If we could only be so brave

A principal interrupts our meeting. Words come out of her mouth that do not feel real. She assures the teacher that I am planning with that her son is accounted for and safe, but breaks the news of a shooting at his school. A school in our same district only a few miles away. I slam my computer shut and rush out. I hear the announcements as I dash down the hall. An officer stops me and escorts me out.  I hear the sirens as I drive, as tears slip down my face. I go straight to the prearranged location. Students have not arrived yet, but hundreds of guardians line up outside waiting. Media fills the parking lot with their mile-high satellites. Several parents pass out or need medical attention. Partly from the heat, but mostly from the stress and fear. Everyone looks lost and bewildered even though we mostly know what to do. This response had been practiced and choreographed well in advance. The forms, in duplicate, already printed, boxed and waiting in a closet for such a time as this.  I google and watch videos on the news because like everyone else I need details. This is not Columbine or Sandy Hook or Parkland or Santa Fe. This is my neighborhood.

I have never seen so many police officers, FBI agents,  ATF or riot gear in one place. The buses arrive and students fill the building. Hours earlier, these children barricaded themselves in classrooms.  They left all their bags behind and marched out single file with their hands on their heads to be bused here with dozens of police escorts. My job is to verify that the adult picking up is one of the ones listed in our online registration system. We make phone calls. We find translators. We reassure. We get medical help for anyone who needs it. The line moves slowly and steadily for hours. We do not leave until every child is picked up. It is a long, unfathomable day. I am exhausted but can not sleep when I finally fall into bed.  The next morning, I hug my own teenage son long and hard before he leaves for school. I did not want to let go. I watch his car pull out of the driveway and I weep. It is obvious that no one else slept either. We all have bags under our eyes and knots in our chest.

I don’t know how to look these teachers in the eye when they show up for in-service a few days later. Suddenly the lesson plan seems so irrelevant. But life and lesson plans go on.

Children are resilient, even though I suspect many are still struggling. I do not know how to reconcile this day with what I thought it meant to be a teacher. The task suddenly so much greater than I ever imagined in college.  I visit the campus a week later bearing breakfast and a willingness to help or simply listen. As I enter the building, I watch dogs sniff student backpacks. Police officers wave metal detecting wands over every few teens as they walk in the door. It looks more like airport security than kids just trying to make it to first period on time. I walk the halls and I hear a coach going into specific detail about DNA and I can not fathom it. His door open and his voice carries. Nucleic acids spilling down the hallway, when only a week before, there had been gunfire.

I was 21 years old and wearing new khakis and an itchy blouse my first time in a classroom as a student teacher. I spent two days a week at a local middle school. The kids scared me, but not nearly as much as the other teachers. Probably because I was closer to my students in age. This same semester, two students in Littleton, Colorado opened fire in the library. They killed 12 students and a teacher before taking their own lives.  The news coverage was horrifying and I couldn’t help but reconsider my career path. In seminar, a few days later, the professor bluntly asked, “Do you still want to be teachers?”  A heavy pause preceded our answers, like we were trying to decide in that exact moment.  Like everyone else that day I said yes, but for the first time with a hint of hesitation.  We assured each other, Columbine was an isolated incident. It wouldn’t happen again and certainly not in our town.

We were so young and so wrong.

Twelve years later, I quickly scanned the headlines while my students balanced equations, I learned about Sandy Hook. I dry heaved into the trash can during my conference period. After the last bell, I left to pick up my own school-aged children. Most days the car line snakes through the neighborhood but that day the line was short.  I wasn’t late, but anyone who could had already picked up their own children for the day. They had seen the news and needed their own children safely buckled in their booster seats.

Schools responded quickly with active shooter drills. Announcements would be made, we’d lock our doors, turn off all the lights and squeeze into a corner. Thirty high school teens are never quiet, but during these drills you could always hear the door handle rattle as an administrator or officer checked to make sure it was locked. These drills started to feel routine. We got used to piling into a corner and hiding from a potential armed attacker.

Parkland happened my last year as a teacher. My students broke the news, reading tweets about what was occuring in real-time. I had a student teacher of my own, and I wondered what she thought. If she would still brave the classroom. Because now, there was no question, teaching requires bravery. Despite all the drills, systems, committees and locked doors it can still go wrong. It can still happen here. And it did.

It has been almost six months since the shooting. People barely mention it anymore. The news cycle has long since moved on. Four people injured, including a teacher. An entire city impacted. We have all moved on, but we don’t know how to forget.Teachers barricaded their students in classrooms. They helped students hide in storage cabinets. They applied pressure to wounds. But then they did the bravest thing, they showed up the next day. And the day after.

         This can happen anywhere in any district. It has been happening at alarming rates since I first stepped foot into a school classroom as a teacher.  I can’t express how different it feels when it is a classroom you have walked past dozens of times rather than one on a TV screen. I have my own opinions on school safety, gun control, discipline and mental health access, but the answers aren’t going to be simple or one-faceted. We need honest conversations and solutions, not political posturing. However, we can start by realizing that the next time you see a school shooting on the news – it happens to real people. Sometimes it even happens real close. And only a week later those students and teachers will be back in classrooms. Learning and struggling long after the news has moved on to the next bad thing.

If we could all be so brave.