Bacon: Use of force doesn't belong in schools

In my former life as a therapist in inpatient psych and chemical dependency at a university hospital in another state, staff was trained yearly in violence management. Towards the end of my 20 year career there I was selected with others for training in nonviolent interventions. After the training, we inserviced the hospital staff which was hundreds of employees, So my opinion about "use of force techniques" is grounded in training and real experience dealing with patients in crisis. The patients I worked with were unmanageable in school.

The foundation of the training was how to recognize initial agitation and decrease the pressure on the subjects to empower the subjects to make the best decision. My experience with this technique was that the subjects chose to comply-chose being the key word here. No one responds well to upping demands for compliance which often involves threatening posture and yelling. This is an authoritarian approach which increases the pressure on the subject and ensures that the subject will escalate. Staff who were invested in using authority to deal with patients in crises actually were setting them up for a physical intervention. A study of time out use on the unit where I worked bore this out. Locked time out use was correlated to staff-not patients. (Present day, locked time out is not used)

I am well aware of the need for security as front line defense in our public schools. They are presumably there to protect our students from outside threats. How did they get into the classroom? Our socially struggling students would be better served by grandmothers in the classroom who are adept at nurturing and heart-centered support. The "use of force" mindset has no place in our public schools. It's abusive to kids in crisis.