I wrote the following on Saturday morning, December 9th, the morning after the Newtown shootings. The week had started out with several on-line news articles that resulted in a lot of negative comments about teachers, the majority of which called teachers “greedy”, “lazy”, and “selfish”. Then, on Thursday, my daughter’s high school was evacuated because of a bomb threat. Followed by the school shooting in Newtown on Friday. The following are my thoughts from Saturday morning and was written in honor of the Newtown, CT teachers, and teachers everywhere:
My heart broke last night as I watched the news reports from Newtown, CT. I cried when I listened to a teacher talk about how she made sure, as she listened to the gunshots outside her door, to take each child’s face in her hands and tell him or her directly, “I love you.” She thought that they were going to die, and this is what she wanted her children to hear, not the gunshots.
As I wrote that last line I thought to myself, I probably should say students. However, the first thing I wrote is what came to my mind. Children. For most teachers, our students are our children. They are not just students. My own children get mad at me because I come home and talk about “my kids” from school. But the truth is, my students, during the time that they are with me, are my children. And I know, without a doubt, that if a gunman came into my school and started shooting, I would hide them, I would put myself in front of them, I would do whatever I had to do to protect them and keep them safe, even if that meant I might die. And I know that almost every teacher out there would do the same.
Could you say the same about the people you work with every day? Would you hide them? Place yourself in front of them so that the bullet hits you before it hits them? Do you even think that it’s a possibility that a coworker or an employee of yours is going to come into your workplace and start killing everyone? Does the possibility of that ever cross your mind?
And yet I go to school every day, knowing that within my school are the mentally ill students, the angry students, the apathetic students, the students who have guns in their houses, the students who are socially isolated, the students who are being bullied by their classmates, the students who for some reason feel picked on…the students who potentially could reach their limit one day and decide to bring a gun to school.
And I teach them. I also teach the child who, just last week, watched his father drive his car into a tree after forcing the father to let him out of the car first, because he didn’t want to die with his father, even though that is what his father wanted. I teach the child who writes in her journal about her older sister coming into her room at night and molesting her – memories from when she was younger. I teach the child whose mother is away at a residential drug rehab program and who started the year herself in a similar place.
I teach the child who is on the verge of suicide. I teach the child whose parents’ divorce is so bitter that their e-mails to me about their child spew their venom about their spouse. I teach the child who is trying so hard to not do drugs, even though he goes home every night and sees mom and dad using them. I teach the child whose home was just destroyed in Hurricane Sandy. Even in Hunterdon County, I teach these children, and many more who come to school with similar baggage. I do my best to try to get them to care about the work that we are doing in school, and to show them that I care about them as people, even though their world is falling apart at home.
And when that gunman comes into my room, I will hide my children in the corner, barricade us with desks and chairs and whatever else I can find to protect them with. I will look each one of them in the eyes and tell them that I love them, that they are all special, that they are valued. And I will put myself in front of them and take the bullet for them. Because that is what I do.
I am a teacher.
Where My Mind Wanders 