Lifticus, I think that you’re perhaps less given to emotional reaction than is usual. So let’s say that you score an 8 on a 1-10 scale of rationality. That being the case, if ever you decide to commit suicide, there would be very little I, or anyone else, could do to convince you otherwise. You would simply have wearied of living your life, and wish not to do so any longer.
Someone who scores at the other end of the scale, a 2 on the 1-10 rational scale, is much more likely to be behaving in reaction to emotion. Sudden overwhelming despair over a lost love/job/whatever.
It’s very different for that person. Your assumption is that everyone will think clearly about their wishes, but not everyone is capable of that. Even some generally clear-thinking people can become emotional and reactive in certain situations (if too many things happen at once).
These emotionally reactive people want an end to their seemingly unending pain, and believe the only way to achieve that is through ending life. Given alternative ways to ameliorate the pain, they report being glad to be alive.
If pain cannot be ameliorated, then I agree with you that a person should have the right to choose death.
tedro, I believe it shouldn’t for a number of reasons. Chief among them are that it would be an incredibly adversarial, hostile stance for a teacher to take. “I need to protect myself from you animals,” would be the take-away message. The teacher/student relationship is meant to be a positive one.
Not all kids view teachers positively, of course. In which case I believe that having teachers carry would result in having hostile students do the same. A powder keg situation.
Another reason is that I don’t think teachers are, as a rule, well suited to making deadly snap judgments. Things can become heated very quickly in a high school. You’re sitting there quietly doing your work when all of a sudden all this noise and shouting and banging starts. Just a fight, but there’s a huge adrenaline surge, and it’s pretty intense until everyone is brought under control. Teachers tend to be the more emotional type discussed above. They’re motivated by emotion (a desire to “teach,” to “make a difference,” to “inspire passion”). How much training would be required to make the average teacher a cool-headed actor in a dangerous drama? Too much, in my opinion.
There are other reasons, but that’s the tip of the iceberg. The main thing is, I think, that if the OP is afraid of students, he shouldn’t choose teaching as a career. He’ll be a poor teacher, as well as a profoundly unhappy one.