CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP)-Teacher Jessica Salfia was placing balloons at her high school in West Virginia last month when two of them crashed, causing confusion in a crowded classroom between classrooms.
One student fell to the ground. He hurried into two more open classrooms. Salfia immediately shouted: “These are bubbles! wolves! ”And he apologized because the men realized the noise wasn’t coming because of the shooting.
The moment of fear at Spring Mills High School in Martinsburg, 80 miles (124 kilometers) northwest of Washington, occurred on May 23, the day before. The gunman shot 19 children and two teachers in a classroom in Waldo, Texas. The reaction reflects the fear that envelops the nation’s schools and imposes taxes on its teachers – even those who have never experienced similar violence – and it is resistant to the stress caused by the corovirus pandemic.
Salfia has a more direct connection than most gun threats. Her mother, also a teacher in West Virginia, looked at a student with a gun in her classroom seven years ago. After talking to him for nearly two hours, he was congratulated for his role in the peaceful end of the incident.
For any teacher standing in front of a classroom in 21st century America, the job seems impossible. Predicted that they will be guidance counselors, social workers, surrogate parents and their other students, teachers are sometimes asked to be patrons as well.
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Since then, the US public school landscape has changed dramatically. Columbine In Colorado School Shooting in 1999 and Salfia said teachers think about the dangers on a daily basis.
“What will happen if we close it?” What if I hear gunshots? “He said.” What would happen if one of my students came to school armed that day? “It’s an ongoing thread of thought”.
George Theoharis has been a teacher and principal for ten years and has spent the past 18 years training teachers and school administrators at Syracuse University. He said teachers today are more tense than ever, more tense than last year, “when the pandemic was newer.”
“We are stuck now where we expect teachers and schools to solve all our problems and do it quickly,” he said.
Schools across the country are experiencing widespread incidents of misconduct after returning to face-to-face learning, accompanied by increasing mental health needs of students. Increasing in number, adults are using gun violence Researchers say they have resolved short -term conflicts.
In Nashville, Tennessee, three members of Inglewood Elementary School launched an operation last month to stop a man from climbing a fence. After taking the children to the playground, the man followed them, but was confronted by kindergarten teacher Rachel Davis.
At one point, Secretary Katrina “Nick” Thomas attacked him. They and school accountant Shay Patton found a man without a gun inside the school even before the government took office. All three employees were injured.
“To me, these people seem innocent,” Patton said. “I just know that they can’t defend themselves, so it’s up to us. And I no longer hesitated about it. “
Three officers were heavily watching less than two weeks when news of the Uvalde shooting broke.
“In my mind, I immediately thought,‘ It could be me and my kids, ’” Davis said.
To the frustration of some educators, the teacher firing scandal was initially blamed on the opening of the door of a gunman used to get into an elementary school in Texas. A few days later, officials said the teacher locked the door but did not lock it.
Kindergarten teacher Anna Hernandez said teachers in Texas are worried after severe delays that have lasted for years and show no signs of graduation. He and a group of colleagues spent an hour in the morning in Uvalde doing everything they could to receive donated food and water. He says we need more.
“Changes need to be made to make us safe in the classroom, just like the teacher (and) students feel safe in the classroom,” he said.
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Tish Jennings, a professor of education at the University of Virginia who specializes in teacher stress and socio-emotional learning, said teacher stress is contagious.
“It hinders their ability to function and also hinders students’ ability to learn, ”Jenning said. “So when something like that happens, school shootings, it all shuts down. It is very difficult to study when you are afraid of your life ”.
Salfia said the burden on teachers is staggering.
“You are the first defendant. You are the first reporter. If there are some problems at home, sometimes you have a chance that the baby will fall in love, get food that day, maybe find a warm and safe place for the day. The scope of work is now enormous. “
The pandemic has added to the challenge of distance learning, cleaning classrooms and finding enough alternate teachers working in schools.
There is also an opinion that tragedies happen again and politicians rarely do anything about it.
“It’s very hard to know that at any moment this reality could be your reality or the reality of your children,” said Salfia, a mother of three students. “My youngest are kids the same age who were murdered in Texas. It’s all focused, I think, especially when you’re in class.”
In August 2015, just before the start of the new school year for Salfia’s mother, teacher Tvila Smith, when she was still a freshman, Smith entered world studies class at Philip Barbour High School and took the gun he had taken home. .
For about 45 minutes, Smith said no one outside the classroom knew the class was being held hostage. He turned his attention away from the other students and tried to continue the conversation as he walked into the room with her.
Eventually, the police convinced the boy to release everyone. After at least an hour and a half, his teacher helped encourage the child to give up. A few months later, he was sentenced to 21 years in a facility for minors.
Smith, who has experience dealing with students with behavior problems, was among those who liked the characters, a label he rejected.
“I think my training is just beginning,” Smith said. “Then I had 29 freshmen sitting and looking at me and I have to say they were heroes. Because they did everything I told them and they did everything he told them. And they stayed pretty quiet. . “
Smith graduated these freshmen in 2019. He then retired.
One of Salfia’s former students returned to Spring Mills High, where she now works in her department as a freshman English teacher. When asked what she says to others in hopes of leaving her camp, Salfia said the former student’s description of what teachers are going through today: “None of us did anything for it.” But their commitment to the profession is such that they are “built for it” and can barely think of another career.
“It’s the only job I can do,” Salfia said. “But it’s also the hardest job I can do.”
“After the bubbles,‘ the kids dramatically exploded, ’” he recalls. “Some people were a little angry with me, I think, for the reaction to the fear that everyone was experiencing at the time.”
He knew this was the world he and his students lived in.
“We’re all ready to run away from this sound at any time.”
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Associated Press writer Jonathan Mathis in Nashville, Tennessee, and Jay Reeves in Waldale, Texas contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press training team is receiving support from Carnegie Corporation of New York. AP is solely responsible for all content.
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Learn more about filmmaking at a school in Walde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/uvalde-school-shooting
Source: Huffpost
I’m Liza Grey, an experienced news writer and author at the Buna Times. I specialize in writing about economic issues, with a focus on uncovering stories that have a positive impact on society. With over seven years of experience in the news industry, I am highly knowledgeable about current events and the ways in which they affect our daily lives.