Schools & Bullets
Yesterday marking the 18th school related shooting of 2018 at Majory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. Almost 20 slain. Teachers, students, staff. One armed-expelled student. Arms extended, students walking out in single file in a sweltering delirium. The scene all too familiar. I digress. This image taken by my husband right outside my classroom with my students, my kids, my school children. Those are the lockers that grace my hallways. Emotions flex, this is hard for me right now.I'm a teacher, a mom, a fan of students...my life's work. I'm also a PTSD survivor. That mixed with school shootings-not a good combination for me today. To relax my triggers is taking everything I have right now. I'm hypervigilant, checking exits, reacting awkwardly to normal. Shallow breathing, I need to get a grip.I woudn't wish a student funeral experience on my worst enemy. To hug a grievious mom, as they collapse in your arms. To see a young body stuffed in a coffin, surrounded by puffy white fabric. The smell of formaldehyde. The wails and moans and groans that only an aching soul can manifest-I know those sounds. Why do I know them? I'm a teacher, not a police officer or soldier in the armed forces. Yet, I know them. I know this. It's part of my story. And now with this grueling pattern of shots on school grounds, The story has become ours.Schools and bullets: they now go together like peanut butter and jelly, Tom and Jerry, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen.I thanked the on duty Police officers this morning in an unsettling panic by the teacher cafe. They thanked me for thanking them. I checked their belt holster, can you believe, to see if they're armed? They were, I exhaled. Sent a shout out tweet to Cicero Police last night too. Giving props to our help ain't such a bad idea right now.We are sitting ducks in a classroom should an active shooter engage in systemic destruction. We still have protocol though: shut off lights, lock doors, shove the kids in a back corner. Barracade them with desks, stay calm, play dead. God have mercy.Aaron Feis, remember that name. In an article published by the Huffington Post, it stated, "Feis was hailed as a hero after reportedly using his body to serve as a human shield, protecting students from gunfire. May told the Sun Sentinel that a female student told him that Feis jumped between her and the shooter, pushing her through a door to escape the bullets." Feis didn't make it. Just one of the many casualities in this horrific scene that should only be reserved for fiction.HUMAN SHIELD.HUMAN SHIELD.HUMAN SHIELD.That should be in our job postings when looking for a teacher gig. You could be forced to think about whether to become a human shield for your students. If you are willing, apply.I think of my kids, my students. The ones I spend so much time as if they are my own with. Heart pieces scatter. Too much to take in. Like swallowing acid. I can't imagine what I'd do. Who the hell wants to?
Solutions? It's looking grim. Perhaps even more gun control, more on mental health, and more police presence and surveillance on every school campus from K-12 and beyond. I'm not even sure anymore, and I'm usually the optimist.
I peer out my actual class window, hoping, no praying that no intruder will ever crusade these hallways. That I will never have to drape my body across a collection of teens in an effort to preserve futures and possibilities. I've had day dreams of me using a hammer I used to have underneath my desk on an unwelcomed guest. Or the fire extinguisher in close range. One blow to the head, I thought. Teachers are now faced with new forms of trauma that we are often not prepared to handle.To every fallen child, teacher, or administrative staff member up to this moment, we remember you. Standing in solidarity today. In somber reflection and hysteria.