“We were wrong,” he said at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA).
On the advice of Astor and others, schools have invested heavily “in social-emotional learning, restorative justice, trauma-informed care, counseling and other efforts to make schools safer and more welcoming,” Barshay writes. Since the Columbine massacre in 1999, fewer students are bringing weapons to school. But school shootings have increased.
School shooters aren’t responding to bullying or trauma, Astor told Barshay. They crave notoriety. “Most of them are suicidal, and they decided to be homicidal so that they would be remembered,” he said.
“The more media attention a shooter gets, the more likely the event will inspire a future mass shooter,” warns the National Center for Health Research.
Trying to make schools safe and supportive places is important, Astor says. But preventing school shootings requires working with the media. He hopes to persuade journalists and social media companies to “adopt guidelines that reduce attention on perpetrators, delay publication of manifestos and videos, and focus more coverage on victims,” writes Barshay.
