Amish School shooting?

[Hikage]

Ok,

This is pathetic. I'm not teaching today, our school's are off for Yom Kippur. As a teacher, I typically follow the shootings that go on around the country with some curiousity because I can't help but wonder if it took place at my school. However, I'm watching the most recent school shooting, which is taking place about 20 - 30 mins from my house... in an Amish school??!?!

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/02/amish.shooting/index.html

What am I missing here?

Often, we look at our current culture and say "Oh, it's getting so bad! It wasn't like this 30, 40, 50, years ago." However, upon some research, it often was that bad, just perhaps not advertised or on a smaller scale. But really, how could this have happened? Was there another form of it?

-Hikage

[treelizard]

I'm getting my teaching cert and I started a thread on this in three different places as well as bugging teachers I know. Advice I've gotten so far has been:
-awareness and preparedness, esp. re: evac, barricades, etc
-practice school lock-down drills with students
-disarms, improvised weapons, etc.
-understanding local laws and school district regulations
-importance of getting intel versus being a martyr
-a lot of people saying to carry a gun anyway even though it's a felony and most LEOs will immediately shoot anyone with a gun on school grounds if commands to disarm are not followed quickly and precisely
-wear good running shoes and make sure you have a clear exit
-purchase a 1 million dollar umbrella insurance policy to protect yourself from liability and lawsuits
-be alert and focus on body language and other indicators and defusing it by separating people, changing the subject matter, etc.
-be skilled in simple hostage scenarios

[treelizard]

Is anyone familiar with Professional Assault Response Training? A teacher on a different board I'm on recommended these trainings for preventing violence without carrying weapons or wearing a jacket. Be interested to hear if anyone has any experience with them.

http://www.parttraining.com/

[Tom Yum]

Mike, you just created a business and maybe a few jobs

[Toudiyama[NL]]

3 Schoolshootings in a weeks time, I do not think it was ever that bad in the 50-70
Now the fact that it is nowadays easier to aquire a (illegal)gun than it is to get laid will no doubt have something to do with it, but what to do about it, most in your country don't want any restriction on the sales of guns, even a background check is seen as a restriction of the right to bear arms
So how can you get the amount of illegal weapons down, seeing that it is often state that these kind of crimes are done with illegal weapons
Should people be forced to keep their guns locked away when they are not carying it?
I take it most illegal guns in the states are stolen ( in my country most if not all illegal guns are smuggled in from Belgium Germany or Italy as these have less strick gunlaw)

Or should we look at how the purpotrators (spelling?) get so far
In case of Columbine there was such a cause but in this case...the man wasn't an Amish so he can't have been attendign that school, his kids weren't attending the school either and Amish do not bother anybody
Do we need to make a mentality switch? because think are likely to get worse ( copycats) should we try to keep it out of the news?

I see some of you want to place security personel or cops in the schools, this cop will be wearing a 38? a 9 mil? not much they will do against an automated AR16 or an M11, someone intended to kill will just pack heavier stuff.

[medic06]

at a salary of $50,000 a year.

$50,000 a year? That's more than what most teachers make! That would definitely ruffle some feathers!

[treelizard]

$50,000 a year? That's more than what most teachers make! That would definitely ruffle some feathers!

WAY more than teachers make, and no offense Mike, but I'm guessing that anybody who thinks you can take "snips and folds" out of the school budget has never worked in a school district. I know teachers on welfare who have to buy their own supplies because the school doesn't have enough money.

[treelizard]

It's a good argument, but try convincing a school system that doesn't have enough money for teachers to make more than twenty photocopies a week to get a full-on security team, let alone a well-paid and qualified security team.

I'd rather try to take proactive measures than make arguments for something that is never going to happen.

[treelizard]

That's a great solution, Mike. Tell teachers that the only answer is for their school to spend tons of money they don't have on security guards they won't get. Sounds very empowering.

[treelizard]

(since by your own admission, school districts might be receptive to forking over the money to train all the teachers, and this wouldn't be much more expensive than that), you're talking about an average expense in tax dollars of $4 per person per year.

I didn't say that, I was looking at proactive measures teachers could take themselves. I don't expect anybody else to foot the bill.

You're right. It's too ridiculously expensive to assume parents would pay $4 a year for the safety of their children...

Parents, or the school district? Two different things. I'm sure parents would pay $4 a year so that teachers would be able to make photocopies or their kids could all have books that aren't ancient, too. But they don't.

[treelizard]

P.S. I'll believe it when I see it in your city, or state even, since they;ve had two fatal high-profile shootings there, they should lead the way.

[treelizard]

Actually, I'm in the process of organizing classes for overworked, underpaid teachers taught by professionals who are charging a reasonable fee. Much more empowering than waiting for guards the schools refuse to get--and I know people who have been trying for years, teachers I have talked to in local districts.

A custodian wrestled a gun away from Wisconsin student Eric Hainstock, the kid who shot his principle. I'm glad he didn't decide to wait for armed security or to let it go and not worry about it.

Are you really saying that empowering teachers on steps they can take to prevent violence before it happens is half-assed? I read a post on another board by a teacher from L.A. who had students that were killers (one burned his grandparents) was constantly threatened etc. and he said the most important thing was alertness, sensing indicators and defusing situations before they happened. If you really think that teaching educators how to do this is a half-measure, I don't know what else to say... except that it's skills they'll need anyway when their $50,000 security team is in another room.

Kind of reminds me of women I know who won't walk to the corner store unless their husband is with them. Guess these men must be invincible and omnipresent, too.

[treelizard]

Actually, it makes a better case for teachers to address bullying and violence than it does to hire trained professionals. There are always more teachers than security guards. Second, if teachers are too overburdened to pay attention to kids, the kids probably aren't learning as well as they should be and this makes a much better case for smaller class sizes than anything else.

Option #1: Wait for your school district to hire security (or replace shoddy security with decent security), even though people have been waiitng for years.

Option #2: Get training so you'll be able to deal with situations that may arise.

Seems pretty obvious to me.

[treelizard]

Almost every teacher I know has first aid. I don't know what teachers you're talking to. In addition, a vast majority of the students in my intro to teaching class expressed a LOT of concern about violence in schools and what they personally could do on their own time to be better prepared to deal with that. I don't know if the janitor had special training, but I know that every teacher I've talked to who has dealt with violence in schools had SOME kind of training.

I'm not saying that security is a bad idea, I'm saying that people have been trying to get that done for years and it isn't happening, so to sit around and twiddle your thumbs and wait for it isn't a solution.

[Tom Yum]

I didn't say that, I was looking at proactive measures teachers could take themselves. I don't expect anybody else to foot the bill.

Parents, or the school district? Two different things. I'm sure parents would pay $4 a year so that teachers would be able to make photocopies or their kids could all have books that aren't ancient, too. But they don't.

Tree, teachers are some of the most busiest people around.

When they aren't in class, they are spending a significant amount of time grading and writing lesson plans; I'm sure the mix of grading/planning changes as you teach different grades. I'm very close friends with a number of teachers and am fortunate to spend enough time with them to hear their concerns/complaints etc.

This day and age, the teachers become the parents since many parents do not hold their children accountable for homework or behavior and this adds to their list of duties. Training a teacher to be a successful security person would wear them out. Maybe not all teachers, but most.

Training a teacher to be a successful security person would wear them out. Maybe not all teachers, but most.