I did my semester of practice teaching the fall semester after Columbine.
That’s the school shooting benchmark, for those that don’t know. Those who were in education before, and those who came after. Because after is when policy and procedure changed for educators.
Yes, there were shootings (and bombings) of schools before Columbine. The year before, two kids pulled a fire alarm and shot at their classmates in the school-yard near Jonesboro, Arkansas. My grandmother lived in Bono (just down the road) and knew two of the kids who were killed. When I was at her house for Christmas that year, we talked about it. She was worried for me, as I was going to be a teacher in a country where teachers and students are targets.
Still, with Columbine, something changed.
Maybe it was the sensationalist feel of Columbine. Two boys in trench coats systematically gunning down their classmates. Maybe it was the videos. The two perpetrators had made several, prior to their massacre. Maybe it was just the scope of their plan – their raw desire inflict as much death and destruction as possible. And, had the bombs they made gone off, the carnage would have been much worse.
I honestly don’t know why Columbine became the catalyst and the measure, but it did. As educators, after Columbine, we implemented lock down procedures and intruder alerts. The administrators had code phrases to say over the intercom and teachers had survival buckets in our classrooms. We added lock down drills to the rotation of fire drills and inclement weather drills, because practice makes perfect.
And, after Columbine, there were other shootings. Every time people would get wound up and say we needed to change things, to fix things. Likewise, every time, the outrage would die down and people would go on with their lives. The communities impacted by the violence would never forget their losses, but they were vastly outnumbered by other sensationalist stories that would grab headlines and media feeds.
When I had a student in my own classroom pull a gun, my first thought, weirdly enough, was to Columbine. In that moment, I knew what every teacher and student that had ever faced a gun in their school felt. The raw fear. The aching sense of things unfinished. The worry for the students in my charge, even the one holding the gun.
I was very lucky. No one was hurt. The student was arrested and spent the remainder of their childhood in juvie.
At the start of the next school year, I called out a student in possession of a lighter during my lunch duty. When they wouldn’t hand it over to me, security and I and took the student to the school’s police officer. For the second time in less than one calendar year, I had a student pull a gun on me.
There were four of us in the very tight, cramped quarters of the office. The police officer talked the student down, secured the gun, and made the arrest. The student ended up in prison.
I ended up in martial arts. Specifically, I wanted to learn how to disarm an armed attacker. I’m sad to say that I now have that knowledge. I am sadder to say that I have had to use it, twice disarming students wielding knives and once to break up a fist fight. The irony of that is that I became the teacher respected by gangs and was given no further trouble. It is part of why I eventually left teaching. Violence shouldn’t earn respect.
A few years later, Sandy Hook happened.
In some ways, Sandy Hook was worse – not because Columbine wasn’t awful enough, but because the students were so much younger. Elementary, instead of high school.
At the time, I really believed that Sandy Hook would be the event that caused serious gun reform. After all, who could possibly justify *not* passing stricter gun laws after the murder of first graders?
It didn’t happen though.
And more and more shootings are happening. Parkland being a recent focal point; Santa Fe, Texas happened two days ago.
I am a supporter of the Second Amendment. I grew up in a family that had guns. I have taken hunter’s education classes. I married into a family that regularly hunted with rifles and bows. Though I don’t personally own any guns, I have more than a few weapons in the form of sharp, pointy things (knives and swords).
Even as a supporter of the Second Amendment I can say: the gun laws we have aren’t working. How do I know that? Because school shootings are still happening.
Do I have any neat and tidy ideas? No. But other countries have successfully managed to not have mass shootings, so I would suggest we start there. All good teachers know the way to success is to steal the best ideas from other teachers and put them into your classroom. Apply that to gun laws and regulations – steal the best ideas from other countries and implement them for our nation.
And the pro-Second Amendment people should do that, before the anti-Second Amendment people outnumber and out vote them. Because enough is enough.
Note: I do not usually blog about political topics, but gun violence hits close to home for me. Every time I see another school shooting in the news, I’m brought back to that day in my classroom where my student pulled the gun on me. I can still see their face. I can still remember the fear, the unfinished, and the worry. I can support guns and gun reform both, and I do.
In Memory of Those Killed or Wounded in Mass Shootings at Schools:
5/21/98 Westside Middle School, Arkansas - 5 killed, 10 wounded
5/21/98 Thurston High School, Oregon - 4 killed, 23 wounded
4/20/99 Columbine High School, Colorado - 15 killed, 21 wounded
4/21/05 Red Lake High School, Minnesota - 10 killed, 7 wounded
10/2/06 West Nickle Mines School, Pennsylvania - 6 killed, 3 wounded
4/16/07 Virginia Tech, Virginia - 33 killed, 23 wounded
2/14/08 Northern Illinois University, Illinois - 6 killed, 21 wounded
4/2/12 Oikos University, California - 7 killed, 3 wounded
12/14/12 Sandy Hook Elementary School, Connecticut - 28 killed, 2 wounded
10/1/15 Umpqua Community College, Oregon - 10 killed, 9 wounded
2/14/18 Stoneman Douglas High School, Florida - 17 killed, 17 wounded
5/18/18 Santa Fe High School, Texas - 10 killed, 13 wounded
That’s the school shooting benchmark, for those that don’t know. Those who were in education before, and those who came after. Because after is when policy and procedure changed for educators.
Yes, there were shootings (and bombings) of schools before Columbine. The year before, two kids pulled a fire alarm and shot at their classmates in the school-yard near Jonesboro, Arkansas. My grandmother lived in Bono (just down the road) and knew two of the kids who were killed. When I was at her house for Christmas that year, we talked about it. She was worried for me, as I was going to be a teacher in a country where teachers and students are targets.
Still, with Columbine, something changed.
Maybe it was the sensationalist feel of Columbine. Two boys in trench coats systematically gunning down their classmates. Maybe it was the videos. The two perpetrators had made several, prior to their massacre. Maybe it was just the scope of their plan – their raw desire inflict as much death and destruction as possible. And, had the bombs they made gone off, the carnage would have been much worse.
I honestly don’t know why Columbine became the catalyst and the measure, but it did. As educators, after Columbine, we implemented lock down procedures and intruder alerts. The administrators had code phrases to say over the intercom and teachers had survival buckets in our classrooms. We added lock down drills to the rotation of fire drills and inclement weather drills, because practice makes perfect.
And, after Columbine, there were other shootings. Every time people would get wound up and say we needed to change things, to fix things. Likewise, every time, the outrage would die down and people would go on with their lives. The communities impacted by the violence would never forget their losses, but they were vastly outnumbered by other sensationalist stories that would grab headlines and media feeds.
When I had a student in my own classroom pull a gun, my first thought, weirdly enough, was to Columbine. In that moment, I knew what every teacher and student that had ever faced a gun in their school felt. The raw fear. The aching sense of things unfinished. The worry for the students in my charge, even the one holding the gun.
I was very lucky. No one was hurt. The student was arrested and spent the remainder of their childhood in juvie.
At the start of the next school year, I called out a student in possession of a lighter during my lunch duty. When they wouldn’t hand it over to me, security and I and took the student to the school’s police officer. For the second time in less than one calendar year, I had a student pull a gun on me.
There were four of us in the very tight, cramped quarters of the office. The police officer talked the student down, secured the gun, and made the arrest. The student ended up in prison.
I ended up in martial arts. Specifically, I wanted to learn how to disarm an armed attacker. I’m sad to say that I now have that knowledge. I am sadder to say that I have had to use it, twice disarming students wielding knives and once to break up a fist fight. The irony of that is that I became the teacher respected by gangs and was given no further trouble. It is part of why I eventually left teaching. Violence shouldn’t earn respect.
A few years later, Sandy Hook happened.
In some ways, Sandy Hook was worse – not because Columbine wasn’t awful enough, but because the students were so much younger. Elementary, instead of high school.
At the time, I really believed that Sandy Hook would be the event that caused serious gun reform. After all, who could possibly justify *not* passing stricter gun laws after the murder of first graders?
It didn’t happen though.
And more and more shootings are happening. Parkland being a recent focal point; Santa Fe, Texas happened two days ago.
I am a supporter of the Second Amendment. I grew up in a family that had guns. I have taken hunter’s education classes. I married into a family that regularly hunted with rifles and bows. Though I don’t personally own any guns, I have more than a few weapons in the form of sharp, pointy things (knives and swords).
Even as a supporter of the Second Amendment I can say: the gun laws we have aren’t working. How do I know that? Because school shootings are still happening.
Do I have any neat and tidy ideas? No. But other countries have successfully managed to not have mass shootings, so I would suggest we start there. All good teachers know the way to success is to steal the best ideas from other teachers and put them into your classroom. Apply that to gun laws and regulations – steal the best ideas from other countries and implement them for our nation.
And the pro-Second Amendment people should do that, before the anti-Second Amendment people outnumber and out vote them. Because enough is enough.
Note: I do not usually blog about political topics, but gun violence hits close to home for me. Every time I see another school shooting in the news, I’m brought back to that day in my classroom where my student pulled the gun on me. I can still see their face. I can still remember the fear, the unfinished, and the worry. I can support guns and gun reform both, and I do.
In Memory of Those Killed or Wounded in Mass Shootings at Schools:
5/21/98 Westside Middle School, Arkansas - 5 killed, 10 wounded
5/21/98 Thurston High School, Oregon - 4 killed, 23 wounded
4/20/99 Columbine High School, Colorado - 15 killed, 21 wounded
4/21/05 Red Lake High School, Minnesota - 10 killed, 7 wounded
10/2/06 West Nickle Mines School, Pennsylvania - 6 killed, 3 wounded
4/16/07 Virginia Tech, Virginia - 33 killed, 23 wounded
2/14/08 Northern Illinois University, Illinois - 6 killed, 21 wounded
4/2/12 Oikos University, California - 7 killed, 3 wounded
12/14/12 Sandy Hook Elementary School, Connecticut - 28 killed, 2 wounded
10/1/15 Umpqua Community College, Oregon - 10 killed, 9 wounded
2/14/18 Stoneman Douglas High School, Florida - 17 killed, 17 wounded
5/18/18 Santa Fe High School, Texas - 10 killed, 13 wounded