Why Isn’t Self Defense Taught in Our Schools?

, , , , , ,

Author Ellen Snortland has often been in the media advocating for making personal safety and self defense a required class in high schools. Her article One Too Many in the Pasadena Weekly as well as her spotlight on National Public Radio points to the murder of Chelsea King as yet another reason too many to teach kids how to defend themselves.

Yet there’s a great reluctance to widely add self defense skills to young people’s toolboxes. More emphasis and resources are given over to services once they’ve become victims, or to enacting laws intended to prosecute and punish offenders (but which sometimes result in unwanted consequences, but that’s another post). Both these approaches are critical, but that third leg of prevention is keeping real safety from becoming a reality.

We are the only creatures on this planet that actively strives to dis-empower large segments of our population by not only not teaching basic personal safety, but often by lying about its efficacy.  Once upon a time (about 3 decades ago) conventional wisdom held that women should not fight back lest they get hurt worse.  Studies now show that’s not true at all, and in fact over 75% of women who even begin to resist assault chase off their assailant.

Unfortunately, most women don’t know that.  And that is truly a crime.

/by

License to Live

, , ,

Self-defense teacher and author Ellen Snortland wrote a really to-the-point article in the Huffington Post last week, which you can read in it’s entirety at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-snortland/license-to-live-time-to-m_b_253316.html.

Ellen convincingly argues that teen girls should be required to take a self-defense class as part of drivers’ education. I need no convincing. After all, self-defense are critical life skills for the most at-risk group of women in America.

And in case you won’t be clicking on the above link, below are Ellen’s most basic rules for personal safety:

  • Give up property. If an assailant wants money or the car, give it to them. They might go away.
  • Do not give up your body. Do not go with anyone to a secondary crime scene. Better to resist or run from the primary encounter. Resistance from the intended victim is apt to result in the perpetrator giving up, witnesses reporting/helping, or in the worst case, at least leaving forensic evidence for clues.
  • Work out a “code” word so your family knows you’re in trouble. Agree that if and when you call and say something agreed upon like, “Is that Lassie barking?” it actually means, “Help me.”
  • If you’ve been taken, look to escape every chance you can. Don’t give up. Injuries from jumping out of a car can be less hazardous than getting further along with an increasingly desperate criminal.
  • Do not believe a person who says “Be quiet go with me and I won’t hurt you.” They have already hurt you by committing the crime of kidnapping. Be loud and don’t go with them.
  • Insist that schools provide a state required self-defense component.

I’ve heard parents ask me why self-defense classes are not routinely offered in the public school system, and I have no good answer for them. Perhaps that is the next level of self-defense, making sure others in your community have much-needed tools to keep themselves safe.

For more information, visit Self-Defense for Teen Girls Only.

/by