Lawmakers propose new 'self-defense' high school graduation requirement

Last edited Wed Jun 1, 2022, 12:35 PM - Edit history (1)

New legislation from Ohio state Reps. Tom Young, R-Washington Township, and Andrea White, R-Kettering, would require next year’s class of high school freshmen to take a course on recognizing and responding to threatening situations in order to graduate. The idea for the so-called “Student Protection Act” came from a number of recent high school graduates as part of an extracurricular project.

Abby Purdy described how the proposal came from conversations she had with fellow Olentangy High School students Sydney Schultz and Vaidehi Patel about walking to their cars after work in the dark.

“Everyone had very similar fears, and it kind of just sprouted from there,” Purdy explained. “We had a survey and many of the responses conveyed the same fears and we felt that self-defense would be the best way to help people feel that they have the tools to protect themselves.”

Patel, Purdy and Schultz repeatedly invoked the idea of self-defense, as did the bill’s sponsors, but that’s a bit of a misnomer. Speaking afterward, Young acknowledged they struggled with how best to describe the course’s aims, but he was clear they’re not envisioning some sort of martial arts training.

“No, this is not Tae Kwon Do, throwing people across a mat or anything like that,” he explained. “It’s raising an awareness on how to prevent and then respond to an aggressive situation — mentally, and perhaps a way to get out of a situation.”

https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2022/06/01/lawmakers-propose-new-self-defense-high-school-graduation-requirement/

**** So … “It’s YOUR responsibility as school children to defend yourselves from the haters and the gun nuts we’re enabling!”