Preserving the sanctuary of the school – it’s about more than anti-bullying campaigns

Pretty much everyone agrees that schools need to be safe for kids. All agree that protecting students from Columbine-type, violent rampages is absolutely essential. Many think that anti-bullying campaigns are the best way to prevent violence. Others think these violence prevention strategies go too far in hypersensitizing kids to affront.  I believe that both systematic training that promotes awareness and skills to prevent bullying, and the development of emotional resilience to reduce the impact of teasing and bigotry are needed. Programs toward these ends are becoming well established. That’s good; but underlying causes may still be unaddressed.

Over the last two decades, clear evidence has emerged about how personal risk factors that exist outside the school domain – things like ethnicity, income, parental addiction and/or parenting style – are strong predictors of both school success and involvement in school violence.  It makes sense to try to address these risk factors too - - sort of.

In an effort to provide responsive, preventive interventions, a growing number of schools are encouraging teams of teachers, counselors, social workers, and special education coordinators – to do a 360° assessment that includes identifying the pressures from outside school that affect a given student’s success inside school.

I worry that this approach defeats its own purpose.  For many kids who have pressures at home and in their neighborhoods, school provides emotional sanctuary. It is the one place where they do NOT have to deal with being the abusive parent’s daughter, the crack daddy’s son. In their relationships with teachers, if nowhere else, they are simply students.  I believe for teachers to get into students’ business, however well intended, violates the implicit promise of sanctuary at school. This is not just a theoretical question for me.  I was one of those students, who was both often protected by the “normal” identity I had at school, and sometimes betrayed by teachers bringing my family circumstances into discussions about school performance.  Would I have been better off to confront the conditions of my life more directly? Perhaps. Would I have been better off by having teachers gossip about it more? No way.

Tomorrow I’ll say a little about the steps Ripple Effects has taken to resolve the tension between the need to provide students with resources to address personal problems and the need to absolutely preserve the sanctuary of the school.