Education Week - March 21, 2018 - 16

Nev. High School Students Dig Into Gun-Rights Debate
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

FROM TOP: Kathy Durham,
a West Wendover High
School civics teacher,
asks her students for
a vote about how
they'll discuss crafting
legislation around
gun control during
an U.S. Government class.
The statue of a
pistol-packing "Wendover
Will" greets cars heading
into Wendover on the
town's main thoroughfare.

________
"If 18-year-olds can't buy alcohol, they shouldn't
be able to buy a gun."
It's one student's proposal, which has
prompted the first group of students to focus
on one of the most basic questions in the guncontrol debate: Is 18, the federal minimum age
at which people can purchase a shotgun or rifle
from a licensed dealer, too young?
Most of the students agree that it is, but their
opinions soon fragment. Several propose moving
the age to 21, to align it with the age at which
one can buy a handgun from a licensed dealer.
16 | EDUCATION WEEK | March 21, 2018 | www.edweek.org

Photos by Kim Raff for Education Week

of Sandy Hook and Columbine not far behind.
And it comes as gun regulation has returned
to the upper tier of divisive political topics currently under debate.
If that weren't enough, the powerful gun lobby
has made clear its displeasure with teaching
interpretations of the Second Amendment that
don't accord with its own. In a speech last month
to the Conservative Political Action Conference,
the CEO of the National Rifle Association, Wayne
LaPierre, said that in too many classrooms, "the
Second Amendment freedom in this country is
despised."
The resulting fear of complaints from parents,
administrators, and communities means that the
crucial topic is often taught out of context, minimized, or avoided altogether in civics class, education scholars say.
"My sense is that it's very ahistorical, or it's
caught in the lens of 'in the beginnings of our nation,' or looped into larger studies of the Constitution," said Marc Brasof, an assistant professor
of education at Arcadia University, in Glenside,
Pa., who has helped develop civics curricula. "My
other sense is that little if anything is discussed
about its evolution in terms of the legal expansion
and contraction of rights-plus students' current
experience, based on what region of the country
they're living in."
That last point is key. Similar to pickup trucks
or hybrid cars, guns carry a specific cultural value
in many communities.
West Wendover's industry is service-oriented,
dominated by the town's five casinos. Most of
the students here are Latino, and the town
skews Democratic. Yet it sits in one of the most
conservative counties in Nevada, and like many
communities in rural areas, guns are woven
into the fabric of life. A pawn shop on the main
street into town advertises guns alongside
watches and gold. And opinions about guns here
cross political boundaries.
"People may vote Democrat, but there's definitely a 'nobody better put their damn hands on
my guns' kind of thinking," said Daniel Corona,
West Wendover's mayor and a former student of
Durham's.
Students, too, have different levels of experience
with guns. One young woman in Durham's class
noted that she has gone hunting with her family for years. A young man remarked that one of
his cousins is violent, and the cousin's father has
refused to have a gun in the house.
Durham was aware of all those sensitivities going into this lesson, delivered just a
week before the National School Walkout; she
will be careful to keep her own opinions out of
the classroom and, instead, focus squarely on
facilitating discussion. Still, she ran the idea for
today's lesson past administrators and acknowledges that this type of teaching is difficult to do
under micromanagement.
"I have complete faith that she'll present both
sides of an argument," said Craig Kyllonen, the
principal at the high school. "I'll be honest; there
are other teachers who might approach me [with
a similar idea], and I'd think, 'Hmmm.' "

Some are holding out for a higher age.
"You should be the age of 25, because at that
age, you're more mature," one young woman says.
But that doesn't sit well with Eduardo Perez,
though he agrees with the general concept.
"People mature at different ages," he notes. "If
it's too high, I feel like people will be angry.
They won't be OK with that law."
Student David Sharp offers a possible solution: Maybe the factor shouldn't just be age
but also training. People could complete some
training requirements in order to buy one kind
of firearm and then graduate to another tier
in a few years once they've shown they can
handle the weapon safely.
But then the students are forced to confront

new questions: Who would provide the training? Who would enforce it?
As they recite their proposals one by one, Durham circulates, often forcing her students to anticipate and respond effectively to such questions.
A second group of students is grappling with
several ideas to improve the background-check
system to screen better for mental-health issues. (Currently, states voluntarily and often
inconsistently submit records on people prohibited from owning guns for mental health
reasons to the FBI's national backgroundcheck database.)
But they are running across the myriad of
related issues that such a proposal would generate: What happens if someone is diagnosed

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