Franklin Schargel’s Blog

According to the Washington Post, on average at least a child is shot every hour of every day in the U.S.

More than 2,200 American children were killed by guns in 2020, by far the highest number in 20 years, and 2021’s death toll is expected to be worse. 

All of them were killed in an epidemic unique to the United States, where, on average, at least one child is shot every hour of every day. Many survive, but many others do not. In the nation’s capital, nine children were killed in gun homicides last year. In Los Angeles, 11 were fatally shot. In Philadelphia: 36. In Chicago: 59. Those figures don’t include the hundreds of other kids who died in accidental shootings and by suicide.

Even babies are shot to death, but the vast majority of young victims are teenagers. Afro-American children are more than four times as likely to die in shootings as Caucasian ones, according to CDC data, though Caucasian children are much more likely to use guns to take their own lives. There are nearly two dozen children shot — intentionally, accidentally, or randomly — every day in the United States. 

According to the CDC, suicide is now the 2^nd leading cause of youth death. And the fastest growing ages are 8-14. More teenagers die from suicide than cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia, flue and lung diseases COMBINED. Every year, there are over 5,400 suicide attempts recorded for middle and high school children. (Source: Jason Foundation) 

In ages 10 – 14, we have seen an alarming increase in suicides.  The number of suicides for this group has more than doubled since 2006, making it the second leading cause of death for that age group.

Each day in our nation, there are an average of over 3,703 attempts by young people grades 9-12.  If these percentages are additionally applied to grades 7 & 8, the numbers would be higher.

Four out of five teens who attempt suicide have given clear warning signs to friends.

There are so many people who may not have gotten ill with the virus, but who have nonetheless cracked under the strain of self-isolation, social distancing, school closures and all the other restrictions. It has been devastating for kids in schools who were forced to try to learn remotely or been deprived of the company of friends or otherwise had their personal development stunted.

I suspect there will be tens of millions of people who will be bearing psychological scars for the rest of their lives.

Why do so many young people commit suicide when they so much to live for? First, I believe is the easy access to guns. The FBI has found that most of the guns used for school shootings come from the home. But there other causes:

• Depression.
• Bullying plays a major role. Perhaps it is responsible for the bullying process beginning in middle schools.
• Young people are going through profound neurological and physical changes causing them to become more emotional and impulsive. They are very susceptible to peer pressure.
• Pressure is being applied for school performance and achievement.
• Family history of suicide.
• Suicide of a close friend or love interest.
• Isolation from friends and activities they enjoy.

People who say that education is expensive are wrong. Education is not expensive – the lack of education is expensive! Expensive to the individual, to the family, the community and the nation.

With the closing of school due to the virus, the shortages of educators, and school bus drivers, it is expected that the student dropout rate will rise. Some are already asking the question, “Will children return to school?”

Students have become frustrated, depressed, and suicidal. Suicide is now the second leading cause of youth death. Schools must address the mental as well as physical health of young people. This will become increasingly difficult as there aren’t a sufficient number of school counselors or psychologists.

Can parents and educators identify the early warning signs of anxiety, stress, and trauma? What steps can parents take to slow down stop the dropout process?

9 x 1 = 9

9 x 2 = 18

9 x 3 = 27

9 x 4 = 36

9 x 5 = 45

9 x 6 = 54

9 x 7 = 63

9 x 8 = 72

9 x 9 = 81

9×10 = 91

In class they mocked him and made fun of him because he had made a mistake, as the correct answer for 9 x10 is 90.

Albert Einstein waited for everyone to shut up and said: ′′ Despite me answering the first 9 questions correctly, no one congratulated me. Instead, when I got one wrong, everyone started laughing. This means that despite being very successful, society will only notice the smallest mistake and make fun of it. Don’t let simple criticism destroy your dreams “.

MORALE.
Only those who do nothing don’t make mistakes.

I indebted to Ben Zlotnick, Co-Founder of Alexandra Capital for citing this in his blog.

Why do people focus on the negative and not the positive? Why can’t we compliment for the beautiful sky and weather and instead complain about the rain?

The National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) collects data about the number of students carrying weapons on school property and their access to firearms. In its latest report (Students Carrying Weapons on School Property and Anywhere and Students” Access to Firearms, May 2021)  it was stated that the percentage of students in grades 9-12 who reported carrying a weapon during the previous 30 days decreased from 17 percent in 2009 to 13 percent in 2019. The percentage of students who reported carrying a weapon on school property during the previous 30 days decreased from 6 to 3 percent during the same period.

Four percent of male students reported carrying a weapon on school property, compared to 2 percent of female students. The percentage of students who reported carrying a weapon anywhere was lower for Black and Hispanic students (12 percent)  than for students who were white (15 percent). EDFacts, using state agencies data, reported that during the 2018-19 school year about 2,900 public elementary and secondary students had possessed firearms at schools across the United States. Three states (New Jersey, Missouri, and Idaho) were below the national average, while Louisiana and Arkansas were above the national average. 

The data show that a higher percentage of students living in small towns had access to a loaded gun without adult permission, compared to their peers enrolled in schools in cities or suburban areas. The percentage of those in rural areas had a  higher rate of having a loaded gun in their possession than those in suburban areas.

My research for my latest book, Preventing School Violence: A User’s Guide (to be published by Amazon, February 2022) indicates that the majority of students carry weapons to school for their own protection. Of course, carrying a loaded weapon to school will not prevent a student from using it no matter what the reason.

While the news is good that the percentage of students who carried loaded weapons to school has decreased, the fact that 2,900+ students brought a loaded weapon to school should give educators pause.

Covid has exposed the current problem the parents face. They never believed that they would have to deal with their children 24/7/365. They were unprepared. 
We are now seeing a dramatic increase in child abuse as well as youth suicide. The most frightening aspect of youth suicide is that the fastest growing ages are 10-14 – elementary school age.
Politicians as well as business people want children back in school for in-person learning, to get the economy restarted. I understand this. But while we send unvaccinated children back to school, we send them back to unvaccinated homes only to return to school with Covid.
Where I live, teacher retirements are up 40%. Our governor wants to send the National Guard to “teach” children. They haven’t been trained or are they knowledgeable in dealing with children. Some governors want to use parents as ‘teachers.” This is ridiculous. Imagine if we sent uncertified and unqualified people into hospitals to serve as nurses or doctors.

Education is one of the bedrock foundations of society and it is crumbling. School districts around the world are reporting shortages among classroom educators, bus drivers, counselors, even superintendents. But education is frequently treated as the stepchild of society.

Education and educators are unappreciated. Those who can do, those who can’t teach is a line from George Bernard Shaw’s play Man and Superman. This derogatory phrase is still slung at educators.

Covid has exposed the difficulty of teaching children. Children’s minds frequently wander. They are forever curious. Children will pick up strange “facts”. Teachers have to know the answer to questions like, “Why is the sky blue?” or why is it dark at night?. Teachers simply answering “this is the way it is”  will not suffice. 

Covid has exposed the necessity of  education to parents, politicians, and businesspeople. Education today is blamed for societal ills, resulting in funding cuts to public education. Education today is largely about producing workers, and not thinkers. This has led to underpaid and overworked teachers

Low performing societies have low performing schools.  Schools are a vital necessity to societies, especially in the 21^st century.

Perhaps the more appropriate quotation to use about public education is “Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.” 

Aristotle

2021 A Year of Disruptions

2021 was a year of disruptions. The virus disrupted world economies, businesses, the lives of parents, children, and education.

In this blog, I would like to concentrate on the disruption of educators. Like many of you reading this, I receive magazines, newspapers, and blogs about the educational disruption. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I live there has been a dramatic increase in the number of educational retirements. In the school year 2020-2021, there has been a 40% increase from the previous year.(ABQ Journal September 21, 2021). Not only have classroom teachers left but so have custodians, principals, superintendents, support staff, bus drivers and dietitians. There are many reasons are given to explain the increase. Is it the virus, the age of the workers, low salaries, the lack of respect, or overburdened teachers or simple exhaustion? There has been little research to determine the primary reasons.

2022 will be a year of rebuilding our economy and our educational system. In 2019, I wrote and published, Who Will Teach The Children? Recruiting, Retaining & Refreshing Highly Effective Educators is available on  Amazon. The book has received eleven 5-star reviews. In the book I pointed out that “Teacher and school administrators are leaving the field of education almost as quickly as Colleges of Education are preparing them.” By 2021 the situation has grown much worse.

The book answers the questions:

• What are educators leaving?
• What, if anything, can be done to retain them?
• How do we refresh the teachers who are already in classrooms?

The book proposes that school systems:

• Actively RECRUIT highly qualified and highly effective educators
• Work to RETAIN those people in existing positions
• REFRESH the skills of those people currently occupying classrooms and front offices.

Schools cannot produce high performing school graduates unless they have high performing teachers in classrooms, school administrators in front offices, superintendents developing, designing, and deploying their visions, and high performing systems.

Maybe somebody can explain to me why we can have police in schools to take care of the physical health of young people, but not have a sufficient number of school counselors or social workers in schools to take care of the mental health of youngsters.

According to the Hechinger School Report, “According to the most recent federal data from the 2018-2019 school year, there are now almost 118,000 school counselors in U.S. public schools producing a ratio of 430 students from kindergarten through 12^th grade for each school counselor.”( April 27, 2020)  

There has been a growing number of school resource officers (SROs). In 1975, only 1% of schools reported having police officers on site, but in 2018, approximately 58% of schools had a least one sworn law enforcement officer present during the school week. This dramatic increase has been caused by the response to school shootings as well as available grant funding to create such a program. Over $14 billion dollars have been allocating federal and state spending for community policing. (https://education.uconn.edu)

There is a need for both police and counselors in schools. I am not asking for a cut in the number of SROs but an increase in the number of school counselors.