A Quiet Reflection

My classroom career is framed by violence.  It began with Columbine; it ends, for now, with Connecticut.  

In the fourteen years I’ve been teaching, violence has marked my watershed moments--I was tucked safely away in my classroom (arguably the most surreal space outside of a college campus) while I watched Columbine, 9/11, and the Connecticut massacre.  In January I am stepping away from that safe-zone because it is becoming less safe.  Please don’t misconstrue that statement: I still feel safe, and I hope I still make my students feel safe.  It is the outside forces--and unfortunately, those forces seem to throb to a political pulse--bullying their way into the public school classroom, causing destruction and mayhem, that threaten the safety of the children who occupy that space.  

I haven’t even figured out how I feel about Friday’s events.  I am sickened on one level, but I confess that I am also numb to the deaths of those little bitties.  I am repulsed, but I am not shocked.  Is that wrong? I think yes. What does it mean that I have no surprise, just deep sadness, for the meaningless violence that invaded a school occupied by 5 years olds and their 10 year old schoolmates?  I have come to expect that this sort of tragedy will occur at least once every year or two.  What does that say about me?  About our culture? About this country that was built so everyone could pursue inalienable rights that, not so flippantly, begin with life.

This bookend of violence serves to reinforce my decision to go across a field to my district’s middle school.  I believe in education, not just teaching.  As our culture continues to unhinge from civility and kindness, voices of compassion and reason must speak louder.  Intervention must happen now, more than ever before.  Political bias is strangling the opportunities of the children born into the middle or lower socio-economic realms.  Their education lies exposed to the perils of lame-duck legislation that will deny them their rights.  Budget cuts are forcing them into overcrowded classrooms where marginalization happens quicker and conformity is the only key to success.  But what happens to the child that embodies Thoreau and marches to his own drummer?  He, too, must learn to adjust, but without intervention, his chances for success diminish.  

What happens when violence cuts down innocence?  We turn inward, trying to find answers that cannot assuage senseless loss.  There is only one answer for me: we must turn back to education.  We must ensure that all people--rich or poor, black or white, rural or urban--receive an education that heightens individual personhood.  Neslon Mandela’s idea that “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” has never been more powerful, more urgent, more necessary.  The world changed for the worse yesterday, and the ripple effects will play out in the weeks to come.  

Gandalf’s reminder to Bilbo Baggins echoes in my head--I am a very little lady in a big, big world.  I am not a politician demanding firearm action, nor am I a prophet saying that when we took God out of schools we opened ourselves to violence.  Instead, I am one teacher dedicating herself to making public education relevant and sharing the most powerful weapon with future generations in an attempt to curtail other, more base weapons from repeating the tragedy of Connecticut.