Are We Prepared To Ask Our Teachers
…to kill another human being in front of their students?
There has been all this talk about having more guns.
There has been all this talk about our 2nd Amendment rights to “bear arms”.
There has been all this talk about making our schools safer against school shootings.
But where is the talk about asking our teachers to take a human life?
Our police officers are trained, if necessary, to “ shoot” to KILL.
Our military personnel have been trained to “ shoot” to KILL.
Our teachers have not been trained, the way the military and police have been trained to take a life.
We are asking our teachers to bear the responsibility of the moral judgment, of the taking of a life, which can have severe ramifications later down the road.
Every blade has two edges; he who wounds with one, wounds himself with the other.
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
Psychiatric breakdown is one of the costs of war. So argues Richard Gabriel in his book, No More Heroes, where he notes the lack of attention provided to mental health care for soldiers. Gabriel writes that “nations customarily measure the ‘costs of war’ in dollars, lost production or the number of soldiers killed or wounded.” The military rarely measure the cost of individual human suffering.
We are asking our teachers to assume the position of a soldier at war, in an educational setting.
And what about the suffering that comes from being the one who does the killing? According to Lt. Col. Dave Grossman in his book, On Killing, it turns out that people, including soldiers are not “naturally born” to pull the trigger.
In animals as well as in humans, it is more natural to make attempts to initially frighten away enemy. Known as posturing, the hope is that the target of the attack will retreat, and death will therefore be avoided. Even a rattlesnake, that will kill a human without hesitation, will avoid killing another rattlesnake where possible. Posturing was readily adopted by soldiers in both World Wars resulting in 80 to 85% of soldiers firing their weapons into the air above the enemy’s head rather than directly at them.
Are we going to ask of our teachers, to learn how to “posture” themselves, to frighten an intruder, before deciding whether or not to kill them?
Killing is often misrepresented in film as far easier than it is. In reality, the “duty” is mentally taxing, leaving most soldiers physically ill in the moment and often haunted by nightmares for a lifetime. Being responsible for ending the life of another human is a significant source of trauma; trauma that is compounded by factors such as proximity to the victim and the type of weapon used.
And what type of longtime therapy are we willing to invest in someone, whom we, as the public at large, have directed to take another life, in lieu, for the safety of our children?
Reports from veterans indicate that actually seeing the face of the victim also plays a key role in the trauma experienced. Seen in descriptions of executions throughout history, the accused is often forced to wear a hood to protect executioners and others from actually seeing the face, dehumanizing the individual, making the act of killing the person less traumatic.
How will we help our teachers to overcome the trauma in killing that intruder, as they relive the horror over and over again?
These teachers will be experiencing PTSD…
Dr. Shira Maguen: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that may develop after an individual is exposed to one or more traumatic events. During war military service members are exposed to a number of potentially traumatic events — ones in which the individual’s life is in critical danger, he or she is seriously injured, and/or there is a threat to physical integrity, either to one’s self or to others. In order to meet criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD, in addition to being exposed to at least one potentially traumatic event as described above, an individual must react with helplessness, fear or horror either during or after the event.
POV: Why is killing in war a potentially traumatic event that would lead to PTSD?
Maguen: Although soldiers are trained to kill, as cited in Soldiers of Conscience, killing is quite difficult for most individuals. Prior to killing another enemy combatant or a civilian, there is generally some type of life threat. The circumstances of killing also generally involve either the person him or herself being injured or in danger of being killed and often others being killed. Pulling the trigger, even in self defense, is not easy and is often accompanied by a series of complex emotional reactions before and after taking a life. These may involve helplessness, fear and/or horror either during or after killing. While some may react in this way, others may not, which is why assessment of reactions to killing is quite important.
We must really ask ourselves…
Do we, as a society, want to lay that type of burden at a teachers feet and have a teacher deal with the moral absolutism in taking a life, as they try to save our children’s lives?
And what happens when all this talk about arming teachers backfires?
Will we witness more children and adults dying in our midst?
How many more funerals are we willing to attend?
When will this madness stop?
