This needs to stop

Fear. Sadness. Shock. Disbelief. Grief. These are all feelings I am sure everyone has felt over the last few days. Whether your eyes have been been peeled to the news or not, we all now have some information of what happened Friday, December 14 in Newtown, CT. And we are all still trying to process what happened. And why it happened.

I was a junior in high school in April of 1999 when the Columbine shooting occurred. For days I couldn't take my eyes off the news, couldn't stop crying, and was very shaken up. How could this happen? And at a normal suburban high school? Why did these boys do this? Could this happen at my high school? What can we learn from it so it doesn't happen again? 

After this horrific event, I would look at the "trenchcoat kids" in my schools differently, wondering if they were hiding guns under their big coats. Our high school was cliquey, just like many others, including Columbine. We had the jocks, the bandees, the theater kids, etc... Newsweek even came to my high school a couple weeks after the shooting because our school population was so similar to that of Columbine and interviewed students on how they felt about cliques in our building and how they affect the mindset of teenagers. This didn't make me feel any better. Eventually my huge paranoia wore off because there was no sense in always worrying. School is supposed to be a safe place and I wasn't going to let this damage my sense of security no matter what.

Unfortunately, this past Friday there was an unthinkable tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School that will probably forever change the nation. I first read about what was going on during my lunch period at work and I had read a gunman had gone in an elementary school and killed two people. It was highly upsetting already from the little information that had been released. I had to go back to my class and didn't get a chance to find out more until after work. By then, more details had emerged and they were horrifying. And sad. And beyond comprehensible. 20 innocent children killed. 6 staff members killed in acts of heroism trying to warn and save the children. How could someone do this? I could only manage to watch the news for less than ten minutes and the tears wouldn't stop and I had seen enough. I couldn't watch anymore. I am not a parent. I have no connection to anyone in Newtown. But this hit close to home. As I am sure it did for mostly everyone.

As someone who works in a school; a high school in a poor, urban neighborhood, I work with many "at-risk" teenagers everyday. For many of them, school is literally the safest place they are at each day. We don't have metal detectors in our building, but do I think there are kids with knives and guns? Absolutely. But I think they carry them more so for protection to and from school and not for use classmates or teachers. But one never knows. Do we have kids who are not totally mentally and emotionally stable? Absolutely. Do I think a few of them could be capable of something of the magnitude of Newtown? Perhaps. Don't think it hasn't crossed my mind about a few students (and even their family members), but I try not to think about that. Ever. Call me naive, but I'd like to believe that it won't happen at my school. Generally, I feel safe in my building and I would like to think many of my colleauges and students think so as well. But what just happened in Connecticut makes a person really think about safety in schools in general. We have fights in our school decently often, and "luckily" the kids only use their mouths and first. So far. But what's to say it won't escalate to something else? These kids hear gunshot often in their neighborhoods and know people who have been shot and killed by gunfire. It's not unusual for them, but it is something they shouldn't have to worry about while under our roof and in our care. With mass shootings seeming to happen more and more often, what can we do? Is there even an answer? These senseless tragedies need to stop.

In this holiday season, more so than ever, we need to be so thankful for our health and our safety and just offer our deepest sympathies to those who lost their lives, their family members, their friends, and their sense of security this past Friday. Hopefully, one day things will go back to a semi-normal state for them, as much as it possibly can after this tragic event but we know life will never be the same for any of them or anyone in that community as well as educators and parents anywhere. The kids who lost their lives had so much ahead of them, and for the sake of their classmates, let's hope that the world will be become a better place for them to grow up in. Let's hope 2013 will be a hopeful one for all of us and all this madness will stop.