Gun-safety lessons for MO 1st graders
In response to the nation’s Sandy Hook school shooting, the Missouri Senate introduced a bill in December 2012 to provide gun safety instructions to Missouri’s first graders.
Summary of SB75 – This act establishes the Active Shooter and Intruder Response Training for Schools Program (ASIRT). By July 1, 2014, each school district and charter school must train teachers and school employees on how to respond to students with information about a threatening situation and how to address a potentially dangerous or armed intruder or active shooter in the school or on school property. Training must be conducted on an annual basis. Initial training must be eight hours in length and continuing training must be four hours in length. All school personnel must annually participate in a simulated active shooter and intruder response drill conducted by law enforcement professionals, as described in the act. Program instructors must be certified by the Department of Public Safety’s Peace Officers Standards Training Commission. (Section 170.315)
Each school district and charter school must annually teach the Eddie Eagle Gunsafe Program to first grade students, or use a substantially similar or successor program of the same qualifications. The purpose of the program will be to promote safety and protection of children and emphasize how students should respond if they encounter a firearm. School personnel and program instructors must not make value judgments about firearms. Firearms are prohibited from the teaching of the program. Students with disabilities will participate to the extent appropriate. (Section 171.410)
Eddie Eagle has a great cartoon video on Youtube with Jason Priestley from 90210 fame staring as the lead.
The Eddie Eagle gun safety program is brought to you by our friends at the National Rifle Association.
What’s wrong with teaching 1st graders gun safety? Nothing if the NRA jingle “stop, don’t touch, leave the area and tell an adult” was an effective message. Turns out that a study funded by the National Institutes of Medicine in 2004 comparing Eddie Eagle and another behavior change curriculum on gun safety found that Eddie’s gun safety message didn’t do much more than teach kids to recite the snappy tune:
RESULTS from the study conducted at Department of Psychology, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND
Summary
Both programs were effective for teaching children to reproduce verbally the gun-safety message. The behavioral skills training program but not the Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program was effective for teaching children to perform gun-safety skills during a supervised role play, but the skills were not used when the children were assessed via real-life (in situ) assessments.
CONCLUSIONS:
Existing programs are insufficient for teaching gun-safety skills to children. Programs that use active learning strategies (modeling, rehearsal, and feedback) are more effective for teaching gun-safety skills as assessed by supervised role plays but still failed to teach the children to use the skills outside the context of the training session. More research is needed to determine the most effective way to promote the use of the skills outside the training session.
To read the entire study click here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14702451
Turns out Eddie Eagle isn’t flying high when it comes to effective gun safety training.
MO politicians - in a time when vital school programs are being cut due to budget constraints, does it make sense to carry out a program that has no evidence-based results?
If all my child is going to learn from Eddie Eagle is to sing a gun safety song, how about if you fund better music programs so my child can learn other music lessons and sing other fun songs?
A bill like SB 75 is nothing but a cosmetic fix that is sponsored by this nation’s most powerful gun lobby. It embeds the NRA into our Missouri Schools. This is not a fix, but a PR ploy by the NRA and sponsored by MO lawmakers.
I demand more from our representatives. I am against teaching about gun safety in our nation’s schools, but I am even more against adding behavior-change curriculum that shows no concrete results for actual change.
Parents and taxpayers - demand that any curriculum added to our children’s schools only be added when evidence shows it can actually reduce gun accidents and improve safety. While you are at it, remind them to keep funding our school’s music programs.
Eddie Eagle and SB75 can buzz off.
Phil Cardarella
5 months agoMusic, smuzick. What we need is to spend money on is NRA hacks making guns fun for all!
If the entire GOP (and quite a few Dems) in the Legislature were to be replaced by persons chosen at random from a mental institution (or the state prison system), the only tangible result would be FEWER BAD LAWS!
Mark Hastert
5 months agoI got it! I got it! We start the little tykes off with a Red Rider BB gun is say Kindergarten/1st grade, then graduate to pellet guns in 3rd and then let them move up the caliber food chain at their own pace Montessori style. By 8th grade most will be up to at least a .380 and a concealed carry permit. We will have the safest schools and the healthiest gun industry in the world! (With the exception of the occasional teacher casualty who offers ill chosen grades) With proper product placement on Sesame St or Dora the Explorer this could be a real win-win!
Matt Henry
5 months agoYep, more money should be spent on our little nose-miners where studies are showing it is doing the most good. Like Head Start!
Wait a tick…. I guess it’s only programs those on the left DON’T like that should be cancelled when they have been proven to be worthless. It’s almost like (gasp!) politics and ideology effect decision making, even in the party that is all into embracing science!
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/research/project/head-start-impact-study-and-follow-up-2000-2012
Sacred cows are sooooo juicy juicy when they are sliced up….