I'm heading back to school to start a new year. Two nights ago, I woke up at 3:30 and couldn't get back to sleep. It was the night before the first day of school, and I had had one of those back to school dreams. Only this wasn't one of the usual ones where I show up on the first day and have none of my papers run off and no plan of what to do, or where I find out they've moved me to the auditorium with 60 kids who don't give a damn that I'm talking to them. No, this one was a first and it took my breath away.
This one was about a school shooting.
I have never in 13 years of teacher dreams dreamed of a school shooting and it was a little horrifying.
It reminded me of some real talks I had to have this past school year, both at home and in my classroom. On Valentine's Day, 17 people were killed at a high-school in Florida. You and your brother asked questions about the things you heard your dad and I talking about, and I tried to answer those questions without scaring you. And that is such a thin line. I do not want you to be scared to go to school. I do not want you to be scared for your dad and I to go to school. But- the truth is it's a potentially scary place.
One day a couple of weeks after the shooting, my students asked me: "If you were a receptionist in the front office and someone came in with a gun and told you to tell everyone to go to the gym, would you do it?"
My first reaction was of course not, but these are inquisitive teenagers and as the saying goes, "you can't bullshit a bullshitter", so I took a second to think of a better answer, because no, I would not send a school full of children to their deaths, if I could help it. They took my silence as an answer, immediately assuming that answer was yes.
Finally, I said no. No, I would hope in that moment I could think of something that I could say over that intercom that would let the rest of the school know what was going on without getting me instantly killed.
They didn't believe me. "Why wouldn't you just do it?" they asked.
"Because then you all would get hurt," I told them. You would have thought I spoke another language from the looks on their faces.
"I know you are 14 and 15," I explained, "but you are still kids."
One girl rolled her eyes and said she hates when grown-ups say that.
"No," I continued. "I don't mean you aren't smart or mature or capable of making decisions. I mean you are someone's child."
"And you're someone's mother," a girl up front reminded me, as if that one fact doesn't drive every moment of my life.
I nodded. That's why I wouldn't do it. I went on to explain. "Every day I send my babies to school, and I can't be there to protect them. I trust that their teachers and the adults in their school would do everything in their power to save them, if necessary. Your parents have entrusted me with the same task."
"You would do that?" they asked, and again I nodded.
You see, Irie, I never want to leave this world, not as long as you and your brothers are in it. And I sure as hell never thought these were questions I would have to answer when I declared secondary education as my major. And if it all hits the fan one day, I may pee myself and cry for my mama- but I would like to believe I'm made of tougher stock than that. I love you and your brothers, and I know someone loves my students just as fiercely, and most days I even love them a little bit too :) I hope I never have to find out how far I would go to save them, to send them back home to their parents, but I don't think I could live with myself any other way.
Which brings me back to my dream.
I wasn't in any actual school that I have ever been in, but the students were ones I have taught, and, in the dream, you and your brothers were somewhere in the building without me.
I heard the shots as I stood outside the cafeteria, and I knew instinctively what they were and that I needed to hide. Only, there was nowhere to hide. I helped those that I could get away and then I just crouched, praying that I wouldn't be seen. But as the gunman got closer, and my position exposed, I knew it was no use. He looked down at me, this student that I have taught and laughed with, and he held a huge gun in his hand. "She taught Chin," some other voice said, "she was good to him." The shooter nodded, fired a random shot off to the side of me and kept walking. I turned and watched as they continued on their way and another kid high-fived them and then they were captured.
I got up from my spot and ran to the doors just as children came pouring out. In that group was your older brother. I collapsed on the ground and pulled him into my arms and wept as I rocked him, repeating "I am so sorry. I am so sorry." Because although he was physically unharmed, it was not my doing. I had not kept him safe. Sometime while I rocked him, he morphed into your younger brother who will start kindergarten next week, and I cried even harder. Five-year-olds don't know anything about school shootings or intruder drills, but that will all soon change.
I woke up and looked at the clock. 3:32 glared back at me. I used to not be able to sleep the night before school started back, because I was so excited about what the year would bring or slightly worried about teaching those 60 kids in the auditorium. I've never been worried that I won't be able to reach you and your brothers when you need me or that I might not be able to get someone else's kids to safety. These were not things I thought of in 2005 when I walked into my first high school classroom, but 13 years, 3 kids and too many school shootings to count have changed the way I see the world.
I don't share this to scare you. I feel safe in my school. I have felt safe in every school I have ever taught in, but I won't lie and say the thought doesn't linger in the back of my mind, or that I don't scan rooftops and tree lines during fire drills.
And I will forever be sorry that I haven't been able to make this world a safer place for all my children (both biological and scholastic).
Love,
Mama
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