For the past two years, I have been studying how to be a great teacher. How to teach students who do not want to learn, how to inspire students to overcome their own struggles. How to even be inspired by these children, the future of our country, of our whole world. The truth is, I did study, I got in those classrooms and learned from students already. I am confident in my teaching abilities.
I am so close to graduating, and I am scared.
I am not scared I will not make it. I am not scared I will fail. I am scared I will never get the chance to do any of this. I am scared because there is currently an epidemic in our country, an overflow of school shootings.
I am scared every time I enter a school building. I am scared for myself, for my fellow teachers, faculty, staff and most of all for the students. As much as I am scared that these shootings keep happening, I am more scared there is nothing be done to stop them.
Correction: There is nothing logical being done to stop them.
I am sorry to make this public service announcement, but arming teachers is not the answer to these madmen getting guns from wherever they get them from and shooting up a school. Like I mentioned earlier, I have been studying to be a great teacher. To make my students feel safe, to teach them every core subject.
I did not study basic firearms, I did not study how to outmaneuver a shooter, I did not study how to disarm a person. I did not learn these things because I AM STUDYING TO BE A TEACHER. If I wanted to learn these things, I would have joined the services, studied to be a police officer. However, as I have now mentioned several times, I studied to be a great teacher.
I need to know how to make my students feel safe, which is a difficult task when I do not even feel safe.
Strapping the latest handgun to my hip, covered by my polka dot blouse and acting like everything is normal, is not a solution. This is because this is not normal, nor should it become the new norm for a school setting. This, if anything, is an aggressor to the problem.
There are many solutions circulating through newspapers and press conferences, and while our political leaders sit on their hands, more and more innocent lives are being lost. Do I think they are happy with this outcome? Absolutely not. However, I feel as though more shootings keep happening and no new solutions are being proposed.
Perhaps part of this problem is that many of these people deciding what happens in our schools spend minimal time in these schools.
Lawmakers and politicians, although some may advocate a lot for the schools do not spend nearly as much time as the teachers and staff of the school. The administrators and teachers of these school are rarely asked for their opinion on school safety. Even worse, when students tried to band together to advocate for themselves for safer schools and stricter gun laws, they received a lot of negative feedback.
As much positive feedback and reinforcement they had, many people did not think they deserved a voice-- “they are just kids”-- but what they fail to realize is that these “kids” are our future and they deserve a voice. Especially a voice that is heard and taken seriously.
I am not writing this to propose the great of all great ideas. I am writing this to give perspective. I am writing this hoping it will make progress. I am writing this for stricter gun laws, for safer schools.
