I said I wasn’t going to write about the tragedy at Newtown, Connecticut. But now that Sandy Hook Elementary School has reopened, I hurt for the teachers who survived.
On that day in mid-December when I first heard about the senseless killings, I was stunned. Just like when I turn off the TV or leave the room when a news story is about an abused child, I had to walk away. I listened to the news periodically throughout the day and stayed busy. I knew it would be a day, like 9/11, that I’d remember where I was and what I was doing.
A week or so later, a friend said, “Newtown must have hit you doubly hard since you were a teacher.” We had talked about the children who wouldn’t open Christmas presents. And we wondered how their parents and grandparents would make it through the holidays. We ached for those who’d loss a child, whether student or teacher, on December 14th. But my friend had the insight to allow me to bring other memories and grief to the surface.
I remember when my school first practiced lock-downs. Fire drills and tornado drills were routine. Lock downs weren’t. Lock the classroom door. Herd my students into a corner. Pull down the shades over the windows. If there’s time, cover the twelve-inch square window on the door. And keep everyone in that one corner, along the same wall as the door, where someone couldn’t look through the small window and see us. It was never said aloud – a corner where a bullet shot through the door wouldn’t hit anyone. I huddled my 24 fourth graders into that corner and they learned the term ‘packed like sardines.’ The girls giggled and scratched each other’s noses. The boys wiggled. We learned the secret knock on the door that signaled ‘all clear’ and that it was okay to open the door and carry on with learning about electrical circuits.
Even after four years of retirement, I still miss visiting with teacher friends. Laughing during a hurried lunch. Hearing about a son’s baseball game. A daughter’s gymnastics meet. The funny things a grandchild said.
I can’t imagine the pain that the Sandy Hook teachers are feeling as they stand before their students. They survived a school shooting and lost friends. During my teaching days, our faculty lost two teachers. Tammy to cancer. Marcia in a car wreck. Two young friends who should have had many more years to read aloud their favorite books to children. Teachers who left their mark on students and fellow teachers.
Our faculty mourned together. Questions swirled through my head and heart. Where’s my friend who wanted to borrow the foldout book about the human skeleton to read to her class? Where’s my friend who was planning her daughter’s wedding?
I can’t imagine the questions that haunt the teachers at Sandy Hook School as they carry on, teaching young children. I can’t imagine the horror of a school shooting. I ache for those teachers.
Filed under: Friends, School | Tagged: Connecticut, Friends, Newtown, Sandy Hook Elementary School, School, Teacher | Leave a comment »
Susan Writes 