Many of us still remember the awful shooting incidents at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, which resulted with the death of 20 children, ages six and seven, and six adults. The reoccurrence of such incidents, like the New Mexico middle school shooting, continue to trigger emotions of shock to society. While we perceive those public schools as one of the safest government institutions, these events have left a permanent scar on the community, and there are never-ending debates on how they can be stopped. The main focus of these debates has been on whether or not teachers should be armed. The National Rifle Association’s Executive Vice President, Wayne LaPierre, believes that “only a good guy with a gun can stop school shootings,” which was said after the Sandy Hook incident (Memmott). Some states have already agreed to permitting schools to have teachers armed to ensure the safety of their students.
State-level VS Street-level
State-level VS Street-level
As Professor Musheno mentioned in lecture, we have found that the roles of the police and teachers as the matter-of-fact agency for problem solving, particularly in these incidents, were very much alike and compatible at the same time. The shootings have resulted in questioning the accessibility and competence of local law enforcement, who arrived at the shooting scene 14 minutes after the first call. Society has begun demanding additional forms of protection, one that is more practical and easily accessible on sight: trained and armed teachers on school grounds to protect their students, should a shooter walk in.
Apart from the uncertainty in the effectiveness of arming teachers or the risks exposing children to more dangerous situations and firearms on a daily basis, the main concern with this issue is the idea of “street-level workers” working under the state power to push individuals to meet certain social morals. Do we want to substitute trained policemen with social workers? Moreover, do their professional or occupational identities as “teachers” and society’s perception of them as morally upright justify the supposed sense of trust in them? If so, then, are the concerns raised by distraught citizens stemming from the local law enforcement, itself, or from the apparent dysfunctionality of the institution as the sole means against fighting such crimes? Do we want to supplement law enforcement with street-level workers?
Professional Identity VS Social Identity
We may view the police and teachers as state-level versus street-level workers, with cops having a direct response to serving and protecting society and teachers indirectly upholding their public responsibility by enforcing social norms on their students. The author, Maynard-Moody, and Professor Musheno also illustrate such similarities through the story of “Lack of Support,” in the book, “Cops, teachers, counselors: stories from the front lines of public service.” The story defines the struggles and concerns teachers have when they desire to correct or change their students’ behaviors. There is a blurry line where teachers are not clear about the extent of their authority, and feel lost and helpless, explained as “teachers' unsettled occupational identity” (61). Such feelings are a result of the confusion between their occupational identity, which questions their legal authority, and their social identity, which internalizes their roles as street-level workers who feel responsibility to enforce morals. As Maynard-Moody and Professor Musheno also point out, “Street-level workers describe themselves as citizen agents enforcing moral standards and norms, but they are also and unavoidably state agents. They cannot reject the state-agent role and the demands and tensions it brings to their work. Street-level workers cannot shed the responsibility that comes with the state-assigned power over others” (157). The identity issues arising from the alternative or supplementary means of arming teachers in their professional or social role creates a controversial matter. There is also the issue of teachers being capable of harnessing the coercive power policemen have over their students or administration. What good would the policy do if armed teachers are incapable of functioning effectively as security for the children in these incidents? As another story in Professor Musheno’s book, “Remembering My First Arrest” illustrates, teachers being able to function as street-level workers may conflict with the issues of the reality of bureaucratic or administrative aspects of school systems that they are in, which is not at the same level of reality as other social workers who can only work under the state power.
State and citizen narratives
The concept of the police as local law enforcement also confronts the difficulties in state-citizen narratives: “The cop reveals a tension between his occupational and social identities as he digresses from the incident to a characterization of officers who dominated the occupation in the 1970s and early 1980s” (68). Because the cop also has struggles in the bureaucratic setting that might challenge an individual’s social identity, observing shooting incidents and the problem solving process in a state-citizen narrative is very critical. Could teachers completely take their social identities apart from their occupational identities? What would one decide under the bureaucratic imperative settings? This is a fundamental concern that needs to be answered first before we aggressively have teachers armed. The issues of teachers as “street-level workers” with unsettled identities, challenged narratives from different angles, bureaucratic realities, and being able to yield the same level of authority to establish coercion and enforcement must all be settled in order to successfully protect schools from future shootings.
Sources
http://www.indianagazette.com/news/opinions-letters/as-i-see-it-back-whites-bill-on-arming-teachers,19611681/
http://krqe.com/2014/03/04/educators-law-enforcement-receive-new-school-safety-training/
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/30/living/schools-teacher-shooter-defense-training/
http://kut.org/post/only-good-guy-gun-can-stop-school-shootings-nra-says
“Cops, teachers, counselors: stories from the front lines of public service” by Steven Maynard-Moody and Michael Musheno
Sophie, You draw upon relevant course material to interrogate whether and how teachers might take on the role of armed guardians of their students. Your treatment introduces the tension between workers social and ascribed professional identities. You may find the Kupchik reading of interest which looks at the shifting character of having law enforcement personnel on campus and how these cops get involved in the disciplinary system when they are assigned to schools to protect the population and investigate delinquency and criminality.
ReplyDeleteThis post is very interesting and reminds me of the current crisis of French National Education. Yet, on the other side of the Atlantic, the challenge to the authority and the safety of the institution comes less from outside (a mental with a weapon) than from inside the class (very disturbing students who keep challenging what their teachers are saying).
ReplyDeleteMany teachers acknowledge that their job consists more and more in policing the pupils, maintaining a minimum of order in the class rather than transmitting a knowledge. A teacher who got assaulted by one of his students described his job as a "fighting sport".
On the other hand, the cops are more and more instructed to talk to the young offenders they arrest to teach them why their acts are misdemeanors. They are often invited in schools to teach about the dangers of drugs or to warn against sexual violences.
In some cases, teachers are to act more and more like cops and cops have to get teaching skills because both have a common mission : transmission. The teachers must transmit the knwoledge which aims to turn children into mature citizens united by common basic values and the cops must transmit the respect of law.
From a state-agent perspective, the jobs of teacher and cops remain totally different. The procedures to enforce their authority are not the same : only the second ones can use the "legitimate force of the State" to make citizens obey. A teacher can put a student in detention but not in jail. Yet, on a citizen-agent perspective, teachers see themselves more and more as enforcers of order and cops see themselves as educators.
Romain MILLARD
Wow this blog post really hits home considering the stabbings that occurred at Franklin Regional High School just yesterday morning. Since the above posters have already covered the post from a more theoretical standpoint, I will chime in with a post on my opinion about the efficacy of arming teachers in a school environment. I personally believe that arming teachers with guns would not help with school violence situations. The amount of training required to arm each teacher would cost a hefty amount for each school district which is already strapped for cash in this era of governmental spending cuts. Also most school shootings or violence sprees happen in crowded areas, and the presence of a teacher responding to armed violence with armed weaponry of their own would actually increase the possibility of danger to both the bystander students and the teacher themselves who would be obligated to defend their students. This would also cause a lot of would-be-teachers to look for other jobs instead which hurts an already stressed workforce.
ReplyDeleteMichael Wu
This article definitely hits home on our class and recent events. I am sure this question will be asked more often in future media outlets. My concern with this question is that the NRA and other market forces will try to push guns into classrooms too quickly, without considering all the ramifications that you mentioned above. Personally, I would have feared my teachers far more if I was aware they were carrying a firearm. This may have lead to a better education, but the implicit costs could be far more reaching than a learning more efficiently.
ReplyDeleteIf guns were brought into classrooms, it would be one step closer to a police state.
-Alex Rose
I believe that in a school-setting it is important to take care of the well-being of students and prevent such shootings and crime. However, I believe that schools is still one of the safest place and such shootings are rare events. The media may have an effect on exaggerating the presence of school violence and schools and local communities may turn towards adopting more surveillance and security measures in schools, even to the point of arming teachers or obtaining more SROs on campus. However, I disagree with this method because there will be increased tension and may not promote a learning environment for the students. With increased security measures, students may internalize that surveillance and constantly having cops intrude their lives is 'okay.' I believe that it is important for students to have a voice and also understand what the school policies and the consequences are rather than having the adults control and monitor their behaviors. Therefore, it is important to alter the community's mindset that we should introduce more policing in schools to control students and minimize violence to promoting a more learning-friendly environment where they aren't deprived of their rights. Introducing more security systems such as arming teachers and introducing a more policing force only brings negative effects and further suppresses students to surveillance.
ReplyDelete-Brenda Lee
I think I have read somewhere that apart from being home, being at school is the safest place to be. I do not think arming teachers is the answer. If you put a gun in the wrong teachers hand, it could be a mistake because this teacher may lose it and use the gun in a bad way. I think a better protocol should be in place to handle a situation like this in case it does occur. I heard on the news in Oakland where there is sexual predator lurking and assaulting elementary aged children. The parents are outraged because they have not been informed of the situation. The district is saying since its at a different school then their child's, that they felt they did not need to inform parents. Communication is key in this situation as well as any situation that would be a child's life in danger. ~Shari Gray~
ReplyDeleteI’m not entirely sure there is a clear-cut answer to the gun debate that has taken place in America over the past few years, but in light of the recent shootings at Fort Hood, I’m hesitant to believe that simply adding more guns into the public is the answer. If a military base filled with soldiers isn’t safe from spontaneous shootings, then would a teacher truly be able to reliably neutralize any gunmen? I don’t really feel like it’s a matter of trusting teachers with lethal force so they can substitute for law enforcement if need be, I just have a hard time believing that an armed teacher would be able to stop a shooting, and I definitely don’t feel like either the students or the teachers would necessarily feel more secure knowing that there was a loaded gun in their vicinity.
ReplyDeleteThomas Smith
Before I delve into my substantive critique of this argument, let me first say that this is a wonderfully crafted and well-cited post. I like the organizational layout and the use of running citations.
ReplyDeleteI think this post has a very provocative conclusion, which capped off a very interesting premise.
That being said I would like to respectfully challenge the premise and the assumption that “…[t]he main focus of these debates has been on whether or not teachers should be armed” because I don’t think arming teachers has been the main focus of the gun debate at all, maybe a subsidiary argument of the school shooting debate, but even in this sub-categorical discussion I would be hard-pressed to say that arming teachers is the prevailing rhetoric.
I think clarifying that this is not the main focus of debate, or even a sub-component of the main debate, outlines a misstep in this argument. By defining this as the premise, or the starting point, frames the conversation as if the question was “to arm teachers or not to arm teachers” which sets up this non-existent dichotomy, consequently channeling the proceeding argument.
And from this false question, there was a natural lean to a false conclusion.
In framing the debate as “to arm teachers or not to arm teachers” you’ve dichotomized the choices, into this false binary; and in your arguments you subtly conclude the answer is “to arm teachers.”
Obviously there are other possibilities to consider, outside of this dichotomy.
The gun debate is multi-layered, with a splintering of ideological factions, contingencies, and sub-contingencies, each outlining their own problems and solutions.
Examining the breadth of the argument, the situational range in gun violence, it would seem that there is no one end-all answer, no common denominator, no linkage, no single variable answer.
And if there was a one-size-fits-all answer, that answer wouldn’t be to increase the availability of deadly weapons. In fact, upon looking at the evidence, increasing the availability of weapons seems like the catalyst to the problem.
From Fort Hood, to Newtown, to Aurora, to Columbine, to Sandy Hook, there is a range of issues regarding gun violence: religious intolerance, anti-bullying, under-treatment and non-diagnosed mental disorder, failed background screenings, etc.
To think that adding guns to that would solve the situation seems dangerous.
Highlighting the Newtown example, it begs-the-question if the military cannot do proper background checks, what makes us think starved school districts could afford it.
The contemporary wisdom is not that more guns equals less gun violence, from surveys done from guns in the home leading to home deaths, to an adjacent studies on the prevalence of unlocked weapons available to children, it seems like the statistical likelihood of someone dying from a gun is correlated with there being available weapons.
I also just want to echo some of the above comments about the expense of training teachers to use weapons.
Then switch over to your comment about conflicts teachers face between seeing themselves as state agents or street-level workers, and clarify that though teachers sit in this strange state-agent/street-level worker position, I don’t think that role conflict is solved by adding guns. Guns aren’t the defining difference between state agents and street-level workers.
To address the point about occupational identity, I think that teachers’ occupational identity, and the culture of education, would make them shy away from guns. People don’t get into teaching as a means of crime fighting, and by adding guns you fundamentally change the culture.
Lastly, going back to Supervision, the ascension of security in schools, (CCTV, etc) hasn’t slowed the rate of school violence.
So all things considered, I don’t think arming teachers would either.
Citations:
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/160/10/929.full#abstract-1
http://heb.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/12/10/1090198113512126.abstract
-Mark Sheppard
There should be no armed personal on school ground because it creates an environment of insecurity without regarding conditions that lead individuals to go on rampage shootings in the first place. Having armed security or teachers gives society a sense of false security in schools. Shooting are not neutralized by simply having armed personnel there is more to preventing mass incidents. Research in other fields besides crime are critical to providing an answers to a complex problem such as shootings.
ReplyDeleteYou’re a great writer Sophie! The first question I have is, why is “the main focus of these debates whether or not teachers should be armed”? I find that extremely unsettling. Personally, I am of the conviction that simply giving guns to individuals who are passionate about education and the intellectual development of students ought not to worry about being personally responsible for handling and in a rare case disarming firearms. I think it is crucial to recognize that if we were to arm teachers, we would be sending the message to youth across boards that violence is an appropriate response to violence. Won’t this mentality just breed more of the same behavior that is causing a surge of fear? In addition, I think that the integrity of schools has already been compromised as a result of SRO’s, in a very real and poignant way. We are seeing a rapid increase in the amount of youth charged with misdemeanors as a direct result of school conduct that would have otherwise resulted in school officials dealing with school problems, not police officials dealing with school problems. I think that it would be a grave mistake to arm teachers, pun intended.
ReplyDelete- Chelsea Goddard