A violent offence, a suicide or an attack sometimes seems like a lightning bolt, out of the blue. Yet experience shows that a certain type of planning and thinking goes into all of these acts. You only see the entire picture once all the pieces of the puzzle are put together. Only then do you see what led your student to take this course of action.
In their interaction with a student, individual staff members may see only one piece of the puzzle. Each piece may in itself be innocuous, but when you put all the pieces together a completely different picture emerges. Be aware that:
Information-sharing is organised differently from institution to institution.
In the three stories you have been following in this course, you have seen that different people know different things about a student. The work placement supervisor, fellow teaching staff, receptionists or counsellor may all have different pieces of information. Listen to their accounts of their experience:
Tutor |
Student psychologist |
Internship supervisor |
The police may also have several pieces of the puzzle. Police researcher Frank van Riet describes briefly how the police respond to reports of alarming behaviour, and how they try to share with schools the pieces of the puzzle they have.