On February 14, 2018, 14 high school kids and three faculty were killed in a school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Mainstream media and news sources are all over the subject, but are they all over the emotion?
The shooting has called for gun control laws to be enacted, and for safer school security measures. The terrorist, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, legally purchased an AR-15 and then walked straight into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, completely undetected.
As a student in high school currently, it’s alarming how little safety measures we have for instances like this. However, it’s alarming how little these things are addressed by school administrations.
Students spend about a third of their day in school. They spend this time with friends, teachers, even people they don’t like. However, they don’t go to school every day thinking that they won’t see their family again.
We go to school expecting to be home by 4 or 4:30. We go to school expecting to get in trouble for not doing so great on our math test. We go to school expecting to stay up late studying for tomorrows test. We go to school expecting to see a future.
Students do not expect to be escorted out of school, with classmates lying dead on the floor. Students do not expect to hear gunshots in their classroom. Those 17 beautiful souls expected to live. They probably had plans for that night, or for the next day. Their last words were probably not the last words they wanted to have.
But it happened and schools are not addressing it.
February 14, 2018, wasn’t just a normal day for these students though. It was Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day. This day was supposed to represent peace, forgiveness, and love. Instead, it will be engraved in their minds as a day of death, destruction, and hate.
So instead of talking about the gun control, talk about the lack of humanity. Talk about the loss of love. Talk about how grateful you are to be alive.
Teachers, talk to your students.
Find your compassion.
We are more than just a grade, more than just a desk. Our last moments could be spent in your class, please try to make them a good one. But please, please, don’t shield us from what happened to these kids.
Don’t tiptoe around it. Lack of safety should never be a taboo subject, maybe, just maybe, that’s why we have none.
And for the media sources covering this subject, these kids were more than just a number. They were more than just a political strategy used to push gun control. They were planning a future just like you and me. They felt love and pain. They mattered way more than anything you could ever compare them to. T
hey were beautiful souls, taken to soon. Instead of spreading more division, spread the love that these 17 souls will forever wish they could have received. Encourage schools to change their safety measures, push for teachers to focus more on the present moment rather than the future.
Use your platform for actual change.
