I am an educator of 25 years. We had just practiced a lockdown at our Michigan School ironically at the same time this was taking place…9:30am. It sickens me that this happened at a school that had a system in place. The young man who did this had mental illness. Why then would a mother have 5 or 6 guns of this nature in the house and even let him know they were there or where the ammo was? We need stricter laws! I think for one there needs to be a limit on the number that can be in any household. Secondly, I do not think that anyone should have semi or automatic weapons other than the military or law enforcement officials. Hunters don’t need or use glocks to put down a deer. Furthermore, no one but law enforcement and the military needs bulletproof vests. Many of these mass shooters wear this gear so as not to be shot and to do massive damage. They would think twice about entering a place be it a school or movie theater (like Aurora) without their protection, for they want to choose to take their own lives. It is all about control with them. It would be way easier to stop them sooner without the protective wear.
In Michigan legislation is being passed that allows guns in schools. I am appalled and writing our Governor to ask him, in light of this horrific situation, to veto it. Our classrooms are supposed to be warm and caring places. I cannot feel that or safe if I know there is a gun in the room, or worse if I am ever asked to pack one. That is sheer craziness! As a mother, my heart goes out to the parents who lost their children, and the parents who didn’t, for they must comfort their traumatized children and help them heal.They have healing to do themselves. As an educator, my heart goes out to the school psychologist, teachers and principal who so bravely gave their lives to protect their kids and staff. They and the teachers who consoled and protected the surviving children are true heros! This is a small community where everyone knows everyone. They will all be forever changed by this horrific event, but I hope they will find strength in each other as they heal.
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Not one word written will bring one precious child or one magnificent education
professional adult murdered in Newtown, Connecticut, back to their families or to the world in which they made a difference and had so many dreams. Instead, they are free of the pain felt by those that loved them and others who care. A nation will now collectively have to grapple with the reality of the crime and the dissection of how to make sense and enhanced changes for the living. All that can be offered for the grieving are condolences and the hope they can survive this tragedy.
There is a commercial on television that illustrates that Depression is painful. It is
isolating and numbing. One of the worse ways to hurt another person is to ignore
them and humiliate them. As an advocate for the disabled, especially the mentally
ill and neurologically challenged, I see how they are taunted, ignored or isolated,
bullied and punished by the presumably normal and supposedly higher level
people, by children and adults alike throughout their lives. Often those that
are different are shunned and endure the insult of life filling them with hurt,
sorrow, sometimes rage and lots of pain.
This transcends from mild to severe disabled whether identified or not.You can be in a crowded room and be alone, especially if there isn’t anyone trained to identify the struggling learner or worker. Compound that with a brain wired without social intelligence or empathy, and yet an intellect that can learn content and absorb information, and you have the potential for a tortured and misunderstood individual. Not understood by normal family or community but asked to survive as though they are like everyone else. They are not.
Over and over I read where there were quotes about, Adam Lanza, the young man
who murdered so many, that he could not feel pain either physically or mentally.
This is a presumption unknown to anyone else other then himself and by his very
act denotes that he either was filled with pain and wanted to enact pain on others, or wanted to kill them to take them out of the world filled with pain as he may have known it. The guns gave him power to do either and also brought him recognition. We will never be able to know what was in his head (unless he wrote a journal). But we
know what he did and we should be alerted to the needs of the mentally challenged.
Reading the varied quotes and conversations about this nightmare by others from all types of backgrounds has been illuminating. From civility to insanity, the rage of some to the forgiveness of others, the pain of all palpable. The most disturbing are those who
want to find blame by punishing others and being sanctimonious and presuming to
speak for and through God. In nature things can go wrong and altered brains and
behavior can and will continue to happen. How to divert or help minimize these
tragedies is now the question and finding the answer should be the quest. Whether
it is a mass murder, or where the numbers grow by building one on one through
street crime (like where I work in in an Urban environment), and people are maimed
and lives changed, we need to change. There are enough gun laws to sink a ship and that need to be enacted, However, there is not enough information, services and resources for the mentally ill and their families.
Inclusion before readiness was in my opinion, the stepping stone to open
the door towards an abandonment of the public school system for the market
share corporate initiative of the Charter school movement. Corporate and
government are looking for the value added learner without problems as the
global worker for both. The golden days of special education identification and accommodation are gone or near gone, and the why is a simple matter of follow the money and the change in a badly or deliberately manipulated economy where the money has evaporated or been moved to other uses. Schools have always kited
special education funds to other uses within their needs and it has always
been grossly underfunded by the Feds and the states. Ignoring the tsunami
of neurologically involved citizens, whether children on the Autistic Spectrum or Vets
returning from global wars, we would be fool hearty not to put funding back
towards helping and working with these human beings. Community should demand
for the protections and human dignity of every person that we proceed with reasonable
and measurable goals and objectives when looking for answers to violence and
reasonable societal behavior. Some fail safes are still possible but there will never
be a full safe world to live in. That is reality. For now and always our hearts ache.
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