New Program Takes Formalized, Shotgun Approach

There is much pressure on schools these days to fix the perceived problem of violent students. At our school in Stevens County the proposed fix came in the form of a new violence-prevention curriculum called Second Step.

Second Step attempts to teach kids to resolve their problems in constructive ways, using role-playing sessions and videotapes. Teachers lead their classes in scenarios and try to generalize the lessons to everyday life.

When this curriculum proposal came in front of our school board, my first reaction was skepticism. Washington state’s schools are in the middle of implementing school reform measures mandated by the Legislature. To add a new course of study now would be difficult.

I also wondered if teachers were the appropriate people to address this societal need in this form. Finally, I wondered if the behavior of our students justified a new course of study.

According to Vincent Schiraldi of the Justice Policy Institute and data from the Centers for Disease Control, the threat of school-associated violent deaths is less than one in a million. A child is twice as likely to be killed by lightning as to be killed violently at school.

It has also been reported that less-serious behaviors like fighting are declining.

In spite of my skepticism, I read through the curriculum and was quite impressed. It’s clearly written and backed up by plenty of research. It’s also thorough, requiring little preparation time by the teacher.

Nevertheless, I remained troubled.

My first reservation is that this program seems to be focused primarily, if not exclusively, on what’s wrong with boys. A model letter to be sent home to parents emphasized that anger itself is not wrong but that how you act when you are angry is important. Pushing, hitting and bullying are the sole negative examples given.

What about taunting and other verbal abuse? Verbal abuse can be as hurtful and destructive as, and oftentimes more long lasting than, physical abuse. Considering that harassment and teasing were reportedly elements in the shootings at Moses Lake and Columbine, I don’t understand their absence from the list.

My second reservation is the time requirement. Second Step stresses the need to follow the curriculum exactly as it’s presented, leaving no lessons out. It defends the time commitment by reporting that teachers find more time for the usual subjects because less time is spent dealing with student disruptions and interpersonal conflicts.

If classroom disruptions are that big a problem, then something indeed must be done. But must the remedy impact all the students in class? Second Step says, yes, it absolutely must to be most effective.

Group remedies to individual behavioral problems have always troubled me. The program might well be more effective with participation by the whole class. The trouble is, it’s not the non-offending kids’ job to solve these problems. Kids attend school to be educated.

The most effective way to promote healthy behavior in kids is by modeling constructive responses to frustrating circumstances. This process has been going on in our schools successfully for a long time.

Kids who lack appropriate modeling at home often look to a particular teacher for direction. It’s the unstructured modeling that occurs naturally when reallife situations arise that is the most powerful. Making a class project out of it lessens the impact and seems artificial to the kids.

Schools can and must set high behavioral standards for all participants in the education process. The bedrock value of these standards is respect.

The setting of standards begins with the school board and must include student-to-student, adult-to-student, student-to-adult and adult-to-adult interactions. If we firmly hold everyone to that, while modeling it ourselves, we will go a long way toward preventing violence in our schools.