When a police officer or firefighter dies in the line of duty, colleagues turn out in the hundreds or thousands to attend their funeral or present an honor guard.

Could every school district within 250 miles of Newtown do the same for the fallen teachers and principal and staff?

Could teachers fly in from Chicago and Los Angeles and Boston and everywhere else?

AOL has a story that the loathsome Westboro Church plans to send a delegation to the Sandy Hook Elementary School to “celebrate” the killing.

I don’t begin to understand their warped thinking, but I do know that the rest of us owe a debt to honor our fallen heroes.

>I am a brand new teacher, four months of the job at this point. I like all first year teachers am still trying to figure things out and won’t fully do that for a few years. I did a four year undergraduate degree in which I spent time in a classroom since my sophmore year, and spent my entire senior year in an elementary school setting.

Tragedies like this have happened in my life time that I can remember, but Friday was a completely different feeling now that I have a class of 20 third graders. It has been on my mind since I have heard about it.

To attack teachers or call children assets is absurd at any time, but especially at a time like this.

These corporate reformers say they care about kids, but do they really?

I happened to be at a district PD, in which our presenter happened to spend time doing DRA training in Sandy Hook. I sat in a room with parents and teachers of all experience levels when we heard the news. Tears came from all of us. Our PD ended early and I thankfully forgot something at school.

I could have waited till I go in on Sundays to get it, but I just wanted to see my students and make sure they were ok. So I went back I quickly checked in with the sub and got a few hugs from my kiddos.

Mine were ok. I wish I could say the same thing about those from Newton.

I work in a title I building and so many of our kids do not get the services they need, we must do something about this as a society. We are better than this as a country.

I tell my kids frequently that they are safe in our classroom. Monday morning I will tell them that I care about them and love coming to school to teach them everyday, but its going to be hard to honestly say you are safe when they all live in a neighborhood with frequent shootings.

Dear Diane,

It has been wonderful reading all those reflections from your readers. Thank you so much for offering such a space for social dialogue.

In “America’s Teachers: Heroes or Greedy Moochers at the Public Trough?” (http://www.nationofchange.org/america-s-teachers-heroes-or-greedy-moochers-public-trough-1355674260), Dave Lindorff quotes a man demonizing public school teachers “in an attitude all too typical of many Americans’ thinking” and questions:

“Some of those ‘non-revenue-generating’ unionized teachers, and the school’s non-revenue-generating principal, just died defending those kids. I wonder if their tax-obsessed critics would have done the same?”

Reading this article made me think of how important it is to build teaching profession that celebrates teachers who think of teaching as their life work… rather than a simple stepping stone for their career. The message of those brave Sandy Hook teachers is clear: “We will never leave you and always fight for you.”

What kind of teachers do we want as a society?

Daiyu Suzuki
Doctoral student, Teachers College
Co-founder of Edu4

Aside from an overly permissive gun culture and underfunded mental healthcare system, I can’t help but wonder if this climate of teacher-bashing and public school bashing in which many of our political leaders partake regularly, is to some degree a variable in the aggression, hatred and violence that have been directed at our schools’ students and staff. Can we get a moratorium from our politicians to stop bashing public schools and teachers?

(Amen to that! Diane)

Diane,

I didn’t know any of the victims personally, and I feel sick to my stomach thinking about the tragedy at Sandy Hook. I can’t even begin to imagine what the families are going through.

So many people are offering a definitive prescription, a monolithic cure-all that will magically stop this violence and make our children safer. Few people seem to be really listening.

Perhaps we need a more holistic examination – consideration of all possibilities, including gun control, mental health care, education, the role of pharmaceuticals, family, relentless violence in popular media, foundational values of our nation, the deification of the deeply disturbed people who commit these crimes.

I don’t know the answer, but I am encouraged by the discussion that is taking place.

Thank you for your beautifully articulated post, and thank you for encouraging dialogue instead of monologue. I am listening.

Unfortunately some children are born broken. At this time that appears to be the case with the shooter. We see children like him every day. They come in the doors at five years old and we know. We do our best but most can never be fixed. We support them and nurture them and hope the next level of educators will do the same. Tragically for all in this terrible instance, this young man remained broken. The horror is
unfathomable.

David A. Gamberg, the superintendent of schools in Southold, New York, wrote these reflections.

Adam Lanza had high test scores, presumably the kind of student that would help a teacher be rated as “effective,” but so what? Something was missing. A heart? A soul?

Gamberg understands that the values of our society are warping our schools. He writes:

“…barely said a word, but earned high marks.”

These are the words of a classmate of Adam Lanza. A very bright educator once told me that no one goes through high school unaffected, and that our job is to realize the impact that we have with all of our students.

The unspeakable horror of the events in Connecticut is beyond both words and comprehension. It is far too early to know the root cause, let alone the reason for such a heinous act of violence against the innocence of beautiful young children. There will undoubtedly be a careful re-examination of how we need to look at gun violence in America. The need for this conversation is long overdue. Others will point to enhancing the security of the schoolhouse, rather than enhancing the awareness of one another.

There will, however, be no way to secure the future of kindergarteners through technical fixes—be that increased security of elementary schools, or ways to measure the outcomes of our students attending our middle and high schools who are being called upon to race to the top of the world. Enhancing civility, and restoring our humanity to the ways we live our lives is not a measurable commodity.

The pervasive and intense focus on testing and accountability in education today comes with a very hidden price—it draws our attention away from the broader agenda for educating our youth, to create the conditions necessary for more than just tolerance; but also the aspiration to build a society of thoughtful, civil citizens who help one another, not because it is part of a rubric, but because it is the right thing to do.

Somewhere in the equation of what we must do to prepare our children for their future is to help them experience a deeper sense of discovery as to who they are, and how we each find a unique pathway into the world, inclusive of but not exclusively through a vigorous academic experience. Caught in the vise of competing against one another to win the competition for the highest score on teacher evaluations and push our student to obtain better results, we forget to take the time to listen to those students who “barely say a word.”

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.

The statement by the Connecticut governor, though well-intended, indicates part of the problem we are dealing with: “Evil visited this community.” Such a viewpoint externalizes the problem, when we need to be looking in the mirror. The “evil” comes from within our culture, and will not be solved by better security. As several commenters above have noted, the issue is really one of connectedness. The NRA is a symptom, not a cause. The cause is the violence within us, which will erupt time and time again until we face up to the glorification of violence that permeates our culture. I would encourage your readers to revisit a wonderful poem by Longfellow, “The Arsenal at Springfield,” that shows just how far astray we have gone.