Tomer Benito

Though the echo of gunshots still rings clearly, and the entire nation struggles to understand how and why such a catastrophic event could happen, the real questions we are all asking are now irrelevant. With shootings such as that which happened at Virginia Tech, there is no wholesale preventative solution and no equipment or technology available to detect and ultimately destroy threats to our open environment and public venues.

Fencing entire academic institutions or adding more officers to school Police Departments won't necessarily help. There are too many environments requiring protection, and the videos of VTU show that even the presence of armed officers does not entirely prevent a lone gunman from creating a mass casualty situation. This said, such solutions are costly, and their effectiveness mirrors the frequent test failures of general aviation security.

Seemingly aware of these current challenges, former Air Force fighter pilot and military strategist John Boyd created the OODA Loop decision cycle as a way to deal with such situations. OODA, an acronym for Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act, dictates that our actions be determined after the Observation of a situation, the Orientation of time and place, and Decision to eventually Act upon the information we have. By training on a certain scenario or situation, we actually shorten the decision making process by familiarizing ourselves with potential outcomes.

Integrating an OODA Loop mindset is crucial for the first line of school security-teachers. Yes, teachers. It's not the police officers or SWAT teams, not even federal law enforcement, but teachers. As noticed in previous school attacks (Ma'alot in Israel in 1974, Columbine in the US in 1999, and Beslan, Russia in 2004), whether the confrontation was initiated by terrorists or a crazed gunman, the first hour is most crucial in mitigating the results of an attack. Because of this, Special Forces and SWAT teams rarely get to attack sites in time.

Unfortunately, teachers as well as the public-at-large are not considered a force in ensuring safety and security; it's not a part of their job description. But when a threatening event occurs, an empowered teacher whose ODDA Loop is short enough can mitigate a terror or violent clash and lessen its consequences. This is evident in the emergency management training made mandatory for all teachers in Israel after the massacre at the Ma'alot school.

It is important to note that preparing for violent situations at schools is not the same as conducting fire drills. In the last half century, nary a single fatality has resulted from a school fire, but multitudes have been killed as a result of in-school or after school violence. The right training for teachers defines what ‘lockdown' really means, how to deal with threatening situations, and how to protect our most precious resource-our kids.

Empowering teachers will not just lessen the consequences of the next attack; it can also deter bad guys from selecting those schools as targets where teachers are trained. Since 1974, there have been no attempted attacks on Israeli schools, though terrorism remains an integral part of Israeli life.

Effective teachers' training programs are here and awaiting attention. After the excitement of high fences and metal detectors ceases, teachers-the first line of defense-should be trained. It's effective, it's prompt, it's inexpensive, and most importantly-it works.