After 17 student and teachers were killed in February in a mass school shooting that took place in Parkland Flordia, there has been a rise in concerns about how we can prevent and/or put an end to school shootings. People who did not want to join in the national school walk-out that took place on March 14th decided to come up with another way to help prevent school shootings.
They call their movement the "Walk Up, Not Out."
The "Walk Up, Not Out" movement is a new movement that encourages students, teachers, and other staff to reach out to those who may not have many friends, sit alone at lunch, or is not spoken to as often by the other students. People feel that if students start to move out of our comfort zones and help their peers feel more welcome at school, anger or an outbreak of violence that could potentially happen will be able to be limited.
For those who want to be a part of the movement and take part, here are some examples of what the movement encourages:
- Walk up to a kid who is sitting alone at lunch and invite him or her to join you
- Walk up to someone who seems lonely, say hello and strike up a conversation
- Walk up to a student who disrupts class and ask them how they are doing
- Walk up to someone who has different views than you do and share opinions
- Walk up to a classmate, make eye contact and really listen to them
- Walk up to someone who never seems to smile and tell a joke to make them happy
- Walk up to someone you don't know very well and talk to them
- Walk up to a teacher or staff member and thank them for what they do
However, there have been some concerns about the "Walk Up, Not Out" movement. Some people feel that by going up to those who may be more solitary, the individual would feel like they are being singled out by others. In addition to this, people feel that students are being shamed for committing these actions, as well as the students possibly failing to identify that a student could commit a shooting in the future one day.
If one was to look the video up about the Sandy Hook Promise, the creators also make it look like the students and teachers failed to see the signs the one student was showing, as if it is the students' and staff's faults for not recognizing these signs.
I can understand the purpose of this video, but at the time it is not really fair for the students to have to look at people and analyze their acts and compare them to how they could one day possibly become a shooter in the school. It should not be the student's responsibility to see these things.
There are many things people and schools can do to look out for and help prevent school shootings. Overall, this is a nice movement to do, but we need to make sure we keep in mind that we should be doing these things no matter what, not start doing these actions simply because there was a shooting that happened.
Everyone in a school setting should be open to new people joining their group or sitting with someone new who may not have other friends. Next time you are in school, make it a goal to sit with someone you may not know, or sit somewhere new at lunch.
The smallest thing can have a huge impact on someone; just think about that.
