I’ve lost three students to gun violence. The sadness will linger forever

When my phone begins pinging a few days ago, indicating multiple texts are coming in, I know something serious is happening. I was receiving texts and calls from former colleagues who have become lifelong friends. We taught in Pittsburgh Public Schools. One of our former students had been shot and killed.

Unfortunately, I’ve received calls like this before.

The first time we lost a student, someone murdered one of our fifth graders. His mutilated body was abandoned near Chestnut and East Ohio Streets on the North Side. The second time it happened, a former first grader I had taught was gunned down on the city steps one block from school. He was just 21 years of age.

These happened years ago. Today, one boy, one body might not even make the news. There is a cut off to make the news beyond the local community — at least four people need to be killed before it is considered a “mass shooting.” It saddens me because one member of my masses was killed last week.

Teaching is a unique profession. Our main job is to take students from Point A to Point B in 180 days. We are responsible for taking an average of 20 children from not knowing a concept to knowing it.

Think back to the days when you didn’t know your vowel sounds. Teachers turned those sounds into words for you. The words became statements, commands and questions. Those sentences became paragraphs. When students reached my 4th grade classroom, together, we proficiently turned those paragraphs into informative or persuasive papers.

As in reading and writing, the same progression of skills was built upon from the early to late years in math, science and social studies.

Do you remember your multiplication tables? Did you ever guess you would need tactical life skills rather than knowing how to skip count by 5s or 10s?

So much happens in classrooms across America. Teachers are not idle babysitters. We care, and we care deeply. The new students that walk through our doors in September become our students and fortunately, lifelong friends who never leave our heart.

This 17-year-old boy that was shot and killed isn’t a statistic in the newspaper. He was a living breathing part of my world that was made better because he was in it. My snapshot of him is of a nine-year-old boy who innocently attended to the skills I was teaching.

No one can imagine how sweet it is, as a teacher, to have those moments when the school building is quiet and it’s just you and the kids learning, struggling or laughing together. Something magic happens between September and June. Those children crawl into your heart and stay there.

Over the years I’ve lost those three students to gun violence. Some would say, “That’s nothing compared to what’s happening out there.” No, not many, but to me, it is a sadness that will linger in my heart forever.

I’ve never been one to protest, write letters or stand for a cause. But something has changed. I need to write letters. I need to feel like I’m again taking my students from Point A to Point B. Point A being their participation in the general population of the world to Point B. Point B being they are known and thought about. Their Point B needs to be our voice because they no longer have one. They need us.

Please, think, pray, meditate or better yet, write your own letters, join a protest, shout from your rooftops: This needs to stop. Our hearts are breaking more and more every day. We must do something about guns — today.