Commentary
***
My son and I were driving in the car recently. We got stuck in traffic, because the local high school had just wrapped up its graduation ceremony. He didn’t have much to say regarding the graduation itself, but he did decide to tell me what he “knew about high school.”
“Well,” he breathed, “there are bullies, and some people bring guns.”
Oh. That’s it?
I tensed and despaired in a moment of parental guilt, eyes locked forward and fingers gripping ten and two.
Shit, how much of the news did he overhear last week?
Have I not told him about all the cool things ahead in middle and high school?
Eyes on the road!
I came to quickly and rattled off some diddy about how, yes sometimes bullies and guns come to school, but that most high school days are filled with neat classes and clubs and opportunities and even kisses (Jameson is not into this yet, noted by his gag and crossed eyes).
And then, I settled into a general state of anger. I took one hand off the wheel and placed it beneath my chin. The space between my brows tightened and pulled. Same news cycle. Same resentment. Same fumbling for words. Same, same, same.
***
“This is a drill, it is only a drill. Lockdown, lockdown, lockdown. Lights out, out of sight.”
A few of my fifth graders rolled their eyes, irritated with the disruption, while I reached out to close the door. I hate closing the door- it’s too stuffy. I clicked the silver lock button and turned out the lights. Then, I sent up a little prayer that everyone had deodorized that
morning, as my students squashed into each other on the 5×7 tile floor space in the corner of the room.
The word “drill” has given us reprieve. We are used to this, so it always starts in a relatively relaxed state. Usually there is an unexpected and audible passage of gas, after which quiet giggles ensue. Then, there is the shifting and jostling of big bodies until we settle into sustained minutes of quiet.
After a bit, things get a little more serious. Even though we heard “drill,” we begin to wonder: Is it really? This feels kind of long.
Then, they start to ask whispered questions. And even though they have done this drill every other month of their school lives since kindergarten- and even though it is April of their last year of elementary school- and even though I answered most of them in February- the questions are the same:
What do I do if I’m in the bathroom?
What happens if there is more than one?
What happens if they are outside and inside?
What if they pull the fire alarm?
What if they force the office to make a false announcement?
Would you let us use our cell phones?
What happens if they get in here?
Can we throw things?
At some point, we hear keys in the door- a good sign. Our principal and the school resource officer pop their heads in to give us a look-over and then a few words of praise.
And then, we turn the lights on and pick right back up where we left off.
Except we don’t. Because I usually haven’t had the time to answer all the questions yet. And what, if not this, could be more important to our school lives nowadays?
And so, we settle back into our desks where we continue, sometimes for many minutes or halves of hours, asking, designing hypotheticals, and talking.
The most recent discussion is one I particularly remember:
“Mrs. G, if they were in here, like, what would you do? I mean, do you think you might fight? Or, what’s the plan for that?”
Then, a second student, “Would you be scared? How scared? Like, frozen scared?”
I crossed my feet at the ankles. This I know, because I had to pause for a moment to breathe. And think. When I did, I looked down.
When I raised my eyes to meet theirs, they were waiting. Watching. Not a classroom of students. A classroom of children.
They wanted to know.
And though I have no idea how I will respond when faced with this, as no one can truly know, I gave the only response there was. One as honest and as hopeful as I could muster.
“Kids, if you are asking me whether or not I would go Mama Bear on them, the answer is 100 percent, without doubt, yes. Whatever it takes.”
And do you know something? This was weeks before 19 children and 2 teachers were shot and killed in Uvalde, Texas.
***
There are now more guns than people in the United States, somewhere in the range of 393 million. Of course, these are only the registered ones.
If Jameson knew this, I wonder how he’d feel about taking a walk around our neighborhood. Just this morning, I suited him up in his helmet and sent him down the sidewalk on his scooter. He was smiling. His two front teeth are too big for his mouth right now. It’s cute. That helmet’s not bulletproof, though.
I wonder how he would feel if his parents, both teachers, had a gun in their desks at school? Thankfully, this is one mandate I haven’t received. Thankfully, most of us are against this idea.
For now.
I am a mother of children who want to skip and eat popsicles. I want them to be surprised only by the pop of a firework, one that may skip a heartbeat or two and then makes them giggle.
I am a teacher of students who want to grow and work and be silly. When I am in my classroom, I am already responsible for the teaching and the nursing and the counseling and the Q & A of our beautiful children.
I do not want to carry anything more.
***
My high school AP English teacher was a crabby man. Brilliant, but crabby. I think he was crabby from reading so much news.
Before Mr. Moeller, I had never had a teacher use news clippings as mentor texts. Classics like Steinbeck and Dante sure, but never Mike Royko, the sarcastic and polarizing journalist for the Chicago Tribune. I loved it.
Sometime after graduation, I bought the book The Best of Mike Royko: One More Time. Last week, I pulled it out again. I wasn’t looking for anything specific, just had a half hour to read.
On June 6, 1968, Royko wrote a piece called “How About Gun as Our Symbol?”
Here’s an excerpt of his work:
“Maybe it’s time to change the words to our song, to bring it up to date and capture the national spirit:
Oh say can you see by the pawn shop’s dim light
What a swell .38 with its pearl handle gleaming.
In a gun catalog is a telescope sight;
I’ll send for it quick, while the sirens are screaming.
And the TV’s white glare, the shots ripping in air
Give proof through the night that our guns are still there.
Oh, don’t you ever try to take my guns away from me
Because the right to shoot at you is what I mean by liberty.
And why not? We should glorify the gun. It is our national symbol. Who owns an eagle?”
1968.
How much has changed? `
