How mentoring could reduce school shootings
[Music]
good afternoon it’s great to be here
today i want to share with you a very
important lesson i learned
about school shootings and bullying
when i was 12 years old it all started
with the love note
there was a girl in fourth grade who i
had a crush on
and i finally got up the courage to
write her a note i decided to
put it under her desk at the end of the
day hoping that she would find it
the next morning that’s not how it
happened at all
the teacher decided to change the
seating assignment someone else said in
her desk
found her note read it gave it to the
teacher who read it in front of the
entire class
she was so embarrassed you need to know
this note it wasn’t your typical check
yes or no it was a bit more
and so when it was read in class she was
so embarrassed
she not only checked out of school that
day but i think she even changed
schools it was bad so i walked in
to school later that day i arrived a
little late and when i when i went in
and sat down all of the kids in class
they laughed they pointed at me
no one wanted to hang out with me no one
wanted to play with me that day even at
lunch no one would sit with me
except for this one guy and he ended up
being the only guy
to throw ball with me at pe too
so walking back in i asked him why he
decided to be so kind to me
and he said man i didn’t want you to go
through the day alone
i know how you feel they always treat me
this way
now i later learned that he looked so
differently
from the rest of us not just because of
his red hair
or the freckles but he was in a house
fire when he was
an infant even the younger kids in our
school made fun of the way that he
looked
elementary got better for him as he and
i remained friends but man
sixth grade no way sixth grade for him
was a nightmare it was a living hell
every day kids would make fun of him
push him in the lockers
this one time in pe i was shooting
basketball and i heard what sounded like
his voice
coming from the locker room so i go in
to see what’s going on
when i walk in there’s these three guys
who have him on the floor and they’re
just beating on him
i yelled for one of our coaches and i
went in and as soon as there was an
opening
i pulled i pulled him out and we got out
of there as quick as we could
he was beaten so badly he wasn’t able to
return to school the rest of that week
and i’m fairly certain nothing ever
happened to those three guys either
so fast forward to the last day of sixth
grade
field day it’s all you can eat popcorn
cotton candy drinks
we’re playing basketball football all
day it’s maybe 10 or 15 minutes before
the end before the bell rings for us to
go home for the summer we’re sitting at
the top of the bleachers
and all of a sudden out of nowhere
my friend stands up he reaches in his
and he pulls out a gun and he points it
in the direction of those three guys who
had been so mean to him all that year
nothing school really doesn’t prepare
you for this you know
and i look up at my friend and man
you’re you’re better than this you’re
better than these guys come on dude
let’s just go outside
let’s take a breath i mean sixth grade
right let’s just let’s cool out
totally surprised me when he takes the
gun and he puts it back in his pocket
and he followed me down the bleachers
out in the round on the way out i
motioned for one of our coaches
to come with us and
when we got outside i looked at my
friend and i said hey man do you have
anything you need
to say to coach and again he reached in
his pocket
he pulls out the gun this time he hands
it to coach
and coach put his arm around my friend
and they walked
off into the school past the cafeteria
that was the last time i ever saw my
friend
here’s the problem guys it’s 30 years
later
and this hasn’t gotten any better at all
as a matter of fact things have really
only gotten worse
and we and we see this through an
escalation through rise of things like
school shootings
of adolescent peer-to-peer violence of
social and cyber bullying it’s like our
kids
have no clue how to treat one another
much less how to treat themselves
because we’ve seen things like
teen suicide and self-harming also rise
and increase
and this is where i’ve spent the last 20
years of my life
to help students understand that they
have value
and they can enjoy healthy relationships
and
peer communities we’ve seen absolutely
astounding outcomes
as a result of the work we’ve seen in
schools
daily enrollment attendance go from
high 70s or low 70s high 60s to over
95 daily attendance more than a 20
percent increase
of daily attendance we’ve seen things
like
discipline referrals where a kid would
get expelled suspended or sent to
alternative school
we’ve seen those things decrease from as
many as 50 per month on campus at a
single school
to as few as two per month and so what
happens when kids
come to school and they show up and
they’re not getting in fights with one
another and they’re not walking around
in fear that they’re going to be bullied
well the learning process happens they
want to be there
and as a result things like standardized
test scores improve
across the board we’ve even seen like
the football team and the band get
better because kids
want to enjoy one another more
and today i want to share with you how
we do this it’s it’s really
very simple and anyone can do this
anywhere
we intentionally engage we go into
schools partner with them and
intentionally engage around 30 to 35
percent
of the student body we facilitate
group meetings for them a few times a
month 45 minutes
a meeting we give them an opportunity to
share things like highs lows peaks
valleys roses buds and thorns what’s
going on in your life
we train students to be group leaders
peer mentors if you will to see it among
them
we help them learn how to do things like
have a conversation
by asking open-ended questions we even
train
these students who want to serve their
peers in this capacity we train them to
make
handoffs to trusted adults
in the event of a traumatic situation
or some sort of other life-threatening
thing
which may be going on in their friends
lives so you’re probably thinking how do
you achieve
those outcomes with that method
you must only be using like the social
elite like the
the celebrities you know your high
school middle school celebrities on
social media and different things like
that
actually we’ve discovered that all
students all people if you will
all students have influence and when we
empower them
to intentionally engage their own
influence
and show up in the lives of their peers
to help
have authentic real conversations
amazing things can happen case in point
there was this one young man it was his
senior year
let’s call him david and david applied
to be
a peer group leader a mentor to his
peers
now david had been identified as
intellectually disabled and there were
some on campus even a couple amongst our
staff who
wondered whether or not david could do
it could serve as a
peer group leader after a few
conversations we decided man we’re just
going to give him the
shot he wants to do it after all right
so let’s let’s give him the opportunity
let’s go if he needs
added support we’ll provide that along
the way we’ll keep an eye on it
i’m so thankful we did the young man in
this group
the freshman boys in his group like they
came alive with the david
they had real like vulnerable
conversations they would
laugh it would all you would always look
in their direction for the chatter and
the commotion and they were right on
track with the content that we provided
for them to do david was so good for
that group of boys
but they were also good for him his
attendance was perfect that year
his grades that year his senior year
high school were actually better than
they’d ever been before
december of his senior year he was voted
on by his peers also by the faculty
to be student of the month i arrived on
his campus that day
he was the first one he came to me john
you’re not going to believe what
happened he was so excited he was
ecstatic
it was amazing to see
so now i think to just a couple of
months after that
it’s february 14 2018
the week before i’d been traveling
before work and
i wanted to surprise my wife by showing
up at her school where she teaches
and being there outside when she walked
out
and i get a message from a friend who
tells me that i need to
uh open up a certain live instagram
stream and so my phone was still
connected to the bluetooth
in the car and as soon as it came on
i heard gunshots i heard kids screaming
in terror and fear
it was an active school shooting
in that moment i couldn’t help as a
father to think about my own kids who
were sitting in a classroom somewhere i
couldn’t help but think about my wife
who was in front of a group of students
teaching
i’ve often reflected on the young man
who
perpetrated those crimes of just the
violence against his peers
i’ve often wondered how similar or
dissimilar
he was from my friend from fourth grade
i’ve often wondered how similar or
dissembler he was
from david the young man identified as
intellectually disabled but absolutely
crushed it is in your year
if this event
and if education gives us the
opportunity
for the collaboration of ideas
so that we can be better and add value
to the world around us
then now we have the obligation
to help our kids learn how to do life
together in more healthy relational
community
we have the obligation to empower our
kids and believe in them
so that they can be proud of themselves
and live amazing lives
thank you
you