Response to armed escalation
I still remember that time that I had to prove my “new kid” status, and I ended up punching the other guy in the nose. I got strapped for my troubles, and figured out that violence wasn’t really matched to the playground. To be fair, I was eight years old, and although the powers that be said that a child is able to completely determine what is right or wrong by the age of seven, I was a bit slow. There, my history as a fighter in a nutshell.
For the following four decades, my experience with school has been about the same. Not nearly as many fights as the press would have one believe, and the only weapons that I saw were in an old encyclopedia article on the armaments of the Middle Ages. That’s why I had to listen to a talk show this afternoon dealing with violence in schools.
Of course it exists; just, no place I’ve been. Call me sheltered, but other than a few sotto voce insults, there’s been little to prove the premise that we live in violent time. Ditto for my spouse, my children, even my dog; you know, the menacing one. I have never worked in a school that needed metal detectors, and as far as I know there are no collection boxes for arms in the front office. A good thing.
The intro sociology course I suffered through in my sophomore year gave some statistics about deviance in any given society. The majority among us are not outlaws, and in those “inner city” schools where things seem to have derailed completely it may be something else. How much of it is due to trade wars? What percentage of armed attacks come due to economic mishaps? Are we simply seeing spillage from transactions that weren’t completed in due and proper form?
The next time you read about an armed attack in a school, check out whether there were factors that had nothing to do with education and everything to do with stress in the neighbourhood. Homies with hoodies. Stop blaming the educational system for things gone awry. On a whole, schools are a pretty good place to spend the day.
