I am so deeply appreciative of the above postings. In different ways many of them underscore the importance of “connections.” But connecting takes time and effort and patience and sometimes, even wisdom. So please remember what a blessing “Diane Ravitch’s blog — A site to discuss better education for all” has been and continues to be for so many of us.

Each person will deal with what happened in his/her own way. I simply offer this as my reaction. The staff at the school set a good example for all of us. They were caught up in what could have been a paralyzing fog of gunshots, terror, uncertainty, and confusion. It would have been so easy to lost their bearings. Instead they put the well-being of others before their own and took action, some of them paying the ultimate price. Heroes all, not because they were fearless but because they faced their fears even under such daunting circumstances.

We can do no less fighting for a “better education for all.”

Reading the New York Times article about Adam Lanza, the alleged Sandy-Hook killer, I’m in pain at how cut off from the humanity this boy was. Possible Asperger’s syndrome, no picture in a high-school year book, child of a dissolving marriage, living in a suburban box of a home. One quote by a former high-school classmate cut home: “I think that maybe he wasn’t given the right kind of attention or help. I think he went so unnoticed that people didn’t even stop to realize that maybe there’s actually something else going on here — that maybe he needs to be talking or getting some kind of mental help. In high school, no one really takes the time to look and think, ‘Why is he acting this way?’ ”

In the wake of these shootings, my immediate wish after this horror is for America to focus on reaching out to the abandoned people of the country.

I’m completely in favor of gun control, would gladly pay for better mental health care and wouldn’t mind less media violence. But, for me, the crying need is for connection. I think the most important thing in common among the countries who DON’T suffer these tragedies is community. Switzerland and Israel have guns; Germany has mental health care, Japan not so much: but all these places have intact, face-to-face societies where many people DO take the time to look and think. More about why this is so important in a second.

America can be such a lonely place — for men, particularly. I found this out when I got testicular cancer. There were more than 1,000 support groups for the female equivalent cancer (breast cancer) but not a single one for men. This observation isn’t meant to stir up gender strife; it’s just to point out that, for whatever reasons, men here don’t do a great job of helping each other in times of trouble.

Even the thinnest strands of human connection can lessen acts of violence. Those of you know about the famous Milgram Shock Experiments (Google it, if you don’t – but beware that films are disturbing.) probably are aware that authorities were able to convince about half of the population to deliver potentially lethal doses of electricity to strangers. What doesn’t get as widely broadcast is that any form of contact between perpetrator and victim radically reduced the level harm. That is to say, if the perpetrator knew the victim’s name, he or she didn’t “kill” as much. If the perpetrator touched the victim’s hand, he or she didn’t “kill” as much.

How can we — that is, Americans — better get to know and care for each other? Christian scolds like Mike Huckabee are offensive but they are probably if inadvertently right that regular attendance at a religious institution would help.

But you where and how it can happen even better?

In schools. Especially public schools.

Public schools are where kids first meet the world. If the world is kind enough to meet them right back, it can make all the difference. But is there a more lonely place in the universe than a lonely school?

I can’t tell you the number of outliers I’ve talked to over 25 years of teaching. But I can tell you that I have tried to take the time to talk with them regularly, introduce them to like-minded students, create safe, rewarding environments for them, and nudge them toward better habits. The letters and calls they send back, years later, makes me think that it might have done some good. Please understand, I’m not making any kind of arrogant boast about being able to have help Mr. Lanza and his victims. I just think that schools are institutions of social connection and that, along with so many other institutions in the USA, they can help.

I can also tell you that it’s EXACTLY this kind of human contact that the so-called school reform movement is trying to eliminate. Every time, some pompous politician declares that schools should be run like businesses, the fat that he’s talking about cutting is the “chewing the fat,” that makes schools warm places. Every extra standardized test and time-sucking set of “professional development” sessions and “implementation” periods slices the potential for teacher-student contact, too. And every one of those bell-shaped curves we fit over out students puts them in competition, not connection, with each other.

The word I’ve been using over and again here is “connection.” Now that I’m finishing, I realize that connection was a polite cover-up. The word I really mean — why was I so embarrassed to use it? — is love. What if Adam Lanza had felt loved? I think that would have made a big difference. Love comes primarily from family — but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us can’t throw more into the pot. I’m a teacher because it seems to me to be a way to create more love in the world. Schools, in my opinion, should nurture love.

That, yesterday, a school in America became a place of death leaves me in agony. But now that this unforgivably long monologue is over – I’m so sorry, guys — my response will be to get back in there and love more.

Perhaps the best and easiest forum for connection will become social media?

Your monologue winds through your thinking until you get it just right at the end…what the world needs more of is… love. Pure and simple. Human connection.

I agree that the reform pundits wish to focus on the bottom line at becoming #1 in the world instead of putting our children and families #1. That is a risk our country is not prepared for.

Schooling’s purpose is to grow decent, civilized citizens who will contribute to the world in honorable, productive ways, giving back to each new generation.

Nowhere can I find that it is a competition for world rankings. As usual, happiness is in our own backyards, not at the mercy of what others who want us to believe power and prestige will make it so.

Maybe the first thing we can do, tonight, is set the dinner table, perhaps more decorative than usual, and sit down with our families and begin a dialogue about what is important in life.

Let it begin with me, you, us…one day at a time. Wouldn’t it be something if recovery began with bringing the family meal back into vogue. It’s where we all began with good intentions but were so easily distracted by things that really don’t matter.

I love the phrase “You matter in the world”. Do our kids hear that often enough?

Diane, I feel broken. Ms. Soto, the heroic teacher from Sandy Hook, was exactly my age. People in their late 20’s don’t have to consider their own mortality on a regular basis, and this has me quite shook up. I keep pondering whether I’d be as brave as she was, or if I would think of my own daughter and hide right along side the students.

A colleague and friend made an interesting observation Friday. She said that as high school teachers, we have it in the back of our minds that something like this could happen. We know the secret exits through the school and have hiding spots in our classrooms, complete with window blockers. It’s a scary concept, but we’re somewhat prepared.

Not one of my elementary school teacher friends has a plan in place for a catastrophe of this magnitude, and why should they? This is unprecedented. Since Columbine, this has been a high school/college problem. As demented as this sounds, I’m sickened that now even babies have to worry about deranged gun men in their schools.

There is a deep calling in educators to place the lives of their students before their own lives. It is in our DNA and, in times like these, we see this spirit of sacrifice in a totally different light. But it is in each one of us that teaches.

Teaching is a noble profession and I weep for the babies and the teachers who lost their lives.

From a principal:

In a school year I typically have about 6-8 of my elementary students who spend time in mental health treatment facilities. These children are 9-12 years old. One left my school in an ambulance this week. We do our best with these disturbed children, but I feel like it’s a bandaid on a gaping wound. It is time for these conversations. My heart aches.

Diane, if you read this, may I suggest you check out this YouTube rendition of Cheryl Wheeler’s song, “If It Were Up to Me” from her album, “Sylvia Hotel” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op7agdIFOGY . Every time one of these mass shootings occurs, one of my first thoughts is Wheeler’s song, which should be the anthem of gun control advocates. In a time when nobody seems to care about folk singing any more, Ms. Wheeler stands out as a remarkable, albeit lonely, voice.

Anthony Cody struggles to make sense of the tragedy, as do we all.

Anthony quotes Fred Rogers, who remembered his mother’s advice:

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.”

Who are the helpers? The millions who dedicate their lives to nurturing and educating children.

Shame the “Cowardly ones among us [who] accuse these people, who work to fight inequity, of being the very reason such inequities exist.”

“Where was security at the school? How did he ‘execute’ so many? Do we need armed guards and metal detectors always?”

He shot his way in, apparently. I’m not sure what one can do about that other than harden the school like a military installation, but I don’t think that’s what we want schools to be like.