School shootings

When a school shooting occurs, there's a tendency to jump on the incidents to score political points. It's all the fault of Republicans for not embracing gun control. If they bring up mental health, then they really should embrace an expensive approach to after-the-fact solutions to these mental health problems.

I don't like moving too quickly. Emotions can potentially cloud judgement. That's why I waited to make this post. Enough time has passed since the Apalachee High School shooting that should be able to think rationally about these horrific events.

Actually, I have been talking about this sort of thing for years. Our schools tend to promote a culture of fear by pushing the idea that school years can determine if you succeed or fail in life. Most students allow their teachers to completely control their childhoods as a result of their fear. What these schools do clearly qualifies as emotional abuse, and it is incredibly dangerous to students.

I saw it as a student. In fact, I never fully recovered from the treatment I received. It only takes one unstable individual for a shooting to occur. Based on how my teachers treated students, I'm actually kind of surprised that my former high school has not had a shooting that I have heard about. I don't want to sound sympathetic to murderers, but it is way too easy to understand how these shootings can happen.

Most school shooters have personal ties to the schools they attack. I don't believe that's a coincidence. I also don't believe that it's a coincidence that suicide rates among school-aged children tend to track the school year. We are systematically assaulting their mental health, and these assaults can have lethal consequences.

The single biggest thing we can do to address school shootings is to stop assaulting mental health. We need to stop using emotional abuse as a motivational tool. Rather than seeking ways to undo the harm after it happens, we need to stop harming children in the first place.

Unfortunately, the NEA and AFT refuse to take responsibility for the role they are playing in creating this mental health crisis. Instead of addressing the harm they are causing, they want more money to address the problems after they cause it. Simultaneously, they are also pushing for more funds to cause the mental health crisis.

The NEA and AFT are also fighting to trap children in that environment. Personally, I believe that all children should have the right to pursue a healthy education. If a school is detrimental to a child's education and mental health, that child should have the right to leave. This includes children from low-income families.

Yes, school choice can be thought of as a way to address mental health issues. In all honesty, I don't think school choice is enough. Most private schools have a tendency to model themselves after the government-controlled approach. School choice can help children leave a particularly harmful school, but they are likely to end up in what is essentially the same environment.

We need to diversify educational opportunities. If conventional schooling is harmful to a child, that child should be able to learn outside of a conventional schooling environment. This includes the right to pursue an education free from the constraints of any schooling environment. If we really want to address this mental health crisis, school choice can help. Educational choice would be even better.