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Introducing
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What issue causes you the most concern, the most heartache? We have heard repeatedly, from Superintendents and others in authority over school violence that the issue causing them loss of sleep; is the potential of a murder/suicide Columbine like incident or Virginia Tech like rampage?
What is the problem? National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) releases A Profile of Criminal/Violent Incidents:
Research shows that from the Moment of Commitment (when students pull their weapon and begin firing) to the Moment of Completion (when the last round is discharged) can be as little as 5 seconds. If it is your District’s intention to react to this violence (Crisis Management) you will, at minimum, do so over those students, teachers and administrators slain in the first 5 seconds. Some have suggested being "proactive" is enough, we suggest that one can be "proactively reactive" and being "reactive" is not good enough. "Prevention" must be the only solution. Whether a shooting, assaultive behavior, or a violent form of bullying, “reacting” (Crisis Management/Intervention) to incidents of violence is not effective, responsible nor defensible (in loco parentis). We would encourage you to “prevent” future violent incidents, especially before their horrific Moment of Commitment and now there is a method to do so.
What is the Solution? Only when we isolate “emerging aggressive behavior” specifically and judge it on its merits, are we able to foresee, engage and prevent any level of aggressive behavior. According to the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Department of Education’s report on Targeted Violence in Schools, there is a significant difference between “profiling” and foreseeing emerging aggression; their study concluded, “The use of profiles is not effective either for identifying students who may pose a risk for targeted violence at school or – once a student has been identified – for assessing the risk that a particular student may pose for school-based targeted violence.” It continues; “An inquiry should focus instead on a student’s behaviors and communications to determine if the student appears to be planning or preparing for an attack.” This study demonstrates what we have known for some time, profiling tells us that within a certain group of people there is a higher probability of a shooter but it does not tell us who the next shooter is! Assessing objective, culturally neutral, distinct body language, behavioral and communication indicators of emerging aggression is the only effective means to foresee and prevent aggression in our schools. Whether a shooter, assaultive or bullying behavior, AMIS provides the only system of prevention. All other programs use methods like Conflict Resolution, which presupposes conflict. Because there are individuals who will express their conflict with violence, if schools wish to prevent violence, they must first prevent conflict; the same goes for Bullying Intervention. AMIS is the only system that provides this capability. If you would like an in-depth understanding of how AMIS works in conjunction with a Behavioral Intervention Team, you may download our white paper, written by the Center's President and renown school violence and mental health expert Carolyn R. Wolf, Esq. of Campus Behavioral Health Risk Consultants, LLC. Incidentally, we will also help you form your Behavioral Intervention Team or Threat Assessment Team to address and prevent violence in your school district. White Paper describing Aggression Management Intervention System (AMIS)
For more information contact the Center's President John D. Byrnes
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See What Other Educators Have Said about Aggression Management:Claire
Sheff Kohn – Superintendent, Texas Association of School Boards Letters of Recommendation from Superintendents National School Board Association Annual Conference |
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Aggression Management Online Training with CEUs
In consideration of the
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Two most Important Issues to
Superintendents around the Nation:
Student Safety and Student Achievement
Issue:
In light of the school violence in our country, one thing is becoming painfully clear: so far, we have only reacted to aggression in our schools. . . and that hasn't worked. This fact continues to be reinforced by the discovery of other "Columbine look-alike" scares which perpetrate violence against students and teachers around our nation.
If our responsibility is the safety of those in our schools, is it not essential that we prevent hazard rather than react to it? If all we intend to do is to react to aggression, we will eventually be confronted with physical violence.
We need a paradigm shift; a shift from reacting to aggression and violence to a Paradigm of Prevention. Davis vs. Monroe County Board of Education, has profoundly changed the way schools must look at their liability. The US Supreme Court found in favor of a private damages action against a school board in the case of student-on-student harassment. The US Supreme Court, of course, preempts any protection under state's sovereign immunity.
ETS - Educational Testing Service has confirmed that there is a direct link between the amount of aggression in schools and student achievement scores in all four subject areas: math, reading, science and social science.
Development:
There really is a way to prevent aggression in our schools. School
Districts around the Nation are utilizing Aggression Management®
Training to diminish aggression in their schools. Diminished aggression in
the schools not only saves lives but also yields higher student
achievement scores.
As we look at conventional means of managing aggression, we see topics like Conflict Resolution and Anger Management. Conflict Resolution presupposes conflict; you are already reacting, you are already past any opportunity to prevent aggression. If we only train our staff and teachers to respond when two individuals are in conflict (nose-to-nose) eventually we will get someone who does not communicate verbally but instead communicates physically and "out of nowhere" strikes out. God forbid the aggressor has a weapon and he pulls the trigger. Anger Management does not adhere to the predicate of prevention: if you can measure it, you can manage it. The problem with Anger Management is that we all measure anger differently and therefore experience and express it differently. There is no common denominator for us to measure anger.
There really is a way to prevent aggression and violence in our schools.
You must first identify the emergence of aggression, an then measure and
manage it before it becomes conflict.
The Center for Aggression Management® has developed the
Aggression Continuum™ which provides a means to measure the emergence and
escalation of aggression in others and in ourselves.
Aggression Management®
Skills in schools can not only save lives but also yield higher student
achievement scores.
More insight:
Since 1993, I have conducted a continuous study into the nature of
aggression in humans and have concluded that one cannot get to prevention
through the word “Violence.” Typically, violence conjures up
fatality and physical assault; which causes two problems.
First, those who have not experienced or witnessed violence for themselves
may consider it a non-issue, at least until violence actually occurs.
Second, when looking for a solution to Violence, we tend to come up with
Crisis Management – “I have a crisis and I need to manage it!”
This is reactionary only!
We, therefore, cannot get to prevention if we focus on the word
violence.
The Center for Aggression Management
® has been helping school systems ––- as well as businesses and government entities (including the United States Postal Service) –– learn these vital skills –– skills that can save lives. We have conducted two workshops for the National School Boards Association at their annual conferences in San Francisco and Orlando, where responses were overwhelming positive. We have worked with organizations like Texas Association of School Boards Risk Management Fund, New Jersey School Board Association Insurance Group, Mississippi Safe Schools, The National Dropout Prevention Center, The Southeast Equity Center and many others which support and recommend Aggression Management® Skills.According to the National School Safety Center's Report on School Associated Violent Death: 69% of school related deaths occurred outside of the actual school building. Metal detectors would have been useless in these deaths!
U.S. Secret Service and US Department of Education's Report Prevention of Targeted Violence in Schools ~ October 25, 2000: 1) There is no accurate or useful profile of the school shooter. 2) Knowing characteristics of such assailants does not advance the appraisal of risk. 3) Instead, an inquiry should focus on students behaviors and communications to determine if the student appears to be planning or preparing for an attack. (Student behavior, body language and communication are the foundation of our Aggression Management® Skills.)
Following the
Shooting at Columbine High School:
Source: The Denver Post |
Prevention is available to us but it requires a Paradigm Shift. Below is a brief summary of the skills that encompass Aggression Management® Training.
The Paradigm of Prevention:
Only when individuals learn how to measure aggression can they manage aggression, once they can manage aggression they can they learn how to prevent aggression. The "Paradigm of Prevention" encompasses:
What is aggression? And how does it affect you?
Understand the specific "parts" that comprise aggression. By doing so, you can defuse most aggressive behavior.
Learn how to measure aggression through the Primal Aggression Continuum™ and the Cognitive Aggression Continuum™.
Aggressive Behavior is often used as a tool and can be identified as such.
Learn how to gain a sense of responsibility as well as a sense of urgency, so that you can respond appropriately to aggressive behavior
Students, in particular, need this skill to help them work through the fear and apprehension that they have in reporting a threatening remark . . . and to overcome the "snitch code" that says you do not tell on friends.
Understanding the verbal skills you need to engage a threatening individual without escalating the potential aggression.
Find out how to deal with threatening behavior and how to communicate with those who need to know.
Learn the human skills to respond to an escalating aggressor and how to safely remove yourself as a target.
The first three skills are intended to prevent the emergence of aggression and violence, the fourth skill is utilized only when all else fails. The Paradigm of Reaction (intervention, metal detectors, more law enforcement, cameras, gun control, etc.) must shift to a Paradigm of Prevention through the human skills of Aggression Management®.
Learn more by contacting the Center's President, John D. Byrnes by phone: (407-718-5637) or by email: JohnByrnes@AggressionManagement.com
Contact us at:
JohnByrnes@AggressionManagement.com
