Locking up schools is no cure for violent behaviour
12th March 2009
Last week’s stabbing of a teacher in Auckland has most of us in education bracing for the fallout. The response so far inspires little confidence that we can maintain perspective on this issue.
Talk of metal detectors and police patrols adds insult to injury. These are not simply facile responses to a complex issue, they are strategies that will, over time, escalate violence in schools.
There are four sources of violent behaviour in schools. The first, beloved by fiction writers through the ages, is violence from teachers towards students. The Dickensian school master, with stout cane and withering tongue, survived intact until remarkably recently.
Teachers who worked in the era of the cane and strap will tell you the relief they felt at the ending of institutionalised violence towards children. Some will admit it brought out the worst in them, an experience they found deeply unsettling and which clouded their relationships with students.
It would be disingenuous to suggest that teachers no longer bully children, but almost without exception the people who work in our schools today have constructive relationships with students, are highly positive and well supported in managing student behaviour.
The second source of school violence is bullying among students. This is a genuine problem in New Zealand and deserves attention. Bullying is a nexus of factors: individual, institutional and societal. Schools that experience high levels of disruptive behaviour can often link this to high levels of violence within their communities. Some schools succeed in becoming havens of respect and tolerance in even the most difficult communities, but to do so requires vision, stamina and extraordinary commitment from a wide range of agencies.
Bullying among students can usually be controlled by adults but the bullying will only cease when students take ownership of both the problem and the means to end it. Students, not teachers, are the guardians and enforcers of school culture. The most effective behaviour management consists of a student or group of students demonstrating their disapproval of wayward behaviour. This is as true of students at the age of six as it is at sixteen.
The third and fourth kinds are those acts of serious violence committed against students or staff. In one form they may be committed by a member of the school, such as last week’s attack in Auckland. Alternatively they may be the act of an outsider, such as an irate parent coming onto the school grounds to take the law into his own hands. What these two forms of violence have in common is that they can almost never be anticipated, they are highly aggressive and they are rare.
Schools have procedures to handle these events and react swiftly and firmly to minimise the risk to students and staff.
The debate in the past week has concerned itself almost exclusively with school violence of the third and fourth kinds. Several voices have chided schools for not doing enough to prevent such acts of violence. These contributors to the debate tend to be fans of metal detectors at the gate and police patrols in the playground but their solutions are more damaging to schools than the continuance of the very small risk posed by violent offenders of the third and fourth kind.
I have worked in schools in England where, in the climate of fear created by high level violence, school security is extreme. With chain link fences, metal gates, swipe cards and access codes schools have come to resemble prisons.
From my observation these measures have two effects. First, they seriously damage a school’s relationship with its community. The message to parents is, “we do not believe this community is a safe place for children, so we will make their safety the role of the state.” The security measures effectively disempower parents and children from taking responsibility for their behaviour. Unsurprisingly bullying and violence are major problems.
Second, the security measures do not work. It is impossible to keep a school in permanent lockdown. School boundaries are porous – people are constantly moving in and out for a hundred good reasons. The gates and security codes are impossible to enforce to the degree where they would exclude a person intent on harm.
Maintaining high-level security would be even more challenging in New Zealand where our schools, happily, are designed to be open to their communities.
In fact the greatest risk in over-reacting to last week’s incident is that we will draw a curtain between school and community. Violence in schools can be solved only by schools and communities working together. The idea that schools must be made into islands of safety in a dangerous world nurtures a climate of fear, creates discord among the groups that share the problem and leads to greater violence.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Crime scene blunders steal the show
21st March 2009
After last week’s decision to cut jobs TVNZ has moved to restore market share with the launch of a new flagship series. The new show, Crime Scene Blunders, lifts the lid on the tragic, hilarious or just plain tragically hilarious mistakes made by police in their investigations.
In the spirit of the programme TVNZ ‘leaked’ the script of the series opener to selected media. Here it is – Crime Scene Blunders, Episode One.
Huge applause, lights, techno-pop music. Jason Gunn enters.
Jason. “Good evening and welcome to Crime Scene Blunders. Yes I’m Jason Gunn and just to prove it I’ve got my gun right here. Give us a close up on the piece, Morrie. There you are, it’s a nice wee Glock, standard police issue, and crikey! it’s been the cause of a few crime scene blunders over the years. Let’s hope this baby’s not loaded or we could have a few blunders of our own tonight.”
The gun fires.
Jason. “Whoopsedoodle! There go the studio lights, told you I could be in trouble. So moving quickly along let me introduce my co-host, please welcome our extreme advocate, Horace Rumple QC.
Big cheers. Horace enters with wig and gown.
Jason. “Welcome Horace. Now, you’d be Rumple of the Bailey?”
Horace. “No, no, Jase, I’m Rumple of the Trailer Home.”
Jason. “Fallen on hard times?”
Horace. “Nuh, I fell on a large quantity of gin and the old career’s been downhill ever since.”
Jason. “Well we’ll give it a pickup tonight because, goodness me! it’s been a great week for crime scene blunders.”
Horace. “Certainly has, Jase.”
Jason. “And first up is the Housing NZ ‘ram raid’ in Porirua.”
Horace. “Yep, this is a beauty. The Housing Corp whistles up the cops to kick the Mongrel Mob out of a few houses they’ve been using as a wildlife park and, dear me, they go and leave the letter of complaint lying around with the name and contact number of the little old lady who dobbed the Mob.”
Jason. “Classic! Well, over in our studio witness box ..”
Horace. “…you mean, the witLESS box, Jase.”
Jason. “…we’ve got Inspector Dicky Riddle. We should tell you all our police guests have been given false names to conceal their identities.”
Cut to police inspector.
Jason. “How’s it going, Dicky?”
Dick. “Yeah, good, Jase. It’s a pleasure to be your first guest.”
Horace. “So, a bit of cock-up, Dicky. What’s happened to the old lady? She had some death threats, eh?”
Dicky. “Yep, but we’ve sorted that out. We popped her onto the witness protection programme.”
Jason. “So, where’s she living now?”
Dicky. “Alaska.”
Jason. “Got her contact so we can call her?”
Dicky. “Sure, it’s 027 – oh, now wait a minute, you were trying to get me to make another blunder, weren’t you?”
Big blast of music and appluse.
Jason. “Congratulations, Dicky! You’ve won our super ‘stop-the-cop’ prize. What’s the prize, Horace?”
Horace. “Ah, we haven’t got any, Jase, the sponsor went belly up.”
Jason. “Here you are, Dicky, you can have my Glock. It’s got the bent barrel so you don’t have to worry about hurting anybody.”
Horace. “Moving on, Jase, and next up is the ‘candid camera’ story.”
Jason. “A wee ripper and a big ‘whoopsedoodle’ for the boys in blue this week, when the investigating officer left behind the camera he’d been using to photograph the crime scene victims.”
Horace. “Yep, and now the dude who snaffled the camera is offering the photos for sale to the media.”
Jason. “And we’re going to show them to you now so you’ll know what to look out for if he offers them to you. Let’s see the pics, Morrie. What’s that? A hold up?”
Horace. “We’ve got a bit of a techno failure, Jase. We can’t put the blurry lines over the faces in the photos.”
Jason. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. The faces on the pics are going to be roughly in the centre of your TV. So while we go to the break you get some masking tape and cover that part of your screen so you won’t see the faces.
Horace. “We’ll be back shortly with our sports slot, Howzat!?, the latest blunders from the Appeal Court.”
Jason. “And our hugely popular celebrity dance-off, featuring this week, David Bain and Arthur Allan Thomas.”
Both. Back soon.
21st March 2009
After last week’s decision to cut jobs TVNZ has moved to restore market share with the launch of a new flagship series. The new show, Crime Scene Blunders, lifts the lid on the tragic, hilarious or just plain tragically hilarious mistakes made by police in their investigations.
In the spirit of the programme TVNZ ‘leaked’ the script of the series opener to selected media. Here it is – Crime Scene Blunders, Episode One.
Huge applause, lights, techno-pop music. Jason Gunn enters.
Jason. “Good evening and welcome to Crime Scene Blunders. Yes I’m Jason Gunn and just to prove it I’ve got my gun right here. Give us a close up on the piece, Morrie. There you are, it’s a nice wee Glock, standard police issue, and crikey! it’s been the cause of a few crime scene blunders over the years. Let’s hope this baby’s not loaded or we could have a few blunders of our own tonight.”
The gun fires.
Jason. “Whoopsedoodle! There go the studio lights, told you I could be in trouble. So moving quickly along let me introduce my co-host, please welcome our extreme advocate, Horace Rumple QC.
Big cheers. Horace enters with wig and gown.
Jason. “Welcome Horace. Now, you’d be Rumple of the Bailey?”
Horace. “No, no, Jase, I’m Rumple of the Trailer Home.”
Jason. “Fallen on hard times?”
Horace. “Nuh, I fell on a large quantity of gin and the old career’s been downhill ever since.”
Jason. “Well we’ll give it a pickup tonight because, goodness me! it’s been a great week for crime scene blunders.”
Horace. “Certainly has, Jase.”
Jason. “And first up is the Housing NZ ‘ram raid’ in Porirua.”
Horace. “Yep, this is a beauty. The Housing Corp whistles up the cops to kick the Mongrel Mob out of a few houses they’ve been using as a wildlife park and, dear me, they go and leave the letter of complaint lying around with the name and contact number of the little old lady who dobbed the Mob.”
Jason. “Classic! Well, over in our studio witness box ..”
Horace. “…you mean, the witLESS box, Jase.”
Jason. “…we’ve got Inspector Dicky Riddle. We should tell you all our police guests have been given false names to conceal their identities.”
Cut to police inspector.
Jason. “How’s it going, Dicky?”
Dick. “Yeah, good, Jase. It’s a pleasure to be your first guest.”
Horace. “So, a bit of cock-up, Dicky. What’s happened to the old lady? She had some death threats, eh?”
Dicky. “Yep, but we’ve sorted that out. We popped her onto the witness protection programme.”
Jason. “So, where’s she living now?”
Dicky. “Alaska.”
Jason. “Got her contact so we can call her?”
Dicky. “Sure, it’s 027 – oh, now wait a minute, you were trying to get me to make another blunder, weren’t you?”
Big blast of music and appluse.
Jason. “Congratulations, Dicky! You’ve won our super ‘stop-the-cop’ prize. What’s the prize, Horace?”
Horace. “Ah, we haven’t got any, Jase, the sponsor went belly up.”
Jason. “Here you are, Dicky, you can have my Glock. It’s got the bent barrel so you don’t have to worry about hurting anybody.”
Horace. “Moving on, Jase, and next up is the ‘candid camera’ story.”
Jason. “A wee ripper and a big ‘whoopsedoodle’ for the boys in blue this week, when the investigating officer left behind the camera he’d been using to photograph the crime scene victims.”
Horace. “Yep, and now the dude who snaffled the camera is offering the photos for sale to the media.”
Jason. “And we’re going to show them to you now so you’ll know what to look out for if he offers them to you. Let’s see the pics, Morrie. What’s that? A hold up?”
Horace. “We’ve got a bit of a techno failure, Jase. We can’t put the blurry lines over the faces in the photos.”
Jason. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. The faces on the pics are going to be roughly in the centre of your TV. So while we go to the break you get some masking tape and cover that part of your screen so you won’t see the faces.
Horace. “We’ll be back shortly with our sports slot, Howzat!?, the latest blunders from the Appeal Court.”
Jason. “And our hugely popular celebrity dance-off, featuring this week, David Bain and Arthur Allan Thomas.”
Both. Back soon.
Monday, March 09, 2009
A close shave at the crossroads
7th March 2009
Last week, on a sunny morning in the broad heartland of the Canterbury Plains, a farmer drove through a give way sign and into the oncoming path of my wife. Sylvia had time for just one thought - “how do I get out of this?” - to which the only answer was: “you don’t.”
She hit the farmer’s ute at 100km/hr. The force of the impact and the momentum of the vehicles carried them 30 metres down the side road, past a young man waiting for a school bus and onto a grass verge.
By a miracle they both walked away from the impact; battered, bruised and broken, but alive.
I shall write no more about the crash because it is, as they say, before the courts.
Besides, we’ve been caught up in the aftermath, which is where this story lies. Sylvia is gradually returning to health. Her bruises are a landscape by Constable. She suffers dizzy spells and says it feels like she’s stepped off a boat after several weeks of constant partying in high seas.
Of less importance, but greater distraction, is the problem of the car, the front half of which looks like a bowl of breakfast cereal. It must be replaced, and soon, for Sylvia needs it when she returns to work.
I have written before about how bad we are at shopping. Breakfast cereal is probably one of the few things we purchase with confidence, so the prospect of buying a new car fills us with despair.
Our car purchases in the past have been few but simple, usually involving an upgrade from a really old car to a slightly less old car. Now we find that last week’s event has made us gun-shy. Now we are thinking about airbags and ABS brakes. Now we are looking at cars that can save your life…
…and are economical
…and affordable
…and red.
It’s a minefield. Honestly, we do try. We spent most of last Saturday driving Mazdas around Dave Barlass’s sheep yards. We’ve trawled Trade Me, searched The Dog and Lemon Guide and downloaded Consumer magazine’s centrefolds. We’ve scoured car yards pleading silently for the perfect car to speak to us and grappled with tiptronics, pre-tensioning seatbelts and electronic stabilisers. But the nuances of design and engineering are over our heads. The pair of us walking into a car yard is like casting swine before pearls.
One thing, and one thing only, has resounded in my mind from all this research.
Crumple zones.
Crumple zones, if you didn’t already know, are those parts of the car that are designed to absorb the shock of a collision by collapsing – crumpling – in highly scientific ways. Our old Bluebird crumpled in a way that was less than scientific, but mercifully robust.
Sylvia’s next car needs lots of crumple zones. Ideally, it will be an enormous donut with vast spaces of steel, rubber and plastic surrounding a central seating position with multiple seatbelts. It will have crumple zones the size of the Gaza Strip.
That cuts out small modern cars where you sit with knees against radiator and tailbone brushing tail light. These have the crumple zones of a catwalk model. Some have rear ends so abrupt the whole vehicle looks like the front half of a real car.
And now the penny drops. Of course! This is why so many people who don’t seem to need them possess huge 4WD vehicles. The ‘Fendalton tractor’ is all about safety, not status as I’ve always thought. What we need is a Toyota Landcruiser.
But wait a minute, there’s a trap in this. When you’re sitting in the middle of a big 4WD, secure in the knowledge that you’re going to come out on top in any mishap, there must be a subtle shift in how you see the road and your fellow travellers.
Perhaps you become a little more casual about safety and courtesy. Perhaps you don’t bother to look too closely as you approach give way signs, or maybe you roll across intersections as if you were out the back of the farm.
I know that’s unreasonable. Forgive me. We came so close to disaster.
7th March 2009
Last week, on a sunny morning in the broad heartland of the Canterbury Plains, a farmer drove through a give way sign and into the oncoming path of my wife. Sylvia had time for just one thought - “how do I get out of this?” - to which the only answer was: “you don’t.”
She hit the farmer’s ute at 100km/hr. The force of the impact and the momentum of the vehicles carried them 30 metres down the side road, past a young man waiting for a school bus and onto a grass verge.
By a miracle they both walked away from the impact; battered, bruised and broken, but alive.
I shall write no more about the crash because it is, as they say, before the courts.
Besides, we’ve been caught up in the aftermath, which is where this story lies. Sylvia is gradually returning to health. Her bruises are a landscape by Constable. She suffers dizzy spells and says it feels like she’s stepped off a boat after several weeks of constant partying in high seas.
Of less importance, but greater distraction, is the problem of the car, the front half of which looks like a bowl of breakfast cereal. It must be replaced, and soon, for Sylvia needs it when she returns to work.
I have written before about how bad we are at shopping. Breakfast cereal is probably one of the few things we purchase with confidence, so the prospect of buying a new car fills us with despair.
Our car purchases in the past have been few but simple, usually involving an upgrade from a really old car to a slightly less old car. Now we find that last week’s event has made us gun-shy. Now we are thinking about airbags and ABS brakes. Now we are looking at cars that can save your life…
…and are economical
…and affordable
…and red.
It’s a minefield. Honestly, we do try. We spent most of last Saturday driving Mazdas around Dave Barlass’s sheep yards. We’ve trawled Trade Me, searched The Dog and Lemon Guide and downloaded Consumer magazine’s centrefolds. We’ve scoured car yards pleading silently for the perfect car to speak to us and grappled with tiptronics, pre-tensioning seatbelts and electronic stabilisers. But the nuances of design and engineering are over our heads. The pair of us walking into a car yard is like casting swine before pearls.
One thing, and one thing only, has resounded in my mind from all this research.
Crumple zones.
Crumple zones, if you didn’t already know, are those parts of the car that are designed to absorb the shock of a collision by collapsing – crumpling – in highly scientific ways. Our old Bluebird crumpled in a way that was less than scientific, but mercifully robust.
Sylvia’s next car needs lots of crumple zones. Ideally, it will be an enormous donut with vast spaces of steel, rubber and plastic surrounding a central seating position with multiple seatbelts. It will have crumple zones the size of the Gaza Strip.
That cuts out small modern cars where you sit with knees against radiator and tailbone brushing tail light. These have the crumple zones of a catwalk model. Some have rear ends so abrupt the whole vehicle looks like the front half of a real car.
And now the penny drops. Of course! This is why so many people who don’t seem to need them possess huge 4WD vehicles. The ‘Fendalton tractor’ is all about safety, not status as I’ve always thought. What we need is a Toyota Landcruiser.
But wait a minute, there’s a trap in this. When you’re sitting in the middle of a big 4WD, secure in the knowledge that you’re going to come out on top in any mishap, there must be a subtle shift in how you see the road and your fellow travellers.
Perhaps you become a little more casual about safety and courtesy. Perhaps you don’t bother to look too closely as you approach give way signs, or maybe you roll across intersections as if you were out the back of the farm.
I know that’s unreasonable. Forgive me. We came so close to disaster.
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