What If School Was More like Camp?

Last week’s school shooting hit way too close to home as my family members sat by the phone waiting to hear from our cousin who is a student at MSDHS. Luckily, he escaped with no harm… but many of his friends and teachers did not have that same fate.

It’s suffice to say a school shooting is every parent and teacher’s worst nightmare. An unbelievable horror that should not happen and yet … here we are again.

Look, I’m not an expert in any of these matters. Not by a mile. But I can’t help but think perhaps we are missing a real obvious factor in all of this…

Believe me when I say, I 100% agree we need to do more about guns: change current regulations; close loopholes; improve background checks, but I also believe it is time to think about school shootings not only as a problem of security, but also as a problem of education.

We need to get to the heart of the student experience in American schools today. We all know school is tough enough. The bullying, the fighting, the body shaming, the sexual abuse, the mental abuse. Those rites-of-passage experiences come with the territory… but how do we do a better job of supporting these children through these times? How do we create a more positive, welcoming, engaging environment for all?

With this, I do not know the answer, but the outcome I can guarantee will be a positive one.