Arm teachers? Why not? We ask them to do everything else
Why not make teachers wear guns to school to protect the lives of students?
Years ago, when we decided that government agencies were overwhelmed trying to protect all the children who were being beaten or sexually molested at home, we told teachers it was their responsibility to report any signs of neglect or abuse.
The Illinois Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act has included teachers in its definition of “mandated reporters” since the law’s inception in 1975.
When young children began spreading sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancies increased dramatically, society decided something had to be done. That something was sex education in public schools.
In health education classes, students were taught the ABCs of procreation and the basics of contraception. But many parents felt that encouraged sexual promiscuity, so teachers were often asked to teach abstinence as an alternative method of birth control.
When a pregnant youngster turned to a trusted teacher for advice about a pregnancy, the teacher had better not suggest abortion as an option if he/ she wanted to keep their job. We may have put the teacher in the position of acting as a trusted confidant, but there was hell to pay if they acted like one.
Still we expect teachers to act as drug counselors and mental health therapists.
Drug abuse is a huge problem in society. Children often become drug addicts.
We expect our teachers to be able to identify the signs of addiction, and schools are expected to offer instruction in the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse.
Children now are dying of opioid overdoses and so the state allows school nurses to have an antidote available in their emergency response kits. That’s right, the schools are expected to save the lives of children who are taking too many painkillers, often stolen from their parents’ medicine cabinets.
In addition, we demand that schools keep drug dealers out of our schools. We have given school officials the authority to inspect lockers and conduct searches if necessary to prevent such activity. Some do drug testing. That is part of their job.
Street gangs are a normal part of school life today. We expect educators to control that sort of behavior and prevent it in our schools, even if we can’t stop it outside them.
Suicide is the second leading cause of death among children, so we have instructed our school administrators, counselors and teachers to know the signs of depression and intervene before it reaches a crisis.
Speaking of intervention, we have made it clear to teachers and administrators that student bullying via social media is not going to be tolerated by us.
We expect them to teach our children how to use their smartphones and computers in a responsible manner. We are too busy to do this ourselves.
Many children are not only cyber bullies, but physical bullies.
We demand that our teachers provide a safe environment for our children to learn. That means identifying the students who become targets of such attacks but also helping children who may have emotional problems.
We expect teachers to correctly identify any youngster who might turn into a mass murderer, even if his own parents are unable to do so.
Teachers are also expected to teach math, English, art, history and science. But if they teach “Huckleberry Finn,” they had better be prepared for angry protests by parents. If they teach evolution in biology, there will be angry demands to give equal time to creationism.
Yes, we can trust our teachers to carry guns into class to protect our children. Although they are often criticized for being lazy, greedy, incompetent, liberal and immoral, as our president has said, they love our children.
They are even willing to die for them.
And, by God, for some reason they are still willing to teach them.
Why not ask them once again to deal with a problem the rest of us refuse to handle?