When we analyze school shootings or severe bullying incidents, we often ask “how” it happened, but rarely do we dig deep enough into “why.” We look for immediate triggers—a fight over a girl, a stolen item, a shove in the hallway. However, in her comprehensive policy proposal, Celeste Hedequist urges educators to look deeper, specifically at the corrosive role of shame and humiliation as primary drivers of aggression. Her argument is clear: violence is often an act of “humiliated fury,” and until school leadership takes responsibility for the emotional climate of the classroom, the violence will continue.
Hedequist’s proposal draws on psychological research suggesting that shame is not just a byproduct of bullying, but often its cause. When a student is humiliated—whether by a peer or, more egregiously, by a teacher—they often lack the emotional maturity to process that feeling constructively. The prefrontal cortex, responsible for self-regulation, is still developing in school-aged children. Consequently, they resort to the amygdala’s primitive responses: fight or flight. In a classroom setting, “fight” manifests as aggression.
The tragedy, as Celeste Hedequist points out, is that current school policies often exacerbate this dynamic. Disciplinary measures that rely on public reprimands, isolation, or “making an example” of a student can trigger the exact cycle of shame and rage they are meant to suppress. Furthermore, when leadership fails to intervene in the “quiet violence” of social exclusion or teasing, they tacitly approve an environment where humiliation is a valid social currency.
To break this cycle, Hedequist proposes a policy that holds leadership strictly accountable for the classroom’s emotional environment. This is a significant departure from the status quo. Instead of waiting for a physical fight to punish a student, the proposal suggests that schools must proactively measure and reduce the “precursors to violence”—specifically stress, bias, and shaming behaviors.
A key mechanism in this proposal is the implementation of “upward reviews.” By allowing students to anonymously evaluate their teachers and the classroom climate, schools can identify toxic patterns early. If a teacher habitually uses sarcasm or humiliation to maintain order, the data will show it. This allows for intervention—such as de-escalation training or increased monitoring via classroom cameras—before a student feels backed into a corner where violence seems like the only option.
Celeste Hedequist envisions a school system where the adults in the room are not just enforcers of rules, but active guardians of dignity. By shifting the focus from punishing the “bad kid” to curing the “bad environment,” her proposal offers a compassionate, science-backed roadmap to safety. It challenges us to recognize that a safe classroom is not just one free of weapons, but one free of the shame that compels students to pick them up.
To read the full details of this transformative approach, you can view the complete proposal here: A New Policy Proposal for Reducing Violence & Aggression in the Classroom: A Focus on Leadership Responsibility for Outcomes