The shooting in Ohio today is a stark and glaring reminder that violence is real and can happen in our schools. As a veteran teacher, I cannot help but look into the face of T.J. Lane and wonder how such an innocent face could be the face of a killer. It baffles me to my core and I can only think to the cases of bullying that I’ve seen as a teacher.
Bullying is defined by Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary as, “treating abusively”. There are many levels of abuse in a school that lead to acts of rage by students who feel they have no other recourse than to act out against innocent classmates. From Columbine to Chardon there are echoes of students who took matters into their own hands to vent out frustration for the way they were treated as a whole by their classmates.
Schools are using bullying as a popular policy maker in recent years. There are anti-bullying discipline policies. Faculty members attend seminars on bullying and workshops. Students gather in assemblies and in peer groups to discuss bullying in the school programs. One would think that with all of the exposure to change bullying in schools that these events that happened in Chardon would be less frequent. Yet, we keep seeing school and college shootings where students take out weapons and attack innocent students who lose their lives without any cause.
Are we really doing something about bullying as teachers? I can only report what I see with my own eyes in the hallways of the many schools that I have been a teacher in the last fifteen years. The answer in my own opinion is, we aren’t even close. The job of a teacher is not necessarily to enact discipline all day long. However, teachers are responsible for the students in their charge. Teachers are entrusted with parent’s most sacred of all gifts- their children. Teachers often turn a blind eye to bullying by focusing on lessons and the day to day activities of a school. How many times have I seen a student being taunted in the hallway as I followed another faculty member who walked right by? Did we take the extra five minutes to make the student who has isolated himself feel welcome? Did we make a student feel out of place because they are different? Teachers have a moral obligation to help these students.
It is truly amazing to me how many teachers do not pay any attention to the dynamic of their class. They don’t become engaged with their students, they do not get to know them as individuals. This is truer of the middle and high school settings than in elementary settings. As a result, teachers are very often unaware of how bullying can occur. Bullying can take many forms. It can be an act of physical attack or silent. Some of the most brutal bullying occurs when a student is completely ostracized from others. Teachers often will intervene with physical acts of bullying but are less prone to step in for silent or clandestine bullying.
One of the many solutions to these school shootings will be the teachers taking time to know their students so that they can truly notice behavior that can be unhealthy in a student. This is not the only solution, but as a teacher I feel that we can be an important link in the chain that assists school administrators in identifying students who are at a risk to themselves or others. Teachers, know your students and strive to reach them academically and personally. Students like T.J. Lane may be saved by teachers intervening and noticing behavior that can be potentially harmful. We are one important link to the students to help prevent school shootings.