After another violent attack, I pray for my students and for my strength as we try to learn in the midst of grieving the loss of many. Teachers across the country will pretend to our students that it isn’t on our minds. We will close our classroom doors and think we will be safe; we want to believe we will be safe. Not after Columbine. Not after Virginia Tech. Not after Perry Hall. Not after Newtown. There are many causes of these mass killings – guns, mental health, desensitization and violent images perpetuated in our culture – but there isn’t one solution.
The pain is too much; we want to move toward the future quickly. Already social networks are posting about mundane events. For Newtown, their lives will be anything but mundane. They would trade us a thousand of our minor life “traumas” for their one unimaginable trauma. Let us not let their children’s lives be in vain. Let us stand beside them and say enough. It is time to act in our country. We owe it to our children and to all of the children lost to school violence.
Suzanne Lindsay
Perry Hall