Are We Asking the Wrong Question?

As an educational leader, I worry about gun safety laws in our country and how we plan on making the world safer. However, I don’t have an opinion on gun safety that I’d like to share; I’m ignorant on the legal and political stances of key decision makers to really have an intelligent conversation. But I am an avid Brene Brown reader, so I harken back to an analogy in Daring Greatly as she references Theodore Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” speech. As we enter into our own worlds (offices downtown to classrooms full of children), we all enter our own arenas in which we must fight like gladiators to achieve our goals. And the loudest, most nefarious critics are often those in the cheapest seats. Yet they influence us as we fight, serving as that nagging voice in the back of our heads, questioning our every move. I’m doing battle every day…and I must do so with confidence that the tools I utilize will facilitate my success.

I am sure you can see my frustration when listening to those who claim to be “in the middle of it all” but do not recognize that there are actually people in the middle of it all. As I watch the news stream on my computer, I can’t help but feel there are so many who are trying to be first to the microphone on one side of the conversation or the other, claiming to have a solution while saying everyone else is wrong, while those of us sitting in classrooms continue to live, day by day, with a mission to help children in spite of the potential threat to our safety. I don’t know the answer to gun control, and I don’t pretend to even like the conversation. However, I cannot help but think of that typical movie scene where mom and dad are yelling at each other…and the young kid is quietly escaping stage left to a haphazard hangout with friends also looking for relief.

According to Kegan and Lahey’s thesis in The Immunity to Change, people fall prey to the status quo because today’s culture has demanded it for so long that systemic change becomes practically impossible. Taking this thought into education, Dr. David Gleason postulates that today’s student has an achievement problem singularly facilitated by the fact that our children’s successes are orchestrated to escalate a family’s social status…and that is a norm which seems to be immune to change. On this Educating Modern Learners podcast, Dr. Gleason shares his research-based concern that has me thinking – have we made our own bed with school violence? Gleason expresses the issue in his new book, At What Cost: Defending Adolescent Development in Fiercely Competitive Schools, as one in which we place high, socially-normed expectations for success on those who are not yet neurologically developed enough to meet them. For instance, parents want their child to be the Harvard-bound kid, or the ace on the pitcher’s mound, or first chair violin in order to “be successful,” and therefore provide indirect validation to a family’s success. The cost of this crushing neurological responsibility is often too much for a child to bear. No matter the level of achievement, asking a young person to live up to someone else’s dreams is like trying to turn the Titanic with telekinesis; the iceberg frequently becomes an easier route. I just pray that the damage is small enough to repair. I don’t mean to talk out of both sides of my own mouth: kids don’t have the mental capability of knowing what they want and how to get it until much later in life. However, imposing an expectation of success that is unrealistic only causes anxiety, frustration, and (at times) retaliation.

In my opinion, we need to confront the issue, head on. As a mentor advises, “confrontation is the hallmark of caring and the soul of honesty.” But perhaps we are confronting the wrong issue. Is the gun control really the problem, or is the root much, much bigger?