The Butterfly Effect is a false premise of illustrating how small initial differences may lead to large unforeseen consequences over time. This is nothing more than cause and effect and yet the Butterfly Effect is spilling across the sciences as some belief that every event has a singular, infinitesimal known origin. It is absurd to propose, and yet to scaffold with a mathematical formula, a relationship between a butterfly flapping its wings in New Mexico as the beginnings of an eventual hurricane in China. Don’t succumb to such hype. COMPLEX SYSTEMS WITH COUNTLESS VARIABLES. We can never know all the initial conditions of a complex system in sufficient (perfect) detail. CHAOS THEORY. The Butterfly Effect’s logical replacement is Chaos Theory, which describes transitions between order and disorder. These transitions are often surprising and nonlinear. Chaos is the science of surprises, of the nonlinear and the unpredictable. It teaches us to expect the unexpected. Gravity is linear. We understand gravity and can mathematically calculate its influence on items. Crowd response to a terrorist attack is nonlinear. We know from studying such events that certain tendencies tend to arise, but crowd behavior is not predictable and also dependent upon the forces within the crowd. If leaders rapidly emerge, a crowd stabilizes and will generally follow those giving directives. Nobody could have predicted the manner in which chaos theory played out in the extraordinary boat evacuation of 500,000 people from Lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001. Cause, effect, context, situation, actors – all combine to produce the effect. When you hear someone talk of the butterfly effect, direct them to the nearest flower garden or to the library. FORMATS. You can also listen to this podcast on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-safety-doc-podcast/id1209802253?mt=2 or SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/user-186592129 or on The 405 Media http://the405media.com/the-safety-doc/ You can view this episode on YouTube https://youtu.be/huNfa0vObCM FOLLOW DR. PERRODIN: On Twitter @SafetyPhD and subscribe to “The Safety Doc” YouTube channel and SoundCloud RSS feed. DR. PERRODIN'S SAFETY BLOG: https://crisisprepconsulting.wordpress.com/ SAFETY DOC WEBSITE: www.safetyphd.com David will respond to discussion thread comments or questions & also to emails. The Safety Doc Podcast is hosted & produced by David Perrodin, PhD. ENDORSEMENTS. Opinions are those of the host and guests and do not reflect positions of The 405 Media or supporters of “The Safety Doc Podcast”. The show is curse free and adheres to nondiscrimination principles while seeking to bring forward productive discourse and debate on topics relevant to personal or institutional safety.

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“The Safety Doc” untangles the conflated terms mainstreaming and inclusion as well as the seemingly synonymous words tolerance and inclusion. A clear-cut definition of each designation postures the listener to grapple with the practices of debate, protests, and the non-aggression principle - all of which are powerful contributors to a society that is safe and orderly for its citizens. Dr. Perrodin’s discussion centers the public school context and examples are situated to that context and situation. Let’s begin with MAINSTREAMING. Think of a global positioning device worn by each child (just imagine it). In this universe, one can physically pinpoint the location of the student. If the child is located in the “regular education” classroom / specials (art, music PE), lunch, recess then that child is MAINSTREAMED. Mainstreaming does not mean that the child is being included in the classroom curriculum and to claim PASSIVE benefit is an incredible stretch. This is often justified as “exposure” to peers without disabilities. If that is what’s happening, then refer to it as what it is - mainstreaming. If Mainstreaming is passive and implied, then INCLUSION is active and explicit. For example, when a child is being included in a regular education setting, he or she is actively engaged in educational instruction and activities and the teacher holds an expectation of academic rigor. Exceptions exist. Dr. Perrodin straddles the line of mainstreaming and inclusion as he describes a girl with an anxiety disorder that “Skyped” into a regular education classroom, but for the most part, there’s not much gray between mainstream and inclusion. MYTH OF FULL INCLUSION. Many schools tout a mantra of “We are full inclusion for students with disabilities.” That’s simply not accurate - and if it is accurate, then it’s out of compliance with the intent of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). TOLERANCE. Simply put, tolerance is adherence to the Non-Aggression Principle. However, tolerance is a basement-level threshold. We are better than tolerance - a term that implies that one has to actively suppress some level of discrimination or rage. Teach Tolerance - really? ACCEPTANCE. This is a step, well, actually a flight of stairs above, mere tolerance. It’s a safer distance away from the tinderbox. Acceptance is active. It is seeking to understand another position. The great philosopher Aristotle countered clubs and stones with the art of rhetoric, persuasion and reasoning - in short, Aristotle created the framework for debate. And remember, to be informed of another’s position doesn’t mandate that you must befriend the other person (or group). Practice acceptance and you will be informed about existing information as well as able to consider newly-presented information that might (or might not) alter your beliefs. FORMATS. You can also listen to this podcast on SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/user-186592129 or on The 405 Media http://the405media.com/the-safety-doc/ You can view this episode on YouTube https://youtu.be/N2-OIm6qFIw FOLLOW DR. PERRODIN: On Twitter @SafetyPhD and subscribe to “The Safety Doc” YouTube channel and SoundCloud RSS feed. DR. PERRODIN'S SAFETY BLOG: https://crisisprepconsulting.wordpress.com/ SAFETY DOC WEBSITE: www.safetyphd.com David will respond to discussion thread comments or questions & also to emails. The Safety Doc Podcast is hosted & produced by David Perrodin, PhD. ENDORSEMENTS. Opinions are those of the host and guests and do not reflect positions of The 405 Media or supporters of “The Safety Doc Podcast”. The show is curse free and adheres to nondiscrimination principles while seeking to bring forward productive discourse and debate on topics relevant to personal or institutional safety.

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In 2011, 97% of youth in American played some type of video game each week! Gaming is trending across all generations with millions of people “running into” the world of video games – including the young as well as the elderly. Video games, for example, are being used in senior care homes to refresh memory, build hand-eye coordination and foster social interaction through games of Wii Bowling. VIDEO GAME IS JUST ANOTHER FORM OF MEDIA. Dr. Dikkers regards video gaming the same as other media such as movies and music. It has become part of our society and just like heavy metal music, is not the causal factor of violent behaviors. In fact, as game play increases violent behaviors decrease. Seann examines digital game design and teaching and learning. What can we learn from video games to provide a meaningful experience in classrooms? GAMERS REGULATE THE GAMING ENVIRONMENT. Seann shares that this happens in digital spaces where people gather to do fun things and the human nature is to produce systems within the social group to manage abhorrent behavior of individuals. Dr. Dikkers adds that there are websites, such as Common Sense Media, that adults can access to obtain reviews of games. TEACHING ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING & PARENTING IN THE DIGITAL AGE. Seann shares that many games are about ethical decision-making and each decision has an impact on the overall storyline. This is common among role playing games and those are actually the games that Dr. Dikkers enjoy playing side-by-side with his children so the video game is a medium for a social relationship and discussions about choices and consequences. HOW DO SCHOOLS ADOPT GAMES? Dr. Dikkers indicated that this question is the center of current research in gaming in educational setting. Teachers are learning digital literacy. To facilitate expansion of teachers’ gaming knowledge base, he urges educators to watch how games are designed, such as World of Warcraft, to look at what roles students are given and what missions they are given. Lesson plans could follow how game designers capture the attention of children and then build the child’s skills. Seann shared that schools are able to set up intra-district servers to house games in order to allow students to game with each other, but not with the entire outside world. He re-iterates that Minecraft is a very popular game to use in schools and can be the medium by which to foster curriculum about math, reading, science, problem solving, etc. MINECRAFT FOR EVERY STUDENT. Dr. Dikkers talks of working with schools that now have Minecraft video game accounts for all students. He notes a public school in Oregon, Wisconsin that focused on teachers learning technology and designing lesson plans integrated with technology. FOLLOW DR. PERRODIN. On Twitter @SafetyPhD and SUBSCRIBE to “The Safety Doc” YouTube channel https://youtu.be/qG1N_MejPLY and iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-safety-doc-podcast/id1209802253?mt=2 and SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/user-186592129 and The 405 Media http://the405media.com/the-safety-doc/ DR. PERRODIN'S SAFETY BLOG: https://crisisprepconsulting.wordpress.com/ SAFETY DOC WEBSITE: www.safetyphd.com David will respond to discussion thread comments or questions & also to emails. The Safety Doc Podcast is hosted & produced by David Perrodin, PhD. ENDORSEMENTS. Opinions are those of the host and guests and do not reflect positions of The 405 Media or supporters of “The Safety Doc Podcast”. The show is curse free and adheres to nondiscrimination principles while seeking to bring forward productive discourse and debate on topics relevant to personal or institutional safety. *A comprehensive post devoted to this show is available on Dr. Perrodin's Blog.

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Student suspension rates continue to drop across the United States. However, are we observing a genuine decline or the engineered result of creative new categorizing exempt from state and federal reporting? CANDID TRUTH. Dr. Perrodin cautions listeners that, “I am going to be direct and very blunt with you from an insider perspective telling you what is happening with school suspensions and some of you frankly are not going to like what I have to say…” Wow – unleashed. From his experiences as a school administrator, doctoral researcher, industry consultant and school safety expert witness, Dr. Perrodin crafts an argument that school suspension data is grossly flawed and impractical as a metric for school improvement. DECADES OF FLAWED DATA. School safety expert Kenneth Trump testified to Congress multiple times over the past 20 years about the serious, chronic inaccuracies in school safety data. Dr. Perrodin offers an example to support Mr. Trump’s claims by citing a Wisconsin high school of 800 students that reported a total of 4 school suspensions for an entire school year after reporting 71 suspensions the previous year (and shares the data screenshot in the YouTube version of the show). How is such an astounding figure achieved? At best, it was a mistaken entry that evaded data scrubbers with as much ease as stepping over a crack in a sidewalk. Yet, the situation is probably much darker and intentional than mere sloppy digit entry. In fact, the overall decreasing trend in school suspensions is not a representation that student behavior is correspondingly improving! WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH STUDENTS’ BEHAVIOR? Suspensions have been replaced by abeyance agreements and pre-expulsion agreements. Such measures, often thick with “legalese” and the coercive positionality of district’s brass and legal counsel, are basically “suspended” sentences that operate in a matrix where the benevolent-appearing school holds massive power over the parent and student to “go along with the deal or gamble the creaky plank of expulsion.” It’s a camouflaged suspension. WHAT HAS CAUSED SCHOOLS TO NO LONGER SUSPEND STUDENTS? It’s simple. First, suspensions have never been a quality tool to improve student behavior. Teach the student a lesson instead of teaching the student the lesson. And, the suspension is a reprieve for the school from the student. Remember, I said I was going to candid. Also, suspension data is a dark cloud – it’s a black mark on the school. In an era of free-agency for students, a district with low suspension numbers is more appealing than a district with high(er) suspension numbers. Lose kids and lose funding. Schools are being identified for disproportionate suspensions of youth per a specific race – and a “fix” to such a problem is to not produce a reportable suspension. See where I’m going – it’s not a fix, its re-badging terms and allowing persistent achievement gaps between students of different races. FOLLOW DR. PERRODIN: On Twitter @SafetyPhD and SUBSCRIBE to “The Safety Doc” YouTube channel https://youtu.be/Su0e-6tu0Z0 and iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-safety-doc-podcast/id1209802253?mt=2 and SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/user-186592129 and The 405 Media http://the405media.com/the-safety-doc/ DR. PERRODIN'S SAFETY BLOG: https://crisisprepconsulting.wordpress.com/ SAFETY DOC WEBSITE: www.safetyphd.com David will respond to discussion thread comments or questions & also to emails. The Safety Doc Podcast is hosted & produced by David Perrodin, PhD. ENDORSEMENTS. Opinions are those of the host and guests and do not reflect positions of The 405 Media or supporters of “The Safety Doc Podcast”. The show is curse free and adheres to nondiscrimination principles while seeking to bring forward productive discourse and debate on topics relevant to personal or institutional safety. *A comprehensive post devoted to this show is available on Dr. Perrodin's Blog.

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