How does one begin to clean up the blood of infinite possibilities, of innocent laughter, of boundless joy from the classrooms and school hallways where (insert growing number of children) have been executed this year, not for their sins but ours?
Bullet holes through bulletin boards, blood covering the desks, blood seeping into the carpet ... blood covers our own hands. The sanctity of school my generation and previous ones enjoyed has been usurped by those same generations' desire to exist in fantasy. A fantasy that money and guns will keep us, especially our children, safe, as if dollars make bullets impervious as if there were an economy of safety. In reality, our children are less safe and they know and feel it. "Mrs. Rembert, there are no safe places, anymore" However, we'd rather live in a nearly 16 million dollar fantasy funded by the NRA that convinces us and our legislators that guns will save us from magical dragons and dangerous people. We believe to survive the number one cause of death for children in the United States is to brandish a bigger, badder potion in the form of a weapon. We believe in a mythical land where sawed-off shotguns, assault rifles, semi-automatic weapons and handguns galore will save the day. Yet, at the conclusion of such fantasy, the magic of the classroom turns into a baron wasteland with half-full rosters and forever empty seats. "In reality, we, the people of the United States, own more guns and have more gun violence than any other nation. Our guns are not making us safer or more free. We can not have it both ways. We can not reduce gun violence with more guns; just as we would not seek to reduce heart disease by adding more unhealthy food into our diet or reduce pollution by adding more pollutants." Our allusion of safety paralyzes us in a praying position. We send our thoughts and prayers to the latest victims and their communities. We hope and wish for change. We seek to allocate blame while more blood seeps onto the school courtyard. We resume our daily lives forgetting that for some there is no more recess, no more calculus, no more lunchroom banter. In 2022, there were 303 incidents involving guns at school with 273 victims, injured or fatal (Riedman, 2022). It behooves us to understand that guns are becoming a norm in school violence. When mass shooting events occur, the school closes long enough for the police to process the scene, the lives lost are commemorated and then we all continue on as if the blood on the desk never happened. We wall off the sites of death and injury in our hearts and in some cases (Santa Fe High School) literally to hide our pain and pretend all is normal. Honestly, there is not going to be any closure, no real commemoration, no continuing on if there is no real resolution and reform. "The call is coming from inside the house. Educators, it's our time to answer--to start lobbying as hard as the NRA, to safe ourselves and our students." As an educator, I've been through enough active shooter drills, discussed school violence enough, processed our collective feelings after each event of mass murder with enough students and heard enough irrational non-solutions (see list below) to know that anxiety and fear have outweighed action.
As an educator, I've practiced my wait time and still, there's no response. No response to kids gulping down a waffle, kissing their parents and running to the bus stop at 7am and having their blood color the walls of a classroom before noon. No response to some kids returning home spattered in the residue of the murder of their classmates---forever changed by trauma, their innocence lost. My fellow teachers, this affects US, and we must ready ourselves to address the societal factors that contribute to gun violence, including easy access to guns, lack of mental health resources and systemic oppression that disproportionately affects marginalized communities. We can no longer allow others to dictate our safety. We must raise our collective voices about one of the most pressing issues of our time. If you're interested, let's connect and organize for the myriad children and school personnel who've lost their lives over the years, including the 23 people killed and injured as a result of school shootings to date, the children and personnel left reliving the tragedy and countless incidents to come. Sources: Gun ownership by country 2023. (n.d.). Retrieved March 29, 2023, from https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-ownership-by-country Riedman, D (2022). K-12 School Shooting Database.
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