Around the country, students have been returning to school from spring break, an important opportunity to recharge before the final push to the end of the year. For students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, this chance to rest, connect with friends outside of school, and spend time with family was particularly needed after the tragedy in February. Unfortunately, upon returning to classes, they were greeted with new school policies that demonstrate, once again, that we are not focused on true prevention when it comes to ending school violence.
One of these new policies is the mandatory use of clear plastic backpacks. Students have been critical of this policy, and have protested what they see as a misguided mandate. Beyond whether these backpacks serve any purpose other than to remind students of the tragedy and create a prison-like environment, they raise an important question about what it means to make schools “safer” for students – does it mean stopping someone who has already brought a gun to school, or does it mean creating an environment where no one would ever want to bring a gun to school?
The clear plastic backpack policy is an example of the type of decision we make when fear drives us. It’s also a response that implies resignation to our current situation. These backpacks aim to increase transparency, with the idea that if we can easily screen what students are bringing into school, we will be better able to prevent violence. But the backpacks create only an illusion of safety, and we need to reflect on how our students’ emotional well-being is impacted when we impose such policies. I suggest that instead of increasing the transparency of students’ backpacks, we increase the transparency of emotional safety in schools.
For some, making school climates more emotionally intelligent may sound abstract, too “touchy-feely,” or not decisive enough, but this approach has been backed by empirical evidence and supported by experts. In response to the shooting in Parkland, researchers and thought leaders came together in an effort to build consensus around recommendations, distilling them in the “Call for Action to Prevent Gun Violence in the United States of America,” with the foremost piece of guidance being a focus on evidence-based social-emotional education. When schools implement such tested and effective models like the RULER Approach from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, they have a tremendous impact in creating healthier school culture with measurable increased student wellbeing.
We can bring social-emotional learning into every corner on school grounds, from the cafeteria to the classroom to the gym. Everyone who interacts with students can be a role model, even if they’re not in a formal teaching role. After Sandy Hook, in response to the calls for armed school security guards, my colleague who was the head of a K-12 school in Manhattan, argued to the contrary that caring and personal relationships between adults and students contribute to the kind of loving school climate he believes can combat violence. In his piece “After Sandy Hook: Love is the Best Security” he made the point that adults such as his school’s building superintendent “Eddie Spaghetti,” who greets every student with a high five each morning, can be a welcome and necessary foil to the anxiety and loneliness that many students feel in school. True prevention starts with making every student feel safe, cared for, and valued in school — not viewed with suspicion, emotionally isolated, and reminded each day of the threat, instead of the solution.
This failure to tackle these issues effectively in our schools is not anyone’s fault — as a society, we are so very far behind in prioritizing and providing support for emotional intelligence. None of us – the adults – have ever received this training, so how can we, as untrained individuals, model (let alone teach) students how to be aware and self-regulate their emotions? Although administrators, policymakers, and the media may label measures such as clear backpacks, metal detectors, or more security guards as “prevention,” none of these actions truly tackle the root cause of school violence. Of course, there exists a place for extra precautions, but we cannot let these policies falsely lull us into believing that they will prevent the next tragedy. And we certainly cannot let these policies distract us from what should really be our goal: physically and emotionally safe schools, where every student can feel seen, embraced, and flawless. We have the evidence to achieve this goal, and we know what we need to do – let’s practice and support true prevention as if our children’s lives depend on it, because they do.
