Teacher's Gun Assignment Triggers Concern

A high school English teacher provided the following sentences to her class: "The most valuable thing I own is one of my guns. It is an old gun and few of them are made. It has a combat stock, gun-blue finish, combat sights and combat style trigger action." The assignment was to take short choppy sentences and turn them into free-flowing, grammatically correct, complex sentences. When questioned regarding the appropriateness of providing a gun-related assignment in this school-shooting infected age, the teacher stated she failed to see how students could misconstrue the assignment. That is exactly the point.

As adults we fail to see how a relationship becomes so important to a teen that, when it ends, he or she takes his or her own life or the life of another. We fail to see what would cause 13 and 11 year old boys to pull the fire alarm in their school and then lie in wait with rifles to pick off students as they exit. And we certainly can't comprehend the blood baths of Columbine and Virginia Tech. If adults could make these connections, teen violence would be dramatically reduced. Yet, even when it's over and the shooter's reasoning is explained, we still don't know. Kids killing kids just doesn't make sense in the grown-up world.

If educators hope to end or at least slow down school violence, they have to stop thinking like adults. Instead, they need to make every attempt to submerge themselves into the chaotic, often painful world of teenagers. If the above-mentioned teacher had been able to do that, she would've realized that her sentences were more than an assignment. They were the admiration of combat weaponry. Teens, with their still developing minds, may see this assignment as the teacher's personal approval of guns and the violence that may accompany them.

Criminal activity is also implied. The sentences were intended to be something to which the students could relate. However, the students penning the words, "The most valuable thing I own is one of my guns," would have to be a criminal in order to relate to the sentence. The students were under the legal age for gun ownership. In addition, the repeated reference to combat style amenities was more than a bit disturbing and led me to wonder if it was the teacher we should be concerned about rather than the students.

A great deal of scientific research has been conducted on the influence of guns and violence on the teenage mind. We've been repeatedly told that violent media has it's reach deep into the roots of school violence. From video games to books and movies, kids today must make a deliberate, conscious effort to escape the violent influence. It is a great deal more difficult to find entertainment that is non-violent. A quick trip to the video store can confirm that fact. Count the total number of video games and/or movies and then count the number that does not contain violence of any kind. It won't take long and can likely be done on one hand.

Psychologists at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, conducted a study on the effects of teens interacting with guns. The study was made up of two individual groups of boys - with one have fake guns and the other real guns. Using saliva, psychologists measured testosterone levels in both groups before and after interacting with the selected guns. The group with toy guns showed no change while the group with real guns had a significant spike in testosterone levels.

Testosterone is, in a nutshell, what makes a man a man. It brings out competitiveness, increases the drive to exert power and gives credence to the age-old attitude of survival of the fittest. Though some dispute the evidence, research has shown that elevated levels of testosterone increases aggression.

If merely handling guns increases aggression, it's reasonable to conclude that talking and writing about guns may also increase testosterone. Therefore, by providing the above outlined assignment, this teacher increased the threat level of school-related violence to her students. It is absolutely imperative that teachers make these connections and realize what they say and do in the classroom has consequences that remain unseen.

Of all the words in the English language, why select gun-related ones? Teens today are under more stress than ever. English teachers can encourage students by providing writing assignments on prom, graduation, college, where they want to be in twenty years and the dreams they nurture inside them. When students use positive language in relation to their future, they are infused with peace, joy and hope. And if ever there was a time in history when teenagers needed hope, it would be now.

http://www.med.mcgill.ca/mjm/v06n01/v06p032/v06p032.pdf
http://faculty.knox.edu/fmcandre/guns-testo-aggress.pdf
http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/faculty/josephs/pdf_documents/Testos_Encyclo_Entry.pdf