Wednesday, September 25th.

Wednesday, September 25th was the first time I thought I might die in the profession I have dreamed of being in since I was 8. 

I have worked as a student teacher since I was a freshman in high school.  As the years went on and on, I heard more and more about school shootings. I didn’t think that they would actually happen to me, but now I feel like it would be surprising if I wasn’t in a school shooting at sometime during my career as a teacher.

What happened:

I was student teaching at a school about 40 minutes away from Georgia Southern University on September 25. I was in a classroom full of first graders.

During the lesson, a light began to flash on the ceiling as well as on her computer screen and the smart board at the front of the classroom. 

The teacher looked up at me, and it appeared as if she was lost and needed help and direction. She sarcastically remarked to the class  “Why are they (the school) disturbing our lesson plan again? Ugh, this was the second time that the lesson was disrupted. What’s going on?”

I was confused, but I knew that blaming the school for alerting classes about a school shooting was the last thing that I should be doing in that moment.

The students looked at each other in confusion, then I see their eyes looking up at me for direction. I glanced over at their teacher because I wasn’t sure of their school’s protocol for these types of situations.

Their teacher throws their hands up in the air and exclaims, “I wasn’t here last week when y’all learned the drill. Y’all should know it. Do the same drill that y’all did without me last week.”

The problem was, I wasn’t there last week when they did the drill.

I see a young boy in the class get up, run to the corner of the room and hide under the big desk, pushing the chairs out from under to create more room. He points and motions to the spaces next to him under the desk. 

“Sit next to him. When everyone is under the table I will push the chairs in around you.”

I’m so glad I wasn’t asked why. These kids love to ask why, and this question was one that I didn’t want to have to explain the answer to.

There was not a single sound. I feel like at the time everything was moving so slow and so fast at the same time. I had no concept of time.

A little girl attached to my hip at that moment. I don’t think she really understood what was going on. She just saw an alarm going off and the flashing light and didn’t know what the alarm was for.\

 She immediately got scared wanted to stick to the person she was safest around. Or at least that’s what I thought. 

Of course, I wasn’t going to tell her because that would only make the situation a lot worse for her. I guided her and we both sat and hid in the corner of the room behind the bookshelf, by the rest of the kids. She was curled up in a ball next to me grabbing my arm.

In that moment she also told me she loves me, and she never will ever understand how much that meant to me, especially hearing it at that exact moment.

Never in a million years would I have ever thought that I would be sitting next to 12 other kids in an elementary classroom protecting my students from a dangerous situation that could potentially harm all these innocent kids.

I can’t comprehend it. I can’t even wrap my mind around it. I don’t even want to have to wrap my mind around it. 

I turn my head and look at my surroundings. Everything is bleak. Everything is dark.  

The lights are off. The desks are empty. None of the students are talking. The eyes of the students feel like they are shooting into my heart like darts on a target board.

I don’t think I am even breathing anymore at this point. 

I glance around and take time to look at my students.

I know I only just started student teaching there a couple weeks ago. I know they only see me once a week. I know that I am not their actual teacher.

But what I do know…

I do know… that one student shows up late every day due to personal reasons and he gets yelled at every single day because of it, even though this boy is 7 and he cannot drive a car.

I do know… that this student can’t speak english that well, and when the same things are repeated over and over in his face, it doesn’t help him learn any better. 

I do know… that this student learns better when spoken to in spanish, but some teachers don’t even know that he speaks english. 

I do know… that this student likes when you praise them individually. Positively calling them out and congratulating them in front of the class, because maybe that is the only time that they get praised. 

I do know…that this student has a hard time doing school work alone, so including them in groups makes them feel as if they have a team of friends to work with on difficult problems. 

So I do think I know way more than I don’t know in this situation.

These kids are what drive me, what gave me the adrenaline to not care about myself and to care too much about them in that moment. I was willing to risk my life for my students if needed.

I wasn’t scared, I was motivated and encouraged to protect these students.

To me, these kids have so much more of a life then I do ahead of them. 

I want to give them a chance to follow their dreams, get their dream jobs, own their dream houses. 

Sometimes I feel like a part of my job as a teacher is being the last line of defense for my kids. 

And I will never think about changing my job, ever.

I feel my heart start beating again.

The intercom clicks on.

“Attention everyone, you can resume teaching, again like normal”

Like normal?

I had 30 minutes left to teach today and all I felt like wanting to do was hug and talk to my students, asking them if they were okay, if there was anything that I could do to help them.

The teacher exclaimed, “Okay get back out your laptops and continue working on your IReady Math assignment that you were working on before this.”The students got up, quickly and quietly moved back to their seats, opened their laptops, and began to go back to work.

While I just stood in the back of the classroom frozen, not wanting to move or say anything. 

Am I going to be come desensitized to this too?

Like this is “just another day”

Because it’s not, and I hope I will never ever look at it in that way either.

We must all collectively work together to stop this from happening, and it breaks my heart, my fellow teachers, families of victims, and I’m sure a lot more people’s hearts. Together we can work together to stop school shootings. One story at a time.

I have felt pretty safe there so far. I have been going since August, and I never felt unsafe there. However, there was one thing that struck my eye.

Metal detectors. 

I’ve never once had metal detectors in the school I went to. 

I also never once thought that I would be student teaching at a school that has metal detectors either.

It did make me feel better knowing that they had that system, however, they had the system, so what happened in the past that made them implement the system to begin with? 

It made me wonder, but I chose not to dwell upon it too much, because with me, when I stress out- I overwhelm myself. And as a teacher, I have to have my head on straight. Because i have to set the tone for my classroom. I have to be a role model. I have to stay strong for my students in the face of adversity. I am I who my students look up to when they ask me if everything is okay. I am who they look up to if they need support or help within the classroom. If I am not okay, then they are not okay.