The fear of school shootings has forced one teacher to quit the profession she loves most.
I was born and raised in Washington, D.C. and over the years, I’ve had to develop a pretty thick skin as it relates to dealing with stressful events. Having lived through three weeks of sheer terror during the “Beltway Sniper” attacks – I later found out my daughter’s school was on his manifesto – ducking and dodging invisible bullets, to the events of September 11, 2001 when an airplane crashed into the Pentagon a mere 4 minutes after I had crossed the 14th Street Bridge – and I was trapped at work for hours – there are only two ways to get from Virginia to Maryland and both are across bridges which were shut down as F16’s flew overhead. My nerves, to say the least, are a bit frayed when it comes to terrorism.
Public mass shootings are on the rise in our country, that is an undisputable fact, and the attacks on college campuses are becoming far too frequent.
I think it would be safe to say anyone who attends college, anyone who has children or relatives attending college, has probably had the thought run through their mind…what if?
“The truth is, I have no strategy, no plan, no way out, no way to protect my students.”
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As both a mother and a college professor, the thought has run through my mind often. When I became a teacher, I did so to open the minds of young people and show them a world they had never seen or experienced before. Tackling hard issues of our society, I find great pleasure when I see the lightbulb click on when a student suddenly sees something new for the first time.
That was before students and teachers became targets.
When I am in the classroom, I find myself planning exit strategies (which, there not many options as the doorway is the one way in and the one way out of the room…besides windows which would be impossible to break through in a dire situation) and “what if” scenarios in my mind. The truth is, I have no strategy, no plan, no way out, no way to protect my students. My classroom is situated off the main door off the main corridor and is the first classroom upon entering the building. In a dire situation, we would be sitting ducks, literally and at Purdue. Even though were exit strategies in place apparently the teacher and students were not able to lock the doors because they required a key to do so.
The college I work for has not trained us, not informed us what to do in such a situation and lately I cannot help wondering if it could happen to us if a disgruntled student, faculty member or staffer decided to go on a rampage one day.
After reading about the professors’ reactions and behaviors at Purdue University, I was appalled. Some accounts contradict others but this much is clear: under no circumstances is going against campus protocols acceptable. Nor is a rule that MANDATES students to remain in classrooms (for any reason) logical–I don’t care how prestigious your school is.
Some of those students feared for their lives but feared the repercussions of leaving the classroom even more. From a comment on Purdue Review:
Barron B: Yup, all the doors while I was at WSU required a key to lock. The big rooms though could have easily been barricaded using straps from peoples backpacks.
Though if I had been that guy’s TA I would have gone off on him in front of everyone and then beat his ass so I could get the key. Frankly that is what the students should have done. Giving orders for others to fall on your sword so you can do something stupid should be met with lethal resistance.
“Teaching wasn’t supposed to be a hazardous-pay, high-risk job. After this semester, I am leaving my position. The unknown is just too scary and the pay, at my level, is simply not worth it.”
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The other problem is many professors would work to get you thrown out of school for “challenging their authority/stupidity.”
I’d rather be thrown out than be dead, but most of those adults have been brainwashed their whole lives. None wants to be the first one to step out of line. However, once the first does many more will follow. This is the result of our current educational system.
On my campus, security responds when I call them. Only once have I had to have one student removed from my class and for the rest of the semester I was nervous about that, wondered if he would retaliate – he just seemed to be a kid who had that potential. I had my husband and a couple of male friends wait for me outside the classroom on the last day of class, just in case.
Teaching wasn’t supposed to be a hazardous-pay, high-risk job. After this semester, I am leaving my position. The unknown is just too scary and the pay, at my level, is simply not worth it. Not worth the price of my life. It may never, ever happen to me but then again, a man hiding in the trunk of a car taking pot shots at people and planes flying into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were once unfathomable.
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–Photo: Mays Business School/Flickr
Human beings are notoriously bad at predicting which threats are more common and which ones are rare. Even with clear, accessible statistics, people rarely have a good handle on where the most likely dangers come from. Common dangers are practically invisible, and incredibly unlikely ones get a lot of attention. Yes, the human brain is supposedly good at noticing patterns, but it’s often not very good at distinguishing between common and uncommon. The intensity of our fears have nothing to do with the probability of them coming true. An American adult is probably 10,000 times more likely to die from… Read more »
Oh now you’ve opened another can of worms. While I don’t smoke any longer, I did smoke when John Muhammed, the Beltway Sniper was on the loose. I remember being at work and outside smoking while hiding behind a column hoping that bullet didn’t have my name on. But then again, practically everyone in this region was doing that.
I have read these comments and truly appreciate all them. I believe there is truth in what you say about media over-stimulation. That added to PTSD from the other “terror” related incidents I’ve experienced (I forgot to include the first ever earthquake that struck our area a year ago) and I’m probably a prime candidate for a counselor’s couch.
Thank you for the empathy in your comments as well.
I feel like you may have fallen victim to media over stimulation. News writers know that stories about attacks will gain more attention and thus give them more screen time. Couple this with the minds proclivity to remember negative things better and more vividly than positive things, and effectively you can easily become awash in a spiral of negative thinking. By allowing yourself to become trapped in the “what-if” world you just might be missing out. If all you are ever focused on is “What if I get into a car accident?”, are you ever going to drive again? The… Read more »
Driving is a good analogy. She is in much greater danger while she’s driving to the school than she is when she’s at the school. Students with alcohol are a much greater danger to her safety than students with guns. (Though they could be both drunk and armed.) You are probably much more likely to be killed by a student driving drunk than by a student with a gun.
Despite media attention, hard as it is to believe, school is still statistically one of the safest places to work. On average, it’s probably 10 times safer for students than their own homes are, and classrooms are far safer than their dorm rooms or off-campus housing. In terms of rampages, you won’t find any job dealing with large groups of people that is immune from insane, violent people.