I’m not sure where to begin. Yesterday there was another school shooting in Florida. I wish I could say it doesn’t affect me, but it does. It brings up difficult memories that I wish I could forget. It’s on days like this that my mind is filled with the memories of Dale Regan’s murder on my school campus and how surreal it still seems. Dale was our head of school and a recently dismissed faculty member carried a gun in a guitar case onto campus. He entered her back door which she kept unlocked as she was always welcoming and it was just another room along a classroom hallway.
I sit here now in a new school at my desk beside a window and wonder about the future. My new school is under heightened security - which means all classrooms should be kept locked. However, every classroom has windows and someone could come around the corner outside and a window is not much protection.This school, as was my last school, is not completely fenced in at all sides. But would that matter? Couldn’t someone jump a fence if so desired, like the shooter at my last school? Who would notice? No one noticed him. He walked clear across the football field and no one noticed. Should schools become like prisons to keep the bad guys out? Kids already feel like they are in prison when they come to school, or at least the high school kids do because for some, it's the last place they want to be. Some think we should outlaw guns. At this point, would that even matter when there is such an entrenched black market for most anything you want to buy?
As I’m writing this I realize I have some sadness about me that will never go away. Students today have lost the innocence of childhood. Teachers not only have the job of teaching their students the general studies, but also to protect them from dangerous people. Some think that it wouldn't happen to them. I thought that once too.
I sit here now in a new school at my desk beside a window and wonder about the future. My new school is under heightened security - which means all classrooms should be kept locked. However, every classroom has windows and someone could come around the corner outside and a window is not much protection.This school, as was my last school, is not completely fenced in at all sides. But would that matter? Couldn’t someone jump a fence if so desired, like the shooter at my last school? Who would notice? No one noticed him. He walked clear across the football field and no one noticed. Should schools become like prisons to keep the bad guys out? Kids already feel like they are in prison when they come to school, or at least the high school kids do because for some, it's the last place they want to be. Some think we should outlaw guns. At this point, would that even matter when there is such an entrenched black market for most anything you want to buy?
As I’m writing this I realize I have some sadness about me that will never go away. Students today have lost the innocence of childhood. Teachers not only have the job of teaching their students the general studies, but also to protect them from dangerous people. Some think that it wouldn't happen to them. I thought that once too.
RSS Feed