A note: this post is going to talk a lot about gun violence and death. So if that is something that is triggering for you, it is recommended you not read further.
Every year I’ve been a teacher, I have the same recurring nightmare.
I’m in my classroom. Maybe I’m teaching that day, maybe I’m giving a test, maybe we’re just hanging out. The schools might change, the students definitely change, but no matter those minor differences it is always the same scenario: it is a normal school day where I’m with my students.
And then someone comes in and attacks with a gun.
Maybe the assailant has a face. Most of the time they don’t. It doesn’t really matter. The result is always the same. I am powerless to stop them. I try, but to no avail. In the end, my students and I are slain.
Yesterday, that nightmare became a reality for teachers and students at Robb Elementary. As of this writing, 19 children and 2 teachers are gone. Innocent people. Kids. What did they ever do to deserve such an atrocity? What has anyone ever done to deserve something like this?
Earlier this year, my campus went into lockdown after a picture was shared of a student supposedly with a rifle in the building. Thankfully, it was a false alarm – a picture from an ROTC event the previous night with a fake rifle. But for almost an hour, I huddled in my classroom with my students, unsure of what was going on. Unsure of whether or not my campus was about to join too many others in tragedy. As I tried to calm my students and explain what was going on (as being ELLs, many of them hadn’t even been in a lockdown drill before), I stood by my classroom door with a pair of scissors in my hand, because I had made the decision that if someone was going to come busting through that door with the intent of hurting my students, I would at least try to stop them first. It might seem comical, initially: a pair of (frankly dull) scissors against an automatic weapon. But what else could I do?
And I wasn’t the only teacher doing that. A photo got shared around later of a coworker with a baseball bat waiting by the door. Another holding several sharp pencils. Each and every one prepared to lay down their life to protect the children in their classroom. Too many teachers have had to actually lay down their lives.
It is exhausting, to be living with this constant fear, to be constantly wondering and worrying whether or not you’ll become the next addition to a horrifying statistic of gun violence and mass murder in this country. We teachers already have enough on our plate – low salaries compared to the hours put in, constant belittlement by people looking to score cheap political points, and frequent attacks by parents too incapable of actually doing any parenting work themselves. And people wonder why there’s such an exodus from the teaching industry.
I was 6 years old when Columbine happened. Too young to really know what had happened at the time. But since then, there have been plenty more tragedies. Virginia Tech. Sandy Hook. Santa Fe. This keeps happening, again and again and again. We have “active shooter” drills on a regular basis on our campuses. We beef up the police presence. We pretend to be doing things to curb this violence, to improve the situation. And yet, once again, it keeps happening.
In 1996, there was a mass shooting in Port Arthur, Tasmania that resulted in the deaths of 35 people. The Australian government moved swiftly to try and prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again, tightening restrictions on firearms and initiating a mandatory “buy back” program. Since then, Australia’s number of mass shootings has been almost zero. Contrast that to here in the United States, where in 2022 alone we have had 212.
I am sick and tired of “thoughts and prayers” being our only reaction to these horrific events. We need calculated, discernable action. We cannot just keep pretending that these events are outliers and that nothing is wrong. There is no reason for any regular citizen to have access to military-grade hardware, no reason that automatic weapons should be in a public space. Restrictions on these sorts of weapons are necessary, and it will require a combined effort to properly curb this ongoing crisis of violence.
I am mad. I feel grief for those who were lost yesterday. But more than that, I am exhausted. It is draining, to be so constantly worried and scared, to wonder whether or not this is day I walk into my school building will be my last. Something has to be done. We have to fix this.
Take your thoughts and prayers and shove it.
Jacob Ryckman 