Just another message, about just another school day for a family member of mine, here in America. This is a real excerpt.
(But note: they’re not teaching about CRT, not saying “Gay,” or watching Disney, so everybody relax.)
“In such a time where words don’t quite seem comforting enough, we still wanted to take some time to share some measures we take to keep our staff and students safe.
Today our school administra-tors and/or counselors visited every classroom to check in with the staff and students in reference to yesterday’s tragedy.
We will do this again tomorrow and make sure our students are aware of the ability to speak to a counselor or any adult if they need space to talk.
The D—— Police Department also proactively increased patrols around both school campuses. This was a proactive measure and there are no current threats to our school community.
Please also know that every staff member of [this school] is committed to the safety of our each other and our students. Our exterior doors are kept locked at all times and can only be accessed by key or fob.
We are consistently reviewing our current school safety plan and make adjustments as necessary. Currently, we practice lockdown drills, fire and weather drills to make sure our students are prepared in the event of an emergency.
Recently, I, along with several other school employees attended the Center for Safe Schools-Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management Program. We will continue to attend trainings and use that knowledge to help with the process of developing a more comprehensive Crisis Management Plan.
This plan will be a more robust version of our current school safety plan and will include explicit policies on neighborhood and social media threats, mental health crisis, construction and natural disasters, medical emergencies and intruder/active shooter. . . .
From a UK perspective most of the comment on the Texas massacre has focused on gun control. But our gun control measures could never be accepted in the USA. And certainly not in Texas.
Self-evidently, some young people emerge from education with a deep sense of anger and alienation. Is it victim-blaming to wonder if part of the reason for that that might be found in society, even in the educational system itself? In particular, in the way that our systems equip us to deal with competition and conflict?
In the film ‘High Noon’ the young bride Amy Fowler sets aside her Quaker principles and saves her husband by shooting his would-be assassin in the back. The American myth of redemptive violence requires that it should be so. Most of us, Quaker or not, know that we have within us the seeds of violence, and so it is easy to identify with Amy even though most of us don’t look like Grace Kelly, who played the role. But that is a screenplay. In the real world, the seeds of violence are present not only in ourselves but in our institutions, even in our myths. Why is it cowardly, and wrong to shoot unarmed people, especially women and children? How are we taught to deal with conflict? What emphasis do we place on reconciliation? How skilled are we at empathy? How vital are these things, and (most importantly) where do we learn them?
Well said. I just posted on Facebook about the US needing to implement a gun buyback program à la Australia.
Now I see how entrenched violence is society in our myths and institutions. Your last five sentences! If only we emphasized/taught empathy in our schools, workplaces, institutions, instead of glorifying violence.
re: empathy
I especially like the Quaker version of empathy: finding Spirit in all others.
One of the meditations used by the 1st Buddha to reach a constant state of enlightenment my understanding of it based on various translations) is: “May I experience the joys and sorrows of all others, equally with my own.” There are 3 steps before this, leading up to this step.