Tutor in college where I majored in Physics Teaching.
I even taught religion and English in Italy for a while.
I've taught and tutored for the following subjects in public education: Physics, AP Physics, Biology, Chemistry, elementary math, reading, writing, English, Algebra II, Math I, II & III, Geometry, Trigonometry, Calculus, and special education (math, reading, writing, behavioral intervention).
I've worked at 10 different schools, I have children of my own and am no stranger to the way things are run in public schools.
Retiring from teaching in public education was one of the hardest things I ever had to do in my life, and I did it for the following reasons:
All the stress of working in public education was making me very physically ill. To understand why I was getting sick it may help to know that I have several genetic mutations that affect my hormone metabolism and overproduce adrenaline when I'm stressed. Compromised adrenal function can cause all sorts of problems among a few of these I was experiencing the following: seizures and autoimmune issues that were making me so sick I could barely function. So, my health forced me to quit, but the truth is I would have lost my job at the end of the year anyway because I did not believe in what our school system is doing to our children's minds, bodies and lives.
Why was I so stressed?
The workload is insane and the pay is terrible: those are true, but I can cope with that. I actually enjoy a challenging work environment and as long as I have enough to meet my needs, the needs of my family and aid those around me I don't give a damn about money: it is often just a means of manipulating the thoughts and actions of others.
The number one reason I was stressed about the public education system is the fact that it is being used exactly like money is in our corporate governed consumerist society:
to manipulate the thoughts and actions of our children.
Now in my criticism of the public education system know this: there are so many great teachers out there who are doing their absolute best to educate our children and care for them in our schools. I love the teachers I've worked with: they with only a few exceptions (yes there are some asshole teachers out there) are amazing individuals who deserve our praise and admiration not scorn and blame. There area also some great people who work as support staff and administrators (though I unfortunately find that 'authority' tends to go to people's heads and make them into asses).
The problem isn't so much with the people in the system as it is with the system itself.
I've had a lot of conversations with my students about how they feel about the school system, how much it stresses them and as it turns out the stresses these kids go through that are caused by public school are one of the leading reasons our children are contemplating suicide.
I've had several frank discussions with some of my students who struggled with depression, anxiety, stress, and suicidal tendencies. The system encourages us not to have discussions like this with students. It encourages us to just tell them that they need to talk to a counselor, but the fact is most of them don't trust counselors and if they do talk to them then the treatment they receive is often more punitive than therapeutic: pushing them even closer to feeling the need to escape their lives.
I was reprimanded by an administrator once for talking about suicidal thoughts with a few of my students. It's such a taboo thing to talk about... we are punished for talking about suicide, but the very sad fact is having suicidal thoughts at some point in ones life is actually quite normal: millions of people contemplate suicide at some time in their lives. Why did I talk to my students about it?
Well, many of them were attempting to cope with major stress and anxiety induced by the school system: which was one of the main sources of my depression and stress as a teen and one of the number one reasons I started contemplating suicide. I felt it would be healthy for them to know that contemplating suicide actually isn't that abnormal and that you can think about it objectively and logically without feeling like need to follow through with it.
I think it's helpful for people who are struggling to see that one of their mentors has had similar struggles and has always made the choice to put suicidal thoughts in perspective and stick to living no matter how hard it gets. Living is always better than rotting in a coffin.
So, that's the #1 problem with the public education system: we are pushing kids to take their own lives and possibly the lives of others because of all the stress and the way our system treats everyone like products on an assembly line being sent through quality control rejects and all.
In my next posts I'm going to go through all the issues in the system that lead to these stressors and make public schools a miserable hell hole for non-conformists.
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