Politics of Guns in the USA
As a Fulbright Roving Scholar, I created student workshops about US topics that may be of interest to ungdomsskole pupils (grades 8-10) in Norway. Teachers view the workshop descriptions online and email me to schedule a specific workshop. I then get to visit the pupils and talk with them about the topic so they can practice conversing with a native speaker of English.
This past week, I was privileged to spend three days at an ungdomsskole in Lillehammer. The lead teacher contacted me almost immediately after the workshops were posted online and she requested the workshop on the politics of gun ownership and school shootings. I expected an interest in gun-related topics, especially since gun ownership is highly regulated in Norway and there are few, if any, gun-related incidents. However, just when I was wrapping up my presentation plans, the terrible school shooting in Minnesota occurred. How was I going to explain this to the pupils?
When I arrived at the school, the teachers shared that the pupils were very interested in the topic and were excited to have a visitor from the US. I began each of the 10 student sessions with the same question, “What have you seen or heard about guns in the United States?”
Their teachers had showed them a video, prior to my visit, about how people in the US can acquire guns at trade shows or personally buy used guns, thus averting the background checks. Many students shared that, “anyone in the US can get a gun” or “there are many school shootings.” One student even shared that he thought there were “4 or more school shootings every day.”
We talked about statistics and compared the student population in the US (55+ million) to the entire population of Norway (5 million). We talked about rules pertaining to gun acquisition and ownership. We also compared different political views pertaining to guns, to which they had many questions:
· Why did Americans vote for Trump?
· Did you vote for Trump? Are you a Democrat or a Republican? (I never share my political view with students…but they tried to convince me that they wouldn’t see me again so it was OK- oh teenagers!).
· Have you been in a school shooting?
· Do you know of someone who was in a school shooting?
· Are you scared to go to school?
· Are you scared for your children to go to school?
Then we talked about the recent shooting in Minnesota because I’m from Minnesota and they were concerned that I had been in a school shooting. We also chatted about active shooter drills in schools. I asked the pupils how they would feel if they needed to participate in an active shooter drill, and they said that they would be fine with it.
When I asked them to explain, they said, “We don’t have school shootings in Norway because access to guns is regulated. School shootings just don’t happen here, so a drill wouldn’t affect us (emotionally).”
People in Norway can own guns, yes. In fact, two of the students in the class were gearing up for moose hunting and another used a gun for sport shooting. They can own hunting guns, yes, pistols and semi-automatic weapons, no.
When I was planning this workshop, I initially thought that I’d have students create a propaganda poster advocating for or against gun rights. However, the students couldn’t understand why I would ask them to advocate for gun rights. In the end, I asked them to create a message that they would share with people in the US.
One student simply said, “Dangerous, not necessary.” Other students created digital posters (see below).
In addition to the student workshops, I lead a teacher workshop on writing in the content areas. We discussed various writing activities, and the teachers wrote ‘quick writes’ about Norwegian Constitution Day. We switched gears a bit and I showed them the image of a Minnesota mother running down with street, shoes in hand, to find her child at the Assumption Catholic School. The teachers, who said they never wrote or used poetry in their classrooms, created some very powerful poems. One is written below:
So many debates
-because of one gun
So many headlines
-because of one gun
So many deaths
-because of one gun
Because of one gun,
Grief, loss, sorrow, pain.
