A Reaction to the National Student Walkout by Jonathan McCausland

In July of 1999, students affected by the Columbine shooting and students from inner-city Denver who faced gun violence not associated with school shootings went to Washington D.C. to lobby for stricter gun laws as a part of Sane Alternatives to the Firearms Epidemic (SAFE). While SAFE managed to get the “gun show loophole” closed in several states, the response at the federal level remained stagnant (Schulman, 2018). Dream Defenders, an organization that fought for the repeal of Florida’s “stand your ground” law was founded in 2013 after the murder of Trayvon Martin (Black Voices, 2013). Organizations like Wear Orange or the Newark Anti-Violence Coalition are also dedicated to eradicating gun violence (Blades, 2018), and these are not the only ones. However, none of these movements gained the recognition of an event that occurred on March 14, 2018 called the National Student Walkout as a part of the Never Again movement.

The National Student Walkout took place on Wednesday, March 14, at 10 A.M. Students across the United States and abroad engaged, for 17 minutes, in the National Student Walkout. Notable scenes from the day included images of students from Granada Hills Charter School in Los Angeles lying down on their football field spelling “ENOUGH” and students chanting at the Capitol, later to be joined by a number of elected officials (Heim, Lang, & Svrluga, 2018; Grinberg & Yan, 2018; Yee & Blinder, 2018). The grassroots movement started by students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School after 17 people were murdered were proving, once again, the young people of this country are tired. They are tired of being the victims of a crime which is easily preventable. They are tired of drills intended to prepare them for one of the worse things that can happen to students in school. They are tired of watching adults do nothing. The National Student Walkout was a chance for every student in the United States to say to the adults of this country, as the students at Granada Hill Charter School spelled out, ENOUGH.

While citizens of this country have been arguing for the better part of two decades over what to do about school shootings, thousands of students are attempting to bring awareness to gun violence in the United States. What they are demanding is stricter gun control. They are arguing for a ban on assault weapons, required universal background checks before gun sales, and a gun violence restraining order that would allow courts to disarm people who display signs of violent behavior according to CNN (Grinberg & Yan, 2018). Rather than sit quietly in their school buildings hoping they are not the next victims of a school shooting, such as the recent shootings at Santa Fe High School in Texas (Diaz, 2018) and a Maryland high school (Wood, Richman, and Rector, 2018), they made themselves heard.

As an educator, I was proud of every student who decided to walk out in protest. I was also proud of those students who decided to not participate. Whether they did not believe in the message of the National Student Walkout or they wanted to study, regardless of their reason, I was proud because they made a choice. Making a choice on an issue as controversial as gun control is a massive undertaking by any person, but it is important because this issue will affect their futures. By leaving the choice of whether to join in the National Student Walkout to the students, school leaders were sending a message that civic engagement and protest are important regardless of whether you agree with a cause or not. By allowing students to protest, schools were providing an opportunity for students to take part in the conversation around gun control. Their voices were heard regardless of their opinion. Furthermore, schools were enculturating students into a democracy (Goodlad, Mantle-Bromley, & Goodlad, 2004) where their voices should matter and should continue to matter on issues of great controversy.

By choosing order and security over student voice, the detentions only serve one purpose; to push the idea that schools do not want students to think critically.

Deciding whether to allow students to protest or not is a question many schools had to deal with. Some permitted it, and it led to scenes of Governor Andrew Cuomo participating in a “die in” with students at Zuccotti Park or social media posts of students holding signs with slogans such as “Make Schools Safe Again” or “Would You Change Your Mind If Your Child Was 1 of the 17?” (Yee & Blinder, 2018). Some schools took a purely punitive approach, punishing students for walking out with detentions (Reinhard, 2018; Gregory, 2018).

By doling out detentions, schools are sending the message that the students’ who wish to protest First Amendment rights are not as important as maintaining the status quo. A status quo which results in the continued murder and traumatization of students who experience school shootings and other gun violence. Moreover, the students being told not to protest for fear of punitive action are being robbed of the opportunity to make a choice. By choosing order and security over student voice, the detentions only serve one purpose; to push the idea that schools do not want students to think critically. These actions prevent students from gaining the knowledge that comes from protest such as what it means to participate in the U.S. democracy actively, how to take on greater social responsibility, leadership skills, and how to build alliances, just to name a few. The abrasive tactics taken by some schools is a misguided attempt to make an atypical day “normal.”

Part of what makes protests effective is how uncomfortable they can be. These feelings of uneasiness must be dealt with. They push everyone to think about why they are uncomfortable. In the case of every student who decided to walk out or not, they engaged in this process. They had to think critically about their choice, and through their actions, they forced the rest of us to think about our stance on gun violence as well. Unfortunately, some schools chose to respond to this situation by punishing students who were willing to put their opinions and ideas on display. Thankfully, in line with many other protests of the past, some students still decided to walk out and face the consequences (Gregory, 2018).

The National Student Walkout was a powerful demonstration. However, it is important to remember that the National Student Walkout is a white-led movement but there are many people who have been protesting gun violence for years. This is important to remember because while the school shootings in Parkland, Sandy Hook, and Columbine received an extreme amount of news coverage (and rightly so), gun violence has affected minority communities for a long time. In a TIME article, Lauryn Formey said, “Some people’s fears are just going to school, other people’s concerns are making it home safely” at a rally in New York City (Alter, 2018). Thankfully, the Parkland students acknowledge how their privilege has allowed them to garner support and attention (Alter, 2018). Several of the leaders of the National Student Walkout have even said they are skeptical of Republicans idea to arm teachers because they believe it would increase risks to minority students, further fueling the school-to-prison pipeline. Other students, such as Arieyanna Williams, a 17-year-old of Peace Warriors stated in the same TIME article, “We felt like we weren’t alone in this situation and we finally can use our voices on a bigger scale.” This is the type of conversation, knowledge, and enculturation needed in our schools.

Although I wish every movement were given the same attention as the National Student Walkout, I am happy it occurred. No movement is ever perfect. However, regardless of why the movement gained attention, what it was about, or any of the other noise surrounding the day, it happened. Young people in this country made their voices heard. I personally agree with the demand of students who participated in the Walkout that major reforms are needed to our country’s gun regulations and many of the positions taken by Republicans in Congress, such as arming teachers, do not solve the root cause of gun violence. However, I do not know what will happen if the students’ demands are met, even though research supports the claims that gun regulations save lives (Webster et al., 2012). What I do know is that whether a student or school leader decided to walk out or did nothing, they made a political choice -they decided where they stand. Regardless of one’s own opinion on what the National Student Walkout was advocating for, to me, that is ultimately a good thing.

References

Alter, C. (2018, March 14). Minority students saw massive school walkouts as a chance to add their voice. Time. Retrieved from http://time.com/5199773/parkland-student-walkout-school-minorities/

Black Voices. (2013, September 24). Dream Defenders team up with NAACP to fight ‘stand your ground’ laws. Huffington Post. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/24/dream-defenders-naacp-stand-your-ground-laws_n_3983706.html

Blades, L.A. (2018, February 23). Black teens have been fighting for gun reform for years. Teen Vogue. Retrieved from https://www.teenvogue.com/story/black-teens-have-been-fighting-for-gun-reform-for-years

Diaz, A. (2018, May 18). In April, they walked out to protest school shootings. Today, they were victims of one. CNN. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/18/us/texas-school-shooting-walkout-trnd/index.html

Goodlad, J. I., Mantle-Bromley, C., & Goodlad, S. J. (2004). Education for everyone: Agenda for education in a democracy. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Gregory, K. (2018, March 16). ‘A badge of honor’: Some Chicago-area students are getting disciplined for walking out to protest gun violence. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved from http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/downers-grove/news/ct-met-downers-grove-high-schools-protesters-detention-20180316-story.html

Grinberg, E. & Yan, H. (2018, March 16). A generation raised on gun violence sends a loud message to adults: Enough. CNN. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/14/us/national-school-walkout-gun-violence-protests/index.html

Heim, J., Lang, M.J., & Svrluga, S. (2018, March 14). Thousands of students walk out of school in nationwide gun violence protest. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2018/03/14/students-have-just-had-enough-walkouts-planned-across-the-nation-one-month-after-florida-shooting/?utm_term=.92d95550983b

Reinhard, K. (2018, March 14). More than 200 Pennridge High students to get detentions for holding their own walkout, skipping school-sanctioned assembly. The Morning Call. Retrieved from http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-nws-pennridge-student-walkout-20180314-story.html

Schulman, J. (2018, March 23). 19 years before Parkland, Columbine students tried to fix America’s gun problem. Mother Jones. Retrieved from https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/03/19-years-before-parkland-columbine-students-tried-to-fix-americas-gun-problem/

Webster, D., Vernick, J., Vittes, K., McGinty, E., Teret, S., & Frattaroli, S. (2012). The Case for Gun Policy Reforms in America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research.

Wood, P., Richman, T., & Rector, K. (2018, March 26). Sheriff: Maryland high school shooter died by shooting himself in the head. The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved from http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-great-mills-shooting-update-20180326-story.html

Yee, V. & Blinder, A. (2018, March 14). National school walkout: Thousands protest against gun violence across the U.S. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/14/us/school-walkout.html

Jonathan (JD) McCausland is a PhD student in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus in Science Education at Penn State University. He is a former high school science teacher who served New York City’s “overage and under-credited” population and holds an M.Ed. from Brooklyn College. His current research interests surround preservice teacher education as well as understanding the experiences and policies affecting the success of “overage and under-credited” students and their teachers.