WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES MARCH 22, 2018 13
LETTERS AND COMMENTS OP-ED
PROTESTS
HAVE MEANING,
REGARDLESS
OF AGE
In traditional fashion, the nationally
coordinated March 14 school
walkout to protest gun violence was
met with pushback. A strategic position
taken on by gun rights advocates
has been the “walk up not out”
narrative: a belief that mass shootings
will be hindered by addressing
mental health at the peer-to-peer or
child-to-child level.
It needs to be understood that walkouts
and “walk up” are not mutually
exclusive, period. And, young adults
should not be pressured on whether or
not to act on their political consciousnesses
or be made to feel responsible
for addressing an issue most adults are
not qualifi ed to — when the real issue
is apathetic representatives.
Irony is: fanatic supporters of the
Second Amendment and Constitution
absolutism are trying to dampen the
engagement of the First Amendment.
For a majority of these students, this
is their only way to participate in our
democracy given their age — and
politicians are watching the future
voting class.
Our country would be a very different
place if the women of the 1910s
didn’t agitate and disobey or the Civil
Rights activists of the 1960s didn’t sit-in
and march.
These voices are clear and will
either be heard now, or they will be
heard at the polls in 2018 and 2020.
Ricky Malone, Ridgewood
REAL CAUSE
OF SHOOTINGS:
PARTICIPATION
AWARDS
The tragic school shootings and
the growing number of mindless acts
of mayhem have stirred emotions
and provoked debates about the root
causes of these events. The most contentious
aspects of the debates are the
accessibility and the kinds of weapons
used.
What is never mentioned or discussed
are the principles and policies
of the educational establishment
that nurture an antipathy to making
moral judgments and foster a mindset
of infl ated opinions and moral
relativism.
Students are taught that all
lifestyles are equal even if they
disagree with them and they should
not discriminate between them. In
other words “Do your own thing”
and “Don’t judge me.”
Incorporated into the school curriculum
is the dogma that students
should be constantly praised for
how good they are regardless of
whether their ideas or actions are
praiseworthy or not. Awards for
Excellence in competitive activities
have been replaced by Certifi cates of
Participation. This over abundance
of juvenile “self-love” implants in
the students an unjustifi ably high
opinion of themselves. They tend to
become aggressive and even violent
when confronted with criticism,
disapproval or teasing.
Guns and ignorance are a
lethal combination. If we want
to stop school violence and turn
our schools into serious places
of learning, we should restore
a curriculum that emphasizes
reason over emotions, knowledge
over feelings, moral judgment over
moral agnosticism and self-control
over self-expression.
Edward Konenchik,
Flushing
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Guns in schools: A terrible idea
BY MAYA FAISON
I have multiple issues with teachers
and school offi cials having guns. In
my talks with youth at both my
church and in the schools where I work,
the response has been the same. The idea
of teachers having guns scares them.
Teachers play an integral role in
the development of young people.
Students spend more time at school
and with their teachers than they do at
home with their families. Not all teachers
are made equally; some genuinely
care about their students while others
have unresolved personal issues that
could result in more harm than good.
Many teachers, like cops, are coming
from neighborhoods unlike the
ones they teach in. Their neighborhoods
are not full of black and brown
kids. Too oft en teachers have implicit
biases about the kids they are brought
in to nourish. These implicit biases can
make giving their guns lethal because
they are afraid of their students.
What does the presence of weapons
in schools teach our young people? It
says that any time there is a problem
it can be remedied with violence. We
need to remedy the real problem, which
is our ignorance of the very real struggles
our young people are having with
mental health issues and/or with such
everyday issues as poverty, discrimination,
bullying or dysfunctional home
situations. They suff er alone as teachers
with untrained eyes look on and wonder
what went wrong when another school
shooting happens. Young people are not
masters of disguise; they cry for help
and we as a society are ignoring them.
I find it outrageous that we as a
country would entertain the idea of
arming teachers to keep our kids safe.
Teachers call young people names that
are “easier” to pronounce. They ignore
cultural norms and write them off as
foreign and unimportant, thus doing
their students a disservice because they
are overworked and under-supported.
We can train teachers to aim and fi re
on a child, but we can’t teach them to be
culturally competent?
Some of our young people are
coming from war zones in our own
backyard. School is their safe haven.
It’s where they do not have to worry.
The moment we give teachers (and
other school personnel) guns, we take
that security away from them.
We need to invest less in guns and
more in providing professional counselors
for schools, trained teachers who
notice signs of young people in distress,
and a process for supporting troubled
youth whether in school or out. That
means policy changes: limitations on
access to guns and the end of in-school
or out-of-school detention are just two
examples of such changes that are
likely to result in dramatic declines
school shootings and other violence.
Lastly, we need to stop and look at
where we are policing our young people.
Black and brown kids have grown
up walking through metal detectors
and being searched as they enter school,
but time and time again we see it’s not
they who are committing the atrocities
that have spurred this conversation.
We need to stop being selective and
recognize that this can happen anywhere.
That means no child should be
able to purchase or have access to a gun,
military style or otherwise.
We need policies that protect our
young people and ensure that our
schools again become places of creativity,
engagement, personal growth
and educational opportunity.
Maya Faison attended New York City
schools and now works in four schools
as a teacher-trainer for Global Kids Inc.
A LOOK BACK
Spring is here, so it’s a perfect time
show you this gem of a springtime
picture taken in May 1913. The image
shows a young family and a horsedrawn
wagon crossing the railroad
Sp
tracks at what was then Trotting
Course Lane in Glendale. According
to the photo caption, the tracks were
part of a then-active Long Island Rail
Road Rockaway Beach branch. Send
us your historic photos of Queens by
email to editorial@qns.com (subject:
A Look Back) or mail printed pictures
to A Look Back, ℅ The Queens Courier,
38-15 Bell Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361.
All mailed pictures will be carefully
returned to you.
Ridgewood Times archives/Courtesy of the Greater Ridgewood Historical Society
link
