WallStreetJournal – Like the Big Kids, Kindergartens Plan Protests for Gun Control
“If children in kindergarten can practice active-shooter drills, then they can also walk out to call for safety, some parents and educators say.
Plans to protest on March 14, which began with high-school shooting survivors in Parkland, Fla., are spreading to include elementary schools. Schools are grappling with how to address the event with children as young as 5 years old and with finding ways for children who are too little to be told about school shootings to take part.
The protest calls for students nationwide to walk out of class at 10 a.m. for 17 minutes, one minute in honor of each victim at February’s shooting in Parkland.
Some of the most organized events are at schools with progressive traditions and parent bodies. At Manhattan Country School, a private school with a social justice mission in New York City, children in prekindergarten through fourth grade will sing the peace songs “If I Had a Hammer” and “Paz y Libertad.”
And at PS1 Pluralistic School in Santa Monica, Calif., elementary students wrote their wishes for a safer world on small pieces of rice paper, to be hung from a large piece of driftwood in a schoolwide ceremony. Children said they wished for houses for the homeless, kindness, an end to drought and more wishes. Although teachers didn’t mention anything about firearms, they were on at least one boy’s mind.
“I wish there were no guns so people couldn’t suffer,” said 8-year-old Gabriel Chibane. “It doesn’t make sense. Why shouldn’t they have a longer life instead of just a short life?”
In Utah, leaders of the statewide parent-teacher association are embracing a social-media campaign called #WhatsYour17. It encourages positive actions tied to the number of victims killed in Parkland.
“We’ve talked about reaching out and smiling at 17 new people or finding 17 new friends,” said Jeana Stockdale, president of the Utah PTA. “In elementary school, it could be asking someone new to play with you.” Each district can decide if and how to mark the day.
Deciding what to do is especially tricky at schools that include students with different stages of awareness. At the Ridgewood Avenue School in Glen Ridge, N.J., which serves third through sixth grades, Nicole Quinn, president of the Home & School Association that represents parents, said the debate is “coming down to an argument about when it’s appropriate to ruin our students’ innocence.”
Ridgewood Avenue School Principal Michael Donovan said parent-driven proposals are still evolving, and he planned to meet with participating students to discuss how to express themselves in ways that won’t scare their peers.
“My focus is to be as supportive as I can to parents who feel it’s important to participate, and at the same time respect parents who didn’t feel they were ready for their kids to be exposed to the tragedy,” he said. “It’s a fine, fine, fine balance that I’m not sure I’ll be able to successfully find.”
Many districts support walkouts at high schools, as long as students obey safety rules and come back to class. But in Needville, Texas, the superintendent warned that students who demonstrate during school hours will get three-day suspensions. “We are here for an education and not a political protest,” Superintendent Curtis Rhodes said in a letter to families. Mr. Rhodes didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Elementary school educators generally say they don’t mention guns or violence. Liz Phillips, principal of P.S. 321, a progressive elementary school in Brooklyn, N.Y., said that if young students ask about guns, teachers will tell them to discuss the subject with their parents, much as they do with questions about sex or politics.
On Wednesday, P.S. 321 plans to have its children in kindergarten through fourth grade do activities tied to its “No Place for Hate” theme. Fifth-graders will walk in the yard carrying orange ribbons, which parent volunteers will tie on a fence to spell out that message.
Teachers are experienced in handling situations that could be scary for children, such as lockdown drills. “We say to kids, this is just like a fire drill, and we’ve never had a fire,” Ms. Phillips said. “We do lockdown drills in case there is a terrible storm and we have to get away from the windows.”
Charlie Breslin, a Glen Ridge father, said his third-grade twin daughters had shown little interest, but his sixth-grade son wants to attend a protest at the town’s high school. Mr. Breslin said he would let him go as part of learning about the U.S. Constitution, free speech and citizenship.
“We’ve been teaching our children for six years how to hide under their desks, but nobody has taught them how to have a voice,” Mr. Breslin said.”
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