Treat Others the Way You Want to Be Treated
Welcome back everyone!
Today's topic is exceptionally hard to address, however it is necessary to dive into these tricky conversations in order to make way for positive change. With that said, if gun violence and concepts pertaining to gun control affect you in a negative way, feel free to join us again for next week's discussion.
Now, as teachers we do our very best to cultivate a safe environment for our students, although much of that safe space is created through the dynamic of the kids. They truly pave the way for their own experiences and we simply guide them. With this freedom to make something for themselves, comes great responsibility. Students are young and impressionable but this time in their lives also are left open for them to make plenty of mistakes. And mistakes are okay, that is how we learn! But what is not okay is if these mistakes negatively impact other peers. School violence can be displayed in a number of ways that are not limited to verbal or physical abuse. Bullying of any sort, whether that is cyber bullying, fighting, gang violence, sexual violence, etc., can truly break a person, let alone our youth. Just like we spoke last week about kindness and acceptance of gender and racial inclusivity, it all connects to bullying. These incidents can occur on school property, on the way to or from school, during a school-sponsored event, on the way to or from a school-sponsored event, or virtually anywhere (Preventing School Violence, 2019). While students are figuring out who they are and what they want to be, they shouldn't have to deal with the additive stress of bullying or getting picked on. I recall from Jessica's blog post from last week's discussion that a student passed away following a tragic hate crime that was reported in a documentary entitled, "The Laramie Project." It is so difficult to know that such bullying and intolerance can lead to incredibly sad loss. As educators we must be especially vigilant as this occurs more often than we think. In 2019, it was reported that one in about five high school students are bullied on school property (Preventing School Violence, 2019). Preventing these injustices are the key to creating a safe space for students to explore and learn. More importantly than that, it also alleviates the hardship of students feeling alone and targeted.
Feeling ostracized and on your own can be extremely sad and upsetting. If any student is feeling this way for a prolonged period of time, that sadness likely will shift to anger. It is hard because these isolated students fester up a deep distain and resentment towards those that are hurting them and sometimes feel the need to lash out. We have all heard of the countless unfortunate school shootings; these tragedies are mostly all a direct result of mistreatment and bullying. One massacre that we all could never forget is the Columbine shooting in 1999. Since then we have actually seen an increase in gun violence within the schools and generally in our nation. No matter what your political views may be, we all can agree that we want our kids to be save and rest easy at night. After Columbine, everyone across the country banned together in an attempt to solve this epidemic of school/gun violence. Yet, unfortunately "more than 311,000 students have experienced gun violence at school since Columbine" (St. George, 2022). More recently nineteen children and two adults were killed in a shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde County. This exceptionally sad event took place on May 24th, 2022. An eighteen-year-old named Salvador Ramos not only took the lives of these beautiful souls, but left their families with the memory of them (Texas Tribune, 2022). There are truly no words for the loss and despair this brought to Uvalde County and to our nation.
Just like after Columbine, the people of this nation mourned these innocent souls and sparked conversations about proper regulations for gun control moving forward. The very next day, on May 25th, 2022, I was working at Farmingdale School District, Howitt Middle School. The announcements came over the loud speaker following a lengthy moment of silence for those that perished the day before. It was just like any other day except there was an eerie solemness that swept the halls. Just like everyone across the nation, we were trying to get our bearings and wrap our heads around the massacre that had just occurred. It's not something that easily slips your mind; so for many of us, and even the students, our mind and hearts were with Uvalde.
As I proceeded to my fifth period lunch duty, I noticed blue flashing lights and the imminent, overpowering blare of an alarm. It wasn't a fire drill, nor a lockout drill. It was, what seemed at the time to be a real lockdown emergency. I remember being genuinely scared and defenseless as we tried to as calmly as we could, make way to a good hideout spot. I was along with roughly thirty students and two additional staff members. Kids were curled up in balls crying and calling their parents. We saw heard marching steps outside of the doors we were hidden behind. Luckily, I had a radio in which I heard the updates. We were in a holding position for almost forty minutes as the police came in sweeping the school. I had not been so scared for my life and in those moments I truly did not know what was going to happen. Ultimately, this lockdown was a result of a "human error," as the panic button was tripped by on offsite company system. This experience was incredibly unfortunate timing, but everyone handled it tremendously. It is comforting to know that in a real emergency we can be scared, but still find a way to stay strong, safe, and together. I pray that moving forward, our country can do a better job of monitoring acts of violence, especially pertaining to guns in schools. I hope nobody ever has to feel scared to go to school, or fear that a "goodbye, I love you" in the morning to your kids would be your last. As a future teacher I hope to continue to teach middle school aged children as these are such vitals years in their development. So far, I have been working at Howitt for two years now, helping out and doing what I can so within that time and all of these crazy experiences, I have truly found a home.
Below, I have attached the link to a short news clip from right outside of Howitt Middle School explaining the events.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fyw6mwagN2E
References:
Zach Despart July 17, 2022, et al. “Uvalde School Shooting.” The Texas Tribune, https://www.texastribune.org/series/uvalde-texas-school-shooting/.
ABC News. “Gun Violence Trends.” Google Image Result for Https://S.abcnews.com/Images/US/GunStats_v03_DP_1650294882495_hpEmbed_1x1_992.Jpg, Google, https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fs.abcnews.com%2Fimages%2FUS%2FGunStats_v03_DP_1650294882495_hpEmbed_1x1_992.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fabcnews.go.com%2FPolitics%2Fweekend-mass-shootings-highlights-rise-gun-deaths%2Fstory%3Fid%3D84145150&tbnid=bEU5VpkxCwPGIM&vet=12ahUKEwjoyPOTj8L6AhVEVTUKHRjKACkQMygEegUIARCwAQ..i&docid=YxKazgr4V_ql3M&w=992&h=992&q=school+shooting+stats%5C+2022&ved=2ahUKEwjoyPOTj8L6AhVEVTUKHRjKACkQMygEegUIARCwAQ.
Preventing school violence. (2019). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/youthviolence/schoolviolence/fastfact.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fviolenceprevention%2Fyouthviolence%2Fschoolviolence%2Findex.html
St. George, D. (2022, June 28). School Shootings Rose to Highest Number in 20 Years, federal data says. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/06/28/school-shootings-crime-report/
Hi Kelly!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your well thought out and detailed blog post this week. As future educators, gun violence is always going to be a fear of ours. We pray that we never have to experience something so tragic like a school shooting. The world is scary and people are crazy. In your second paragraph, you mention the phrase "safe environment" and this made an impact of how I feel about this topic and how I continued to read your post. Everyone is obligated to put themselves in a safe environment. Students should be put into school that they feel are a safe place. Parents need to scope their area and observe. A safe environment is essential to the populations' well being. Kids learn as the grow ad paving their path requires responsible parents and guardians. A less violent version of school violence is called bullying and this is a very common topic throughout the many levels of education. It negatively impacts students, teachers and parents. I love how you tied in last week's topic of gender and racial inclusivity into school violence because it plays an important role is a child life. Kindness matters in the topic of violence because without it, there is chaos. Although the Columbine shooting occurred in 1999, over 20 years ago, it is still talked about it. The shooting was so traumatic. Before, I didn't know there was a recent shooting in May that 19 children and 2 adults died. This is heart wrenching and makes my fears grow a little more because it seems like guns and people aren't controlled. It is so crazy that you have experienced a real lockdown, where feelings were expressed but thankfully it was a false alarm. Humans make mistakes and that is okay because life is a learning process. The closing to your blog post was so smooth when you said "I have truly found a home" meaning a classroom. This piece left a mark on my heart and I hope to find my "home" one day as well. Great job and I am excited for what the future holds for you!
- Gabriella Raia
Hi Kelly! I really enjoyed reading your blog and hearing your stance on school violence. Hearing about all the gun violence in schools is extremely scary. As a future teacher, it is a relevant concern I think many of us have. You mentioned how parents should not have to fear saying goodbye to their kids in the morning and I found that to be super impactful. No parent, teacher, or child should ever feel scared to go to school. The Columbine Shooting was a tragedy and unfortunately, we have experienced too many school shootings since that event. Kids should not have to be trained on how to behave in case of a school shooting because this type of violence should never occur. Schools are designed to be a facility to educate children and in doing so they need to be safe learning areas. I think safety measures need to be taken into better consideration to make schools safer from a defensive point of view. For instance, metal detectors are a great start to hopefully detect if a gun is being brought into a school building. It is so much easier to treat people with kindness to foster a healthy and hopefully safe environment. I have had a similar experience as you with a real lockdown drill and they are scary. The lockdown I faced was for a different reason and was over the safety of one child as a custody battle got out of hand. However, at the time we were unaware of this. Luckily we did not have to find shelter we just could not have anyone leave or enter the building. Regardless, being on lockdown is a traumatic experience because you fear the unknown. I am really sorry you had to experience this, but at least you had a good outcome! Great job on your blog post! I look forward to coming back and reading your thoughts on next week's critical issue.
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