Schools

TELL US: Should Schoolkids be Trained to Defend Against an Armed Attack?

New training techniques are being questioned that call for students to able to actively defend against a Columbine-style attack. What do you think?

The list of shooter attacks on high schools and colleges and universities is way too long.

One result: a new approach to training schoolkids how to act in such circumstances. As NPR headlined its story last month about the technique: "to survive a shooting, students learn how to fight back".

The essence of the new drill for students is: alert, lockdown, inform, counter, evacuate. Or, ALICE.

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What's new there? The verb "counter."

Proponents of the new approach say there have been too many attacks for students not to be trained in how to more actively defend themselves.

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Others, especially some parents, ask: does that make sense to expect kids and teens to be able to make such hair-raising, possible life-risking decisions?

There is controversy, now that that the training is coming to Massachusetts. The Boston Globe reports that, on Nov. 14, the Massachusetts Juvenile Police Officers' Association will host ALICE training with mostly police and school officials from places including Canton, Concord, Dedham, Framingham, Franklin, New Bedford, Wellesley, West­borough, Winchester, and also from New Hampshire and ­Connecticut.

This is an important new approach to find out about and think through: should schoolkids learn to more actively defend themselves in armed attacks? Or is that asking for even more trouble and unfair to the students? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.


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