Crisis Guidelines
We
are saddened and shocked by another school shooting. Senseless
violence. Our own killing our own. Displaced anger. Mis-managed
grief.
We live
in a time when our schools must address the issues of grief. Today,
with our condolences to the families and schools in Ohio, I will share
an excerpt from our publication: Crisis, Grief, and Loss...and How to Help Your Students Through It.
In times of crisis, when nothing can be done to change the horrible facts, schools must:
Encourage academics. Do not ignore the crisis; but keep students focused on academics. Academics is our job.
Encourage options. Allow
flexibility in your projects. Written assignments, for example, may
deal with reactions to the crisis at hand and parallels between your
topic, our current crisis, and our students’ personal experiences.
Encourage hope. The human spirit is incredibly and wonderfully resilient. We hurt; we’re angry; we’re afraid. But we will overcome!
Encourage help.
Allow your classes to write letters to the families of the deceased.
Allow projects that provide food, clothing, and shelter for victims.
Endorse related humanitarian projects such as helping at a food kitchen.
Encourage healing. Allow
students to talk and write about their emotions. Also allow them to
periodically ignore what has happened and focus on their passion.
Encourage health.
Use the crisis as an incentive to increase substance abuse prevention
programs. Use your study skills curriculum to help them channel and
deal with anger constructively.
Encourage truth.
Keep students informed and squelch the rumor mill. Keep obsessions
with the gory details to a minimum, but tell the truth. We have a huge
capacity to imagine horror scenarios when we don’t know what is
happening. We also have a huge capacity to deal with what is real in
creative, constructive ways.
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