School safety, security, and violence prevention resource

I talked with you (or readers very much like you) about the art of managing disruptive and violent students before, but yesterday a New Jersey high school teacher was badly injured attempting to break up a fight in a hallway, so me thinks it is time to revisit some key principles you should know on how to break up a fight, if, of course, you choose to do so.

Ok, here we go.  Without getting into too many tedious facts, principles, medical terminology and hypothesis, when two or more students fight, almost without exception, their Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) transitions into a Fight of Flight System, and in order to arm their host with the capability to either fight or rapidly escape (danger), floods the system with (survival) stress hormones (cortisol, et al).  Because of this, the student (host) is able to accelerate his or her strength, power, speed, fury and, in many cases, response time.  He or she feels less pain, is temporarily harder to injure, and, when punched, struck with blunt objects, cut and even shot, will bleed not at all or at least much less (vasoconstriction).

Here’s the catch.  Because of SNS Activation, however, each of the student-fighters will experience some mental and physiological dysfunctions that will always compromise the safety of well-intentioned teachers, security personnel, other students and administrative staff that attempt to break up the fight. 

Let’s say there are two students in a fight.  One student is enraged and starts to bomb the other with punches.  The other student is either one of two things:  He/she is equally as angry as the aggressor or is in abject fear for his/her safety .  Doesn’t matter to the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), though.  Either way, anger or fear are both SNS Triggers!  In other words, you, the authority figure who wades into the middle of a student brawl is probably about to get clobbered because both students will be undergoing the following phenomenon:

·         Visual Distortions.  Each fighter, because of vaso-constriction impelling all blood to flow away from the extremities (and the mutation of the shape of the eyes) will undergo Tunnel Vision, resulting in a loss of over 70% of peripheral vision; Loss of Near Vision (inability to focus on objects within 4 feet); Loss of Depth Perception.  Good news, I am sure for the intervening security specialist or teache, who is dealing with a couple crazed kids who cannot recognize anybody, mistakes you for another fighter, has no peripheral vision and misjdges how close or far away you are.

·         Auditory Exclusion.  This is caused by the affected student’s brain locking in to only one of the sensory system and blocking out all others.  More terrific news.  Not only can’t the fighters not see, they will be having trouble making clear decisions, and, to boot, they will not be ablew to hear many of your warnings, requests and commands!

·         Cognitive Deterioration.  The impact of SNS Activation is exceptionally destructive to the way we think in crisis.  Importantly, to you the teacher or security specialist, scientists have found that recognition, analysis, decision making, logic, and discretion to be the most compromised when our SNS is fully activated!

·         Primitive Brain Reliance.  Not enough time, Hammer Fans, to explain this in detail, but the Crib Note Special is this.  When the fighter perceives he or she is under serious threat, or is sufficiently pissed off, he/she perceives that there is not enough time to process perceptions, et al. through his or her neo cortex (Smart Brain).  Instead, the perceptions are short circuited through the thalamus-Amygdala (Primitive Brain) Circuit, the advantage of which, of course, is time.  In gaining time, though, the fighter gives up discretionary ability, etc.

In the next post, I will talk about how exactly to safely break up a fight, plus a few other pointers on managing disruptive students.  Here are a few pointers, however, designed to get the job done quickly, effectively and safely – to the student, to other students, and, of course to the educational professional.

1.    Understand That Fight Aggression Equals SNS Dominance.  Order your tactics and expectations in respect to that fact.  The students “know not what they are about to do.”

2.    ALWAYS APPROACH FROM THE REAR!  “Your Ass the Student Will Riddle If You Separate From the Middle” is a famous Hammer Safety Principle.  Obey it, please.

3.    SEPARATE QUICKLY TO A POSITION OF CONTROL.  I will go into this in the next post, but, basically, we can spin the kid away with speed to protect him from incoming “bombs,” and also to enhance the effectiveness of the separation technique.

4.    GOOD VERBAL COMMANDS.  “Stop Fighting!”  “Stop, I am a teacher!”  Break through the Auditory Exclusion with repetitive and loud commands, which will also warn other students who may be thinking of entering the fray.

STAY SAFE.

HAMMER