Anthony Cody, an experienced middle-school teacher in California, regularly blogs at Education Week.
He has won national attention because he writes eloquently, seeks dialogue with those who disagree with him, displays the compassion and sensitivity of an educator, and writes from many years of experience.
Please read his reflections on the heroism of the Newtown educators and what we can learn from them.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It has been difficult to stop crying.
If ever there was a worst nightmare for parents, the tragic events at Sandy Hook Elementary has to be way up at the top of that dreadful list.
But isn’t their worst nightmare really all of ours?
The killer had a gun. A gun so powerful, so capable of shooting so many bullets in so short a time, that the carnage was quick, massive and virtually impossible to stop. The guns, legally purchased by a well-intentioned parent who, even knowing her son was mentally unstable, taught her son to use the guns and then left them accessible to him to then simply, ultimately, became his first victim in that tragic rampage.
The killer enters a school. The home-away-from-home of our nation’s most precious resource: our children. The home-away-from-home of our children’s too-often unsung first responders: our teachers…innocently, unassumingly, hard-at work going about their daily purpose of molding young minds into our nation’s next generation of thinkers, citizens and leaders.
Moments after the killer gained entry, 20 of our beautiful, young, innocent children and 6 devoted educators lost their lives, their liberties and their pursuits of happiness.
Twenty-six families were left with unimaginable voids which will ache in their hearts forever. A nation is sent reeling with horror, outrage and questions unanswered… some, perhaps, unanswerable.
We can express that horror and our outrage and then go about our business. We can say “It’s too tough” and resign ourselves to the notion that if a solution to the gun violence isn’t foolproof and perfect, it’s not worth starting or pursuing.
Or we can finally, once and for all, wake up to the reality that those who want to hunt do not need weapons that spew out bullets at a rate of hundreds per minute. Or need ammo clips that allow death to rise by the dozens without even needing a time out to reload. I understand that kind of rapid-fire requirement on a battlefield. I can understand it in the hands of our police whose job is often to run towards danger rather than away from it. I don’t understand it on the streets of our towns and cities any more than I would understand a person’s “right” to drive a Sherman Tank down those same streets and turn into a school or mall parking lot.
We can never stop doing whatever we must to never allow what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary to happen again. And if steps we take now, like banning assault and automatic weapons along with large capacity ammunition clips, prove not to be 100% effective, then we should do more.
It should never be an option to shirk from our responsibilities as parents to do less simply because one part of the solution is not the entire solution.
Certainly along with, but not instead of, legislation to ban these kinds of weapons, there must be an equally vigorous conversation about mental health issues in our society…including proper insurance coverages. Part of this conversation must be to stop treating mental health disorders as, somehow, less important or deserving of our attention than serious physical health issues.
If it were my child, if it were your child…and the choice was enacting an imperfect solution…imperfect legislation…which, at the moment might only save a single life…and that life was your daughter’s or son’s, would you not pursue…demand that solution…as imperfect as it might be…and then try to make it even better?
It has been difficult to stop crying.
We just lost 26 voices…26 wonderful minds that might have given us, one day, better answers about how to better live together. Think of it as a room full of 26 young children and adults you know and love, butchered in a few minutes.
We can allow their silence to become our silence and simply move on.
Or we can…and I believe we must…use the silence of those 26 souls lost in Connecticut to speak more loudly, more eloquently, and with more determination than ever before.
The choice is now ours.
Either way, silence can be deafening.
David M. Rackow
Father of 4.
School Director
School District of Cheltenham Township
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Wow. Wonderfully written, Mr. Rackow.
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Both teachers and administrators gave their lives to save those young children. In the Huffington Post there was an article yesterday about Lanza. His mother was going to have him committed and she spent a lot of time with kindergarteners. This is helping to explain his motivation for killing his mother and for going for young children. Thanks to Reagan and the sociopathic legislators we have had since then mental health has been cut back and we are paying the price for this.
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First of all, Rosenburg and the like reveal their lack of knowledge about our profession when responding in such an aggressive manner, i.e. Diane step down. She is the greatest source of educational knowledge our country has and may be perceived as a threat to them because she is far more intelligent.
Secondly, how do we keep the memory of these teachers alive, as well as the veritable representation of a teacher?
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Sadly, the “teacher hero” image is already dissipating from the mass media and it’s back to teacher bashing as usual. This week CNN ran a very blatantly misleading article about “California Teachers Owning 6% of Bushmasters.” You can read more about it on my blog, “On Breakups and Bushmasters” (the first part of the blog is mostly for Miami teachers, the second half deals with Bushmasters) http://kafkateach.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/on-breakups-and-bushmasters
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The media is one of the big culprits. It needs to stop! It is pushing great educators out and brainwashing our youth. All of these politicians and philanthropists need to make public note of the Newton tragedy on a regular basis and re-wash the brains of the public, transforming the image of the teacher to its public perception equaled in the 50’s and 60’s.
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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/cardinal-likens-newtown-teacher-jesus-funeral-article-1.1224378
Cardinal Dolan likens Newtown teacher who died cradling a student during massacre to Jesus at her wrenching funeral
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This is making me sad. People who found ways to take umbrage at Diane’s tribute to our sister-teachers possibly have real conflicts that are hurting them. I’m the staunchest advocate of clear line-drawing in substantive matters, but I want to plead for reconciliation in this case. Forgive me, I’m just going to cross-post the comment I made on Anthony’s excellent column:
Valerie Strauss ran this decent and beautiful tribute by Arne Duncan, which was just released:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2012/12/20/arne-duncan-thanks-sandy-hook-educators/?wprss=rss_education
I’m comforted that Duncan was able to claim our brave and loving sister-teachers as his own, by paying heartfelt tribute, and to voice his appreciation for teachers across the country for our work in keeping children safe.
Our communities and social media have, of course, been full of, tributes, appreciation and grief over our loss. I hadn’t realized that education reform advocates were having difficulty mourning, until Rosenberg’s bizarre blowback. I went to many reform blogs and websites today, and found many expressions of disdain and umbrage for Diane’s column, but no expressions of the columnist’s own loss.
I think that’s an expression of an emotional disconnect, wrought by the war these advocates have accidentally declared on themselves, by denouncing teachers so adamantly over the past year.
David, Rick, Alexander, and especially Paul, please take a breath and realize these were your colleagues. We would welcome you to claim them, as I suspect you do in your hearts. Go ahead and grieve with us, and celebrate their lives, their work, and even their sacrifice. We pro-public advocates will welcome you.
You can still go back to attacking the unions, and Diane Ravitch, when you’re ready. Let yourselves grieve, first.
If anyone has found other memorials voiced by “enemies” of public employees, please post links. We should be coming together over this, and comforting each other.
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Re: Corporate “Reformers” (here’s a reminder of some key players with skin in the profit-making game: http://mgmfocus.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/slide1.jpg et al)
They may own a lot of politicians and media, but corporations do not own the hearts of most Americans. So, while they go on attacking teachers, as if Sandy Hook was just a tragic blip, I have hope that parents, who have continued to rate their own children’s schools and teachers high, will begin to take notice and attempt to reconcile the cognitive dissonance between what is reported in the media and their personal experiences with teachers by voicing concern and taking action.
Meanwhile, this is what I wrote on Anthony’s blog, primarily addressed to the corporate sponsored “reformers” of America who continue to target teachers, while our heroic colleagues and their young students are being buried:
It is a common practice for firefighters and police officers, as well as the labor unions representing them, such as the Fraternal Order of Police, to recognize their own and publicly pay homage to colleagues who have fallen while serving the people of their municipalities. Since they work in high-risk jobs, where some will inevitably die in the line of duty, public recognition is usually seen as honorable and well-deserved, even when mourners are adorned with union regalia.
I see no difference when members of other professions and their unions want to acknowledge, claim as their own and honor those in their ranks who have died in the line of work.
The only difference in this situation is most people have never thought much about the risks involved in being a teacher, including for those who go into some of the most dangerous neighborhoods daily, and few have probably ever considered whether teachers are willing to die for the children they serve.
I know that I am not alone when I tell you that many of my fellow career educators and I made the decision long ago that we would be willing to put our lives on the line, in order to protect children. We know that, if we die trying to save our students, there will not be throngs of people organized to honor us and playing bagpipes, but we do not plan to put ourselves in the middle of danger for such posthumous rewards. Quite simply, we have dedicated our lives to the well-being of children and, if necessary, we will die for them.
After our nation’s teaching force has been subjected to so much prolonged ridicule and disrespect, it would be fitting for the public to suspend judgement and step back, as educators and unions publicly express their grief and honor fellow career teachers who died in service to America’s children, without ad hominem attacks.
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The Newtown children are in heaven. This is a is a vision my wife had of heaven yesterday morning, December 20th. When my wife was laying in bed praying, Sandy asked God what Pat was doing on her birthday. Pat was a friend of ours who died this past summer. Pat was in her 80s and yesterday was her birthday. God show her this is a vision of heaven: Pat was much younger and extremely happy. She was dancing along and had one her hand back and was leading a number of children who were in a row holding each other’s hands. It was beautiful in heaven. They were dancing through flowers etc. Then, Pat sat down and the children sat down on the grass in a semi circle facing Pat who begin teaching them. Teaching was Pat’s profession on earth. That was the end of the vision. Next, my wife, got out of bed and started getting dressed. As he was putting her pants, she heard God say “those are the children from Newtown Connecticut. “
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Some more good stuff:
Very glad to see some folks sticking up for us.
From The Daily Howler Blog:
http://tinyurl.com/bom5sds
and
http://tinyurl.com/d5ms92k
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