Teacher Appreciation Week and School Shootings

As most of you know, except for 13 months of traveling and a year and a half of graduate school, I was a teacher for over 40 years, from 1966 until 2009.  For most of that time, I had no real fears about going to work.  I did take a knife off of a middle school student once, but he gave it up willingly.  That all changed with the shootings at Virginia Tech.  Suddenly, going to work was fraught with real anxiety.  I would drive to Big Stone Gap pondering what I would do if a shooter came into my classroom.  In my mind, I rehearsed various scenarios, all of which were useless, I knew.  I was terrified for the lives of my students and colleagues.  Students that I would otherwise not have worried about caused me to wonder if they were capable of such an atrocity.  Never did it completely leave my mind.  When I was able to retire, I did so happily, knowing that those fears, and the awesome responsibility of perhaps being a teacher in a classroom under siege would be over.  

In today's Washington Post, there is a heart-wrenching letter from Rich Ognibone, a 2015 National Teacher's Hall of Fame inductee.  I ask you to thoughtfully consider his letter. 

Letter from Teacher of the Year

What should happen to curb this violence?  I think it is important to look at the research on what actually works.  There is so much emotion about this on both sides.  It is important to move forward in ways that will actually help solve the problem. See this excellent article for some common-sense guidelines:

Article from Washington Post reviewing research on gun violence