The massacre of children in Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., has naturally caused yet another round of debate and has generated many ill-considered responses. Among those, the most egregiously bad is the suggestion to arm teachers.
As a retired educator, I have some thoughts that I would like to share in the hope that we can put aside that truly awful suggestion.
It has been my experience that the general public has a limited understanding about the steps most school systems have taken to reduce the risk of school shootings. For many years, nearly every school district in the country has been working with law enforcement agencies to establish protocols for responding to the threat of school shooters. For evidence of the effectiveness of those programs, one need look no further than the fact that while 17 individuals died in the Douglas High School shooting, more than 3,000 did not. That is because the teachers, students and staff of that school, did what they were trained to do.
First responders don’t want armed teachers in the hallway. The husband of one of my friends is a first responder. He said it best. “We can’t tell a good gun from a bad gun.” They want to be able to quickly identify and stop the shooter. Armed teachers in the hall would slow them down and increase the risk to both teachers and law enforcement officers.
We teachers help the first responders most by staying out of their way so they can do the job they’re trained to do. And we help our students most by not abandoning them to go engage in a shootout in the hallway. Our place is with our students, to do what we are trained to do by the law enforcement people who are doing what they are trained to.
But what about armed teachers inside the classroom? There are three times as many teachers as police officers in the U.S. The expense of training and equipping them would be enormous. To have a chance to survive an exchange of bullets with a shooter, teachers would have to be equipped with side arms and wearing body armor every day. And there’s still no guarantee they’d live.
Every police officer killed in the line of duty was carrying a weapon. Many were in body armor. Their gun didn’t save them. The odds are not any better for a teacher.
Leaving aside the issues of training, equipment and skill, we should also consider that teachers themselves are not immune to mental illness, nor spared the stresses that can cause any person to do something terrible with a gun. We see it happen with mass shooters in offices. We should not take the risk of it happening in a classroom with children.
Finally, I ask that the most disturbing problem with arming teachers be considered. Nearly all school shooters are current or former students of the school. People who propose that teachers be armed are asking those teachers to be prepared to shoot to kill a student they know. A person who could do that without hesitation is not an individual who is psychologically well-suited for teaching. We want people who couldn’t do that to be with our children.
Don’t ask teachers to kill students. Help us find better ways to keep our children safe.
Jill Christensen, Holladay, taught for 35 years in Utah public schools.