As an educator who started teaching right after Columbine and has now lived through Sandy Hook, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and then the Uvalde shooting, it is devastating.
Having gone through active shooter training and having barricaded a room with a group of students, it gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. The trauma of an entire community dealing with that is not acceptable. We deserve better as a country and as a nation, but as a teacher, it’s heartbreaking.
I watched students almost get in a huge fight. We were working on barricading my room, and I was like, “It’s just a drill, you guys, it’s okay.” They didn’t want any part of it. It’s scary. When we talk about mental health and challenges that students have, this is a part of that.
Knowing that even while their classroom may be safe, they can go to the grocery store and have something happen.
That’s a traumatizing world to live in, and that’s not the world we should be raising our children in.
