I Teach the Teachers

When I first began teaching, I taught second grade in Bushwick, Brooklyn. In my second year as a teacher, Pokemon cards were popular, and students often brought them to school to trade at recess. One day, a young boy in my class was playing with his cards during class time. After two warnings, I told him that I was going to hold his Pokemon cards until the end of the day, when I would return them. His response? “I don’t care. I have a gun, and I’ll shoot you.” He calmly pulled a gun out of his desk and pointed it at me.

I have spent the past day imagining what might happen in this scenario under President Trump’s “arm the teachers” era. I can spin out two scenarios. In the first, I would have a gun, I would be “the one of every five teachers” armed. I would pull my previously concealed weapon off my hip, and aim at a child. I would be so scared that I would, perhaps, shoot him.

Alternately, another adult in my school would be armed. I would send up an alert, and a grown-up with a gun would enter my classroom within moments. He or she would see a young Hispanic child pointing a gun at a white, female teacher, with a room full of terrified, cowering children. The student holding the gun would, perhaps, be shot.

Let’s say, in either of these scenarios, this young boy escapes with his life. In both, I would have lost the trust of my students. I can hear them, in my mind, mumbling, “we

better not do that, she’ll shoot us!”

What happened, instead, is something that could only have happened 18 years ago. It was a post-Columbine era, certainly, but it was a world before school shootings felt… commonplace.

I walked up to the student, one I liked, who often wore an impish grin along with his pressed school uniform, whose hair was always gelled carefully, who had a sweet and charming sense of humor, and put one hand on his face to distract him, and said, “oh, you don’t want to do that, sweetie.” With my other hand, I reached out and took the gun by the barrel, and pulled it away from him. I called the office. Help came. I found out three things later: the gun belonged to his dad. It was not loaded. He learned his behavior by watching his dad threaten his mom.

Now, I teach the teachers: I am a teacher educator, and I have the privilege to teach undergraduate pre-service teachers. Each semester there is a school shooting, and I tell them this story. I also tell them that I have had to talk to elementary school classes about school shootings, as well as my own young children. I give them guidelines for discussing shootings with children, and I remind them that, with luck, they will be faced with talking about these things but will not experience them. Guidelines include age, proximity, relationships. We talk about empowering young students to take action, give back, become helpers. My students take notes, as if what I am telling them will one day become a life raft for them. I have become

very good at having this conversation; it is my least favorite skill.

My students are hopeful and brave and funny and smart and caring. They are eager to learn how to be the best teachers that they can be, and are set upon keeping the students in their care safe. These young men and women have so much ahead of them. They will have students coming to them hungry, homeless, and abused. They will have students who have parents divorcing, who have siblings being born into their families, who cope with blessings and disasters, illnesses and bullying. These young teachers will also, of course, have to help 25 students each year learn to read, to add, to understand how flowers grow, and what it means to be a part of a community. Some children in their classes will have mental health needs, some physical needs, some will need extra attention for no diagnosable reason. Each child is part of a family, and that family might need extra support, as well.

These young teachers have an enormous amount on their plates. As a teacher educator, I will encourage them to debate, to learn, to engage whatever strategies work so that each child in their care knows that he or she is valued, and that he or she is safe. I will never, ever advocate that they arm themselves.

Let’s go back, briefly, to the moment when my impish young student pointed a gun at me. So much could have gone wrong. In this dystopia I fear we are entering, he could have been shot. I could have taken his life, or watched his life be taken. Teachers are not equipped to make those decisions. We are not soldiers or police officers. Schools are not battle grounds.

The tools I give my students are not everything, they will not solve this problem, but they are a start. I encourage them to use their gut, to teach with empathy and heart. I remind them that it is more important to be kind than to be right, and a little bit of extra time goes a long way. That it takes a village to teach a child. We don’t go it alone.

There is so much that teachers need to keep a school safe. We need time in our classrooms to focus on students, to listen to them and to help them listen carefully and thoughtfully to one another. We need to books to engage student imaginations, to teach them about the better worlds that they can create. We need paper, pencils, and crayons so students can raise their voices and create art. We need music, theatre, and history in the very same quantities in which we offer science, math, and technology. As teachers, we need the tools to talk about the fear “our children” feel when they learn of another school shooting, and we need support in talking to them.

There is one thing we do not need, both because we are horribly ill-equipped to handle the awesome responsibility of taking a life, and because it would shatter the culture of trust within a classroom, and that is a gun.

— Dr. Jennifer Rich, Assistant Professor,

Department of Interdisciplinary and Inclusive Education at Rowan University in

Glassboro, New Jersey.