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It happened again. 17 dead.


It happened again. 17 dead.

I heard about the latest school shooting while at school. My stomach fell as I read the subject line of my email, unwilling to open it up and learn the particulars. The lock down drill we did at school the day before still fresh in my mind. "Ms. Robertson, what's going on?" Sixth graders don't often pay close attention to the words coming over the intercom. She just heard "lock down" and knew what she needed to do. I heard the fear in her voice. "It's just a drill," I told her. Immediately, her body relaxed. During the five minutes or so a drill takes, the scenario that goes through my mind is what would I do if it was not a drill.

Yesterday, at Stoneman Douglas High School, it was not a drill. I cannot even imagine the chaos that ensued once it was realized that the fire drill was more about killing than saving lives. 17 students and teachers combined lost their lives yesterday at the hands of a broken young man who just wanted to kill. I do not want to spend any time talking about him or the reasons behind it. Instead, I want to share my story. That of a teacher no longer wondering if something like this "could" happen at my school, but rather, "will" it happen.

I remember Columbine like it was yesterday. The video of the students fleeing the school are forever etched in my memory. I was a teacher for students in a behavioral classroom at the time. It was a horrendous event that was worlds away from my little classroom in rural Maine. I was no stranger to violent students. In only five years of teaching, I had experienced a knife being held to my throat, broken up fights between students twice my size, and endured profanities being slung my way. Even as I saw the memorials on television, it didn't seem real.

Fast forward to Sandy Hook. I learned about that school shooting at school when I walked into the teacher's room and saw one of my colleagues in tears. Her sobs still ring in my ears as she told me about the five and six year olds who were shot. I cried along with her even as I questioned why someone would kill innocent children. I later learned some of the stories behind the faces, like the teacher who sacrificed her life by telling the gunman her students were at gym.

There have been many school shootings in between the two. Yet, it is the two mentioned above that will be with me forever. Sitting here writing this, I realized I made connections with people from both schools after the tragedies. In 2008, I worked with Craig Scott, the sister of Rachel Scott killed at Columbine, on a short film he was making about bullying. I never did see the film. However, to be part of his healing process will stick with me forever. A couple of years ago at an Ultimate Life Summit, I met Jack Wellman, 2013 Sports Illustrated Kid of the Year, who used to mentor one of the kids that was killed at Sandy Hook.

I have no connections that I know of to anyone affected by yesterday's school shooting. And, yet, I have turned quiet and morose in a way I didn't for the other shootings. Tonight, on my walk, I sat by the lake. Still and silent as the sun set. Thinking of so many whose lives have been changed forever. Tears flowed.

Teaching has always been a passion of mine and continues to be so, but I have grown tired. It goes without saying that teachers are not treated as professionals the way many others with a degree are. I may not like it, but I accept it. What I do not accept is our children living in fear of if their school will be the next one targeted. Something needs to be done. I do not know what the answer is. I just know I will continue to love and comfort my students, even those who are not officially mine, but gravitate my way.



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