Presenter and Slide Show Developer: Tom McIntyre, Ph.D. Professor & Coordinator of the Graduate Program in Behavior

1. The following slides are excerpted from a keynote presentation regarding school shootings at Silver Lake College’s(Wisconsin)“Spring Tonic” Conference(3/31/07).Many slides, presenter notes, & slide animation have been removed. Presenter and Slide Show Developer: Tom McIntyre, Ph.D. Professor & Coordinator of the Graduate Program in Behavior Disorders Dept. Special Education Hunter College 695 Park Avenue New York, NY 10021 Thomas.mcintyre@hunter.cuny.edu www.BehaviorAdvisor.com

2. Levels of Connection

3. T-F: School attacks are increasingin number and ferocity. • School violence (murder, robbery, rape, assault) decreased during the 1990s.(Defoe, et. al. 2002) • Violent crime in schools is now ½ of the 1994 rates. • School Crime is now equivalent to 1980 rates. (Snyder, 2004). • Given domestic violence rates, students are safer in school than at home. (Cornell, 2006). • 12-20 deaths per year since 2000 in school violence • 30 deaths per year(average)in the 1990s • An educator can expect a shooting at his/her school once every 12,804 years.(National School Safety Council, 2002)

4. T-F: Forget the rates, it’s the randomness and unpredictability of the acts that are scary. Rarely does someone know that a school attack is about to occur. • In Bethel, AK, a crowd of students gathered in the library to watch another carry out his threat to kill himself. When the event was over, one adult and one student (not the shooter) were dead. • In Cazenovia, WI, Erik Hainstock told a friend that the principal would not “Make it through homecoming.” • "I think some kids might have known what was going on,"he said."I'd heard things up at school. There were a lot of rumors.“ James Nowak, Eric Hainstock’s special education teacher As reported in the Wisconsin State Journal3/18/07 • In Green Bay, WI, a student prevented an imminent attack by telling school officials.

5. They’re Evil • Whether we believe that human beings are “born evil”, “born good”, or “tabla rosa”, we then become products of our environment. • The home life of shooters is invariably disordered: All shooters.

6. He Was “Crazy” From the 2002 USSS/USDOE report: • 1/3 of attackers had been seen by a mental health professional. • 1/5 of attackers had been diagnosed with a psychological condition. • Substance abuse was not prevalent. • Previous to the event, shooters demonstrated a need for mental health assistance, showing some history of: • Extreme depression. • Pronounced desperation, despondency & loss of hope. • Suicidal ideation and/or attempts.

7. Excerpts from Wisconsin State Journal3/18/07 • Officials had been concerned about Hainstock since preschool, interviews and documents revealed. • In a criminal child abuse complaint against Shawn Hainstock, Eric's father, filed five years ago, Sauk County prosecutors said the boy "has a medical condition affecting (his) behavior and that the child's family can no longer afford the medication or counseling (he) needs for his condition." As part of a deferred prosecution agreement, Shawn Hainstock pleaded no contest to a lesser charge of battery. • Years ago, Nowak said, the boy's preschool teacher and a Reedsburg elementary school teacher had been worried about him. "They had concerns way back then" about drawings Hainstock made and other things, Nowak said. • Note: James Nowak was Eric Hainstock’s special education teacher.

8. T-F: Whatever the reason, these kids‘Snap’.In the blink of an eye, they “freak out”. • “Snapping” is rarely an impulsive & sudden act • Typical: • Idea forms • Plan develops • Plan changes • Weapons located and procured • (Regarding school shootings) "People snap when their ability to cope is overwhelmed."Dr. Robert Trestman, director of the Center for Correctional Mental Health Services Research at the University of Connecticut Health Center.

9. Where would a kid get a gun? • Nearly all had easy access to a gun • Most acquired them from their homes • Cazenovia: Pried open the safe containing the shotgun with a screw driver & used a key to open the father’s locked bedroom to obtain the hand gun. • Nearly all had used them before. • Equation: Exposure to violence (real & media) + being bullied + easy access to weapons =  Tragedy

10. Wisconsin State Journal3/18/07 • He (Eric Hainstock) told police he was also upset because he felt teachers didn't stop students who harassed him, the complaint said. • But Nowak (Hainstock’s special education teacher) said the youth was unlikely to have been the butt of jokes. "He wasn't picked on," he said. "He was the one who would have picked on people." • The description of Hainstock as victimized is "a total joke," he said. "We stand up for these kids (special education students) as much as possible. We are advocates for the kids. If they are being picked on, we try to stop it.“ • Schneider (classmate) said that Hainstock got picked on a lot, but also picked on kids and would push and fight with other children. • "Eric dished it out and went after other people," Schneider said. *Identifiers written in orange and placed in (parentheses) were added by Tom McIntyre

11. Everyone hates these shooters, so why would any other kid emulate them? • Many kids can identify with the feelings that led to the shootings. • BERLIN:A German teen who stormed his former school with guns and bombs had venerated as "God" one of the gunmen in the 1999 Columbine shooting in the U.S, according to excerpts from his diary published Wednesday… It is terrible how similar Eric (Harris) was to me. I am the further development" of Harris, Bosse said. "I have learned from his mistakes, the bombs.“ On the eve of the attack, he wrote that he hoped that other "outsiders" would "be like me: a Goddamn hero."International Herald Tribune, 11/ 22/06 • "You wanna know why there has only been three school shootings in Quebec? It's because the people here don't have the balls to do it, as much as they want to ... as much as they plan it all ... make `hit lists' and just wish they had the guts that Eric and Dylan had ... you know ... the real victims of Columbine! They are looked up to by many bullied high school students ... and many believe that the bullies got what they deserved on April 20th, 1999. Kimveer will be greatly missed by the people who actually understood him ... the people who don't have their heads up their asses.“ Excerpt from Toronto Star article found at http://www.thetrenchcoat.com/archives

12. (As presented in its 2002 summary report)T-F:The U.S. Secret Service has developed a fairly accurate profile for identification of likely assailants. • Studied 37 attacks • Interviewed 10 • One characteristic applied to nearly all shooters. It is…? • Gender • Only one characteristic applies to 100% of school shooters. It is…? • Disordered home life (not explained further) • Eric Hainstock’s father had child abuse reports filed against him.

13. Behaviors • “Rather than trying to determine the ‘type’ of student who may engage in targeted school violence, an inquiry should focus instead on a student’sbehaviors and communicationsto determine if that student appears to be planning or preparing for an attack. Rather than asking whether a particular student ‘looks like’ those who have launched school-based attacks before, it is more productive to ask whether the student is engaging in behaviors that suggest preparations for an attack, if so how fast the student is moving toward attack, and where intervention may be possible.” (USSS/USDOE report, 2002).

14. Pertinent Questions for Guiding Our Prevention Efforts • The 2002 report recommended against profiling. • It recommended that teachers and parents ask: • What patterns of behavior might be of concern? • Threats of imminent harm to others • The making of plans for attack • The gathering of weapons • What should someone do if s/he notices such behavior? • What should we do if such behavior is reported?

15. Extending the Recommendations of the USSS/USDOE Report • The importance of reporting is emphasized to students, as they are most likely to be aware. • A reporting system is set up, including an anonymous tip line. • A system for reacting to reports is developed. • Confidentiality of reporters maintained by trusted educators known for being able to keep secrets. • Set up a network with students from different social groups who have their “ear to the ground” with regard to what is happening in the school. • The success of our efforts depends on educators respecting and valuing all students. • (More later on the importance & development of this part).

16. Also recommended: • Develop connections to the police and other first responders as well as mental health departments and community groups. • Develop crisis plans that focus on preventionand reaction. • Respond promptly and efficiently to bullying, which is a motive behind the attacks.“Many attackers felt bullied, persecuted or injured by others prior to the attack”(USSS/USDOE, 2002) and said that they had sought, without success, educator intervention.

17. Does your school fit “the profile”? • While profiles are inaccurate in identifying kids at risk for school assault, might they be more accurate for school environments that are at risk? • Some of the characteristics: • -Bullying unaddressed (No comprehensive plan or training) • -Absence of peer mediation or conflict resolution • -Failure to teach tolerance & socially skilled interaction behavior • -Feeble attempts at building a sense of community & esprit de corp • -Failure to seek out troubled kids & provide them with supports (as per the checklist in your handout) • -Staff allowed to be negative with kids & verbally bully them • Strategies for addressing each can be found at BehaviorAdvisor.com & elsewhere.

18. T-F: We need more SWAT teams& Metal Detectors. • Hardening the target helps. • It is not sufficient.

19. Gun totin’ teachers:Should we be “packin’ heat”? • Excerpted from the web site of Wisconsin State Legislator Frank Lassee (R - 2nd district: Green Bay): • “Last week, in the wake of several school shootings including one in rural Wisconsin, I proposed legislation to give Wisconsin teachers and other school staff, who complete a background check and a rigorous gun safety course, the option to defend themselves and our children with weapons.”“To clarify, this is how I described my proposal to my 10 year old daughter when she asked me over the weekend why so many people with cameras wanted to talk to me. I told her that somewhere in her school there will be a locked box (safe?) with a gun in it. And that if a bad person with a gun came into her school that wanted to hurt her or her classmates a school official who is trained to use it, would go to the box (safe?) and use the gun to protect them from harm. She looked at me, smiled and said, “That makes sense to me daddy,” and went back to playing.”

20. Next year in Wisconsin? • Three states already allow teachers to carry handguns in school (with a valid conceal and carry permit): Utah, Oregon & New Hampshire. Representative Lassee’s proposal would require that the guns to be placed in a “locked box/safe in a secure location”. • Cartoon by M. Stevens in New Yorker Magazine.

21. T-F: We gotta get tough with thetrouble makers. Zero tolerance! • Shooters already had belonging problems at home. Their rejection by students and teachers meant that they were not valued in either of the two most significant settings in their world. That’s an overwhelming hurt. • Punishment without caring, support, and the teaching of replacement behaviors, builds resentment. It destroys a feeling of being emotionally connected. It is difficult to like those who hurt us. • “Getting tough” in order to “Teach ‘em a lesson”… doesn’t. • Teachers and administrators were targeted in more than 1/2 of the incidents.

22. Father Flanagan, “Boys Town” Founder (Now “Boys & Girls Town”) • “There are no bad boys. There is only bad environment, bad training, bad example, bad thinking.” • “I have yet to find a single boy who wants to be bad.” • “A boy or girl given the proper guidance and direction—kept busy and constructively occupied during their leisure or free time—will prove my statement that there is no such thing as a bad boy or girl.” • “There is nothing the matter with our growing boys that love, proper training and guidance will not remedy.” • “When parents fail to do their job, when they allow their children to run the streets and keep bad company, when they fail to provide them with good examples in the home, then the parents and not the children are delinquent.” • “Rehabilitation needs greater emphasis, punishment less.” • “I do not believe that a child can be reformed by lock and key and bars, or that fear can ever develop a child’s character.” • “No race that does not take care of its young can hope to survive — or deserves to survive.”

23. Rudolf Dreikurs’ Model • If we don’t feel accepted and valued in an important life setting, we react negatively… progressively so, if issues remain unresolved. • When kids don’t feel valued by teachers and peers at school, they engage in “Mistaken Goals” (misguided reactions to feeling disconnected) • Seeking ATTENTION (If not getting enough to feel accepted and valued) • Seeking POWER(Resentment results in the mandating of attention) • Seeking REVENGE(Anger from losing the struggle spurs vengeance) • Displaying INADEQUACY(Total lack of effort and cooperation while in the abusive or non-accepting setting).

24. Three “Belonging” concernsfor adolescents • Being invisible. • ReceivingCriticism • Especially public humiliation. • Being excluded.

25. “We gave those kids lots of chances and did everything we could to help them.Some kids just can’t be reached.” • High quality, cutting edge schools create positive school climates that promote: • Respect for all members of the school community. • A safe & welcoming climate for all. • The teaching of what each student needs to know(in all realms…including behavior).

26. National Consortium ofSchool Violence Prevention Researchers and Practitioners (2006) • Support programs should operate at 3 levels:

27. How do we reclaim errant youth& prevent disaster?What can educators do? • Treat students with concern & respect (Universal) • Anti-bullying policies and education (Universal) • Peer mediation/Conflict resolution procedures (Universal). • Character education (Targeted & Intensive) • Cognitive behavioral strategies (Targeted & Intensive) • Social skills training (Targeted & Intensive) • Anger management training (Targeted & Intensive) • Problem solving (Targeted and Intensive) • Interpersonal connection activities (Targeted & Intensive) • Provision of mentors - adults & older kids (Targeted & Intensive). • Counseling (Intensive) • Psychological evaluation & treatment (Intensive) • Interagency cooperation (Intensive).

28. Principles for Prudent Practice(To be addressed in the follow-up session) • Build interpersonal bonds with students. • Correct student actions in ways that don’t come across as being ostracized. • Build a sense of esprit de corps in your classroom and the school at-large. • Guarantee everyone safety from bullying. • Physical • Oral • Psychological • Intellectual • Non-physical, Non-oral • Shunning • Cyber

29. What can I do to decrease my chances of  being a school shooting victim? • The motive for these attacks is REVENGE.  Shooters are striking back at those who have made their lives miserable.  Don't be one of those people.  • Treat all students with respect.  Listen to all kids.  Talk TO them, not AT them...be personal. • Be patient and tolerant.  Be sure they get more positive comments in your classroom than negative ones (at least a 3 to 1 ratio).  Give them the time of day.  Greet them at the door with a welcoming comment.  Use "we" and "us" messages, and respectful communication (see the home page link at www.behavioradvisor.com titled "Nice ways to build self discipline in kids"). • Help them to succeed and catch them being good. • Promote a positive supportive peer culture within your classroom (see the home page links at www.behavioradvisor.com titled "Promoting positive peer pressure" and "Ways to catch em being good"). • When you must punish them, make them aware that it was done because you care about them or because you know what they are capable of doing if they apply themselves.  When a youngster says "Why did you punish me/call my parents?", the answer should be "Because I care about you and want to see you succeed here at school…and in life." • NEVER be mean or condescending.  Control your temper.