One Of My Students Asked If I Would Stand Between Them And A Gunman. Here is what I said.

“Lady. There? Is there an armed man coming here to protect us? Do you want to mediate between us and the gunman?”

It took me about two months before I became the third full-time successor to my alma mater in high school. I went back when my mentor was diagnosed with cancer in high school. When he returned to forgiveness, I stayed to continue building and building a community that gave me a sense of self throughout my development.

This group of students is new to me, but I love them. Of course, they had chances that they would rather touch the phone screen than talk about the outcome of the fight, the difficulty of supply and demand, or the golden age.

But young people deserve more credit than we have given them.

They are kind, smart, insightful and brave. I was supposed to be their teacher, but I learned a lot from them about myself and the world. When they vote, they enlighten this world with compassion. We don’t deserve them, especially when we’re always defending them.

That day I was doing my first active shooting practice.

When I sat at both tables and walked the same corridors six years ago, the only scenarios we did were tornadoes, fire, and a special request for prom.

But this is a new standard. My students are restless. This is a planned exercise, not always provided because some exercises are conducted without warning. But this news did little to calm our nerves and prevent the fact that we had to train for the possibility of our own death.

I looked at my lesson plan, I glanced at the sophisticated projector, drank coffee and waited. No one knows when the director’s voice will enter the intercom, drilling.

Practice comes and goes and merges with the new normal of the modern school, with full knowledge that the thin paper walls of our classroom do not fit into an automatic weapon.

But this is not normal. This should not be normal.

We ask our teachers to do many things: be educators, health workers, counselors, nurses, peacemakers, caregivers, disciplines. And now we ask them to be human beacons.

When I started teaching, it never occurred to me that, despite growing up during this time, I would have to fight my own mortality and the value of my life against my students. I was in third grade when Columbine fascinated the world of education. I was in 11th grade when Virginia Tech laid off my job.

“Yes. Yes, of course I will,” I told the young man, who asked me if I would protect my students.

I decided to sacrifice myself to save my students if someone actively shot into my class. Part of teaching is to believe in the future and believe in a better future. My students have to live to make this future a chance.

But it wasn’t a decision I had to make.

…

With each new mass shooting, the arguments against the sanity of the weapon are like a watch:

“If we had armed the teachers, this would not have happened.

I am a guardian. Mentor. support workers. . light. I will not be assigned to the strengthening role of this American culture of violence. I will not collude with the equipment of myself and my fellow teachers.

“This is the price we are paying for the freedom of our second amendment.”

Why have so many people in this country decided that gun ownership is beyond the safety and lives of our children and teachers? How many dead students and how many dead teachers does your “freedom” cost? How much are you willing to set a price to protect the repairs that technology has achieved? How free to think of shooting at school, at the cinema or at a grocery store? Your paranoia and your misunderstanding about it “Courage is a man with a gun in his hand” The original purpose of the outdated amendment was broken.

We accept reasonable restrictions on our other rights. Why is this a struggle for the right to bear arms?

“Weapons do not kill; “People are killing people.”

There is no time to limit access to tools used to kill more effectively. Why are you afraid of your neighbor that you need an assault rifle? Or do you think you need to hide it and wear it when you do the weekly shopping? It is a reflection of you – your wrong power needed, your doubts, your cowardice – and not a reflection of the society you fear. The AR-15 or any other type of military weapon has no other purpose but to destroy.

“It’s the action of a mentally ill person.”

Stop equating mental illness with the necessity of killing. Start supporting mental health. Start the normalizing mental health discussion. Start discussing the mental health of victims of gun violence.

“Now is not the time for politics. Now is the time to send thoughts and prayers. “

Thoughts and prayers calm others. They also soothe the conscience of those who have no intention of doing anything, who will continue to support the status quo because they are comfortable, familiar and politically appropriate.

…

These days, I periodically teach political science in a complementary college course. Every class I enter leads to the same process: check the door. Notice how it crashes. Plan how to cover the windows. Look for potential barricades. Make a plan. Testing.

This process is more difficult in college because I don’t own the classroom. Some faculty members use it throughout the day. The arrangement of tables can be reconfigured. Shutters can be open or closed. The keys may be incorrectly positioned. The first aid kit may have been lost in another room.

Each time the class can be different, requiring a new plan to be developed quickly. I lost sleep in my mind with a different scenario to prepare for the next day.

In the case of an active shooter, making a plan is second nature already. This is part of the process. In addition to preparing my class notes and maintaining the best eraser markers, I think of ways to save the lives of my students.

This should not be normal.

Instead of asking teachers to accept the impossible, accept the fact that they can die doing their job, ask yourself: Who needs to be shot in your life to act?

Yes. I will sacrifice the lives of my students. But don’t let this be my reality the next time I teach. Don’t let my life and that of my students be statistics.

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