{"id":75315,"date":"2021-12-14T10:45:16","date_gmt":"2021-12-14T16:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=75315"},"modified":"2021-12-14T10:45:16","modified_gmt":"2021-12-14T16:45:16","slug":"75315","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=75315","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Idealism is Killing Our Kids at School<\/a><\/p>\n

Imagine this scenario for a moment. Pretend that we\u2019re at a parent-teacher conference and the child is having problems at school.<\/p>\n

T- I\u2019m concerned that your child doesn\u2019t study.<\/em>
\nP- Children shouldn\u2019t have to study.<\/em><\/p>\n

T- I\u2019m concerned about your child\u2019s musical ability. Your child doesn\u2019t practice his instrument for music class.<\/em>
\nP- Children shouldn\u2019t have to practice in order to make music.<\/em><\/p>\n

T- I\u2019m concerned about your child\u2019s physical development. Your child doesn\u2019t put in any effort in PE.<\/em>
\nP- Children shouldn\u2019t have to put in effort in their physical education class.<\/em><\/p>\n

To most of us, this parent is such a na\u00efve idealist that the exchange sounds ridiculous. If this discussion were real then we would be seriously concerned about this child\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to be the one who tells you the truth about Santa Claus, but we can agree that the world isn\u2019t the way we want it. Sure, I wish there were a way we could build insightful minds and athletic bodies without effort. We all want that, but Utopia isn\u2019t an option. Refusing to do the work hasn\u2019t moved us toward that ideal. Refusing to do the work has only left us weak and ignorant. That wastes lives.<\/p>\n

Now let me add another line to the dialogue, a conversation that I\u2019ve actually heard.<\/p>\n

T- I\u2019m concerned about your child\u2019s physical safety at school. We want to train school staff so they can stop violent attacks in school and then treat the injured.<\/em>
\nP- Staff and students shouldn\u2019t have to worry about violent attacks in school.<\/em><\/p>\n

I wish this was a fantasy story, but that summarizes the complaints I\u2019ve read about protecting our children.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Pretending that the world is safe and sane doesn\u2019t change the world, nor does it keep our children safe in school. We have to deal with the world as it is, not as we wish it to be. I agree that we don\u2019t want violent criminals with guns in our schools, but they go there to kill and get media attention anyway. The question isn\u2019t if violent murderers should exist. The question is how we should protect our students from them. It\u2019s not a matter of if, it\u2019s a matter of when.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sorry to be the one to tell you but wanting isn\u2019t enough. What we want doesn\u2019t matter if we aren\u2019t willing act on it. I\u2019m disappointed that we don\u2019t live in paradise, but now we get our hands dirty with the hard work of making the world better. Na\u00efve idealism is killing our kids at school.<\/p>\n

We already dealt with this. Illness doesn\u2019t belong at school, but we have a school nurse because children deserve treatment. Hunger doesn\u2019t belong at school, but we have a cafeteria at school because children need to eat. Emotional problems and mental illness don\u2019t belong at school, but we have guidance counselors at school because the world isn\u2019t perfect and we can make it better. We have fire extinguishers and sprinklers even though building fires don\u2019t \u201cbelong at school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lots of things should not go wrong, but they do. I wear a seatbelt when I drive. I have a fire extinguisher in my home, and I hope you have one too. I have those because bad things happen to good people even though they don\u2019t deserve it.<\/p>\n

The sad fact is that some people want to hurt our kids. They do it so we will spend days talking about them if they simply kill enough innocent children. These monsters would rather be dead than go unnoticed. I don\u2019t like that and I don\u2019t know anyone who does. That is the way the world is today.<\/p>\n

Maybe my perspective is different than yours because of what I\u2019ve seen. I\u2019ve seen school staff take training to be first responders. Sometimes they talk themselves out of the class because they are afraid they might make a mistake and hurt an innocent person. I\u2019ve also seen teachers talk themselves back into the program as we work through a day of medical training. They realize they would do anything so that it wouldn\u2019t be their kids they were struggling to save.<\/p>\n

Now I\u2019m going to ask a very hard question. Life and death in school shootings is always a matter of time. We will stop\u00a0most\u00a0of these murderers before they start their attack but we can stop\u00a0all\u00a0of them soon after. How long would you like us to wait until we stop the next mass murderer in school? How long should we wait until we treat the injured?<\/p>\n

We can have trained volunteer staff on the scene who will respond in seconds. We could also wait for most of an hour until the police declare that the school is secure so EMTs will move in and sort the dead from the dying.<\/p>\n

The world is not the utopia we want it to be. We can accept that tough realization or we can watch the seconds tick by and curse an imperfect world.<\/p>\n

How many children should die while adults play pretend? Fortunately, that is up to us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Idealism is Killing Our Kids at School Imagine this scenario for a moment. Pretend that we\u2019re at a parent-teacher conference and the child is having problems at school. T- I\u2019m concerned that your child doesn\u2019t study. P- Children shouldn\u2019t have to study. T- I\u2019m concerned about your child\u2019s musical ability. Your child doesn\u2019t practice his … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-schools","category-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75315"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75316,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75315\/revisions\/75316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}