Desensitization – the process of becoming less sensitive or responsive to a stimulus due to repeated exposure. Throughout all of American public schools, including Arlington, we don’t hear about the shooting that happens within school hallways.
Without knowing what happens, or just brushing it off as normal, we create a cycle that may be hard to break. Just in the year 2025 American K-12 schools have experienced 146 gun related violence. Arlington High School has not had a shooting, but we’ve had numerous encounters with guns being found on campus in which some students haven’t even heard about.
“I think it’s normalized because it keeps consistently happening… at MP, there was a shooting and there’s just been so much gun violence all around the country, and it’s just, people are just starting to not really care,” Mikie Hutchinson (’27) said.
Finding a way to talk about these issues and not scare kids can be a fine line. But it’s very important to let them know these behaviors are not normal, and shouldn’t be treated as such.
“I would like to see it have at least one advisory time during the year that we can talk about. I think that would alleviate some of the fear of talking over things.When you don’t talk about stuff, I think things build up where you do talk about it, you can kind of make more of a plan for it and put people at ease about it,” Mr. Christensen said.
When a school has real life incidents where guns are included they tend to take it more seriously, whereas we’ve had close calls but things still remain unchanged. We need to be provocative rather than reactive.
“I approach the admin every year saying, can we please not have kids exit during the assemblies? Can we please, not allow kids to be like sardines during the assembly of walking into the hallway, Can we do something about this? Because, man, it almost makes me emotional. We have a chance to do something and that’s not being taken seriously yet,” Mr. Christensen said.
Feeling unsafe in a school environment where you are required to be at is never acceptable. Fear shouldn’t affect students’ day to day life or how they see others.
“I definitely know that people who do think about that often, and that can cause them to not, like, feel comfortable learning or just not feel safe in general, and that has negative effects everywhere,” said sophomore Rachel Breitenstein.
Talk is everything, being able to educate yourself on scary but real situations is how we can keep everyone safe.
“Put an end to it, if that’s the ultimate goal, and just being more aware, ’cause knowledge can decrease fear and just, if a bunch of people are 100% pushing against it, then it’s more like you to be stopped,” said Breitenstein.
