Donald Trump’s announcement that he intends to equip up to one million American ‘gun-adept’ teachers with firearms in the wake of the Florida school shooting brings in to sharp focus the contrast in values between a society like that of the United States and a society like that of the United Kingdom.
Not that I think most American teachers will welcome Trump’s proposal. I don’t. I think American teachers have, broadly, very similar professional values to teachers in the UK. In the broader societal picture too, our countries share many fundamental liberal, democratic values.
But teachers live and imbibe the values of the societies they inhabit and cannot escape their influence.
I saw one of President Trump’s ‘gun-adept’ teachers being interviewed on television the other day. She said she already took her firearm into school not only for the protection of students but for her own protection as well. She welcomed President Trump’s proposals.
Before we all start to throw up our hands in horror, let’s just consider what one of our fundamental roles as teachers is – to be in loco parentis (that’s Latin for in place of he parent in case you haven’t had a Classical education).
When I talk to student-teachers and trainee-teachers up and down the country, I sometimes have to explain that this is a legal responsibility teachers have – to be in place of the parent – not an option.
Teachers actions – particularly where the safety and security of their pupils and students is concerned – are judged by whether they have behaved in a way that was ‘reasonable in the circumstances’ and whether they behaved in a way that ‘a responsible parent would in the circumstances.’
A few weeks ago in one such session, a trainee-teacher asked me: “What should I do if a student came at me with a knife?”
So I said: “What would it be reasonable to do in such a situation?”
He said quite plainly: “I’ve no idea.”
So I pressed him.
“Come one, let’s just imagine it for a moment. Someone is coming at you with a knife. Your life is in danger. What would you do?”
Again, he said: “I don’t know.”
So I pressed him again: “Would you run?”
“Probably!” he said.
“Yes! That would be a reasonable thing to do wouldn’t it? Flight or fight. You’re frightened. You don’t know if you could take this person on, so you choose flight, and many people would do the same. That’s reasonable.”
“But what about the kids?” he asked.
“Good question,” I said. “Tell them to run too! That would be reasonable wouldn’t it?”
“But what if we can’t run? What if the person with the knife is blocking our escape route?
“Another good question!” I said. “So now tell me again what would be a reasonable thing to do in the circumstances?”
“I don’t know,” he said, genuinely perplexed.
“Well, let me tell you what I would do if someone was about to attack me with a knife,” I said.
I could tell everyone in the room was hanging on my every word.
“I would pick up a chair or a table or any long, hard object that came to hand and I’d hit that person as hard as I could, probably over the head, to try and disarm them. I’d do that both for my own protection and for the protection of the kids in my care. That would be a reasonable thing to do wouldn’t it?”
The student still wasn’t sure.
“Yes, it is.” I had to say it to convince him. “My actions are reasonable in the circumstances – to protect myself – which I have a legal right to do – and to protect the kids – which I have a legal responsibility to do. Not only would the police almost certainly think so, but so would a court of law find it a reasonable thing to do in the circumstances.”
I could see the student was still not entirely persuaded.
“But what is not reasonable – especially if by hitting him with a chair has knocked him unconscious – is that I then go over and continue hitting him over the head while he is lying on the ground. That is obviously an unreasonable use of force and no reasonable person would condone it.”
The fact that someone – probably a police officer and possibly a court of law – is going to ask you to account for yourself in such a situation – does not mean you have done anything wrong.
What is being tested by such professional accountability is whether you have behaved reasonably in the circumstances to protect yourself and to protect those you are legally charged with protecting.
Now going back to Donald Trump and the United States…
In the context of that society – where 30% of Americans own a gun; where there are more than 350 million guns in legal circulation and where “the right to bear arms” is enshrined in the American Constitution – then Trump is merely invoking what is reasonable in the circumstances for teachers to do in a society such as the United States.
But I know in which society I would rather be a teacher, and in which society I’d rather live.
Alan Newland worked as a teacher, teacher-trainer and headteacher in London for over 20 years and then for more than a decade with the DfE and the GTC. He now lectures on teaching professionalism and runs the award-winning social media network newteacherstalk. You can follow him on Twitter at @newteacherstalk and book him for a talk. His book “Working in Teaching” (Crimson Publishing) was published in March 2014.
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