Dave Sanders was the first teacher to haunt me. I would wager that, although you have forgotten him, many teachers could instantly tell you, \u201cHe died in Columbine. His students held up his pictures of his family members as he bled out on the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"liviu\"](\"https:\/\/cynicalchristianlikeyou.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/liviu.jpg?w=300&h=300\")
Liviu Librescu\u2019s name cannot be spoken with enough reverence: a Holocaust survivor, this professor chose to hold his Virginia Tech classroom\u2019s door shut so his students could escape the raging gunman on the other side. Librescu died.<\/p>\n
27 year-old Sandy Hook teacher Victoria Soto hid her small students in a cabinet and then faced down gunman Adam Lanza, telling him her kids were in the gym. Her students\u00a0lived; their teacher died.<\/p>\n
Third-grade teacher Jennifer Doan was pregnant when she heroically shielded her students with her body in a desperate attempt to save their lives. Seven of her twenty kids died. 35%. Gone.<\/p>\n
I can tell you about these teachers\u2013and others like them\u2013because I, too, am a teacher. Like bankers, who keep up with new federal regulations, and chefs, who learn about the latest food trends, teachers are constantly educated, too. We don\u2019t wile away our days making cutsey bulletin boards and singing songs about friendship: we do real work.<\/p>\n
And a large part of that work is making sure your children are safe. And so we continually think about what we would be willing to sacrifice\u00a0for your child<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Before\u00a0Liviu Librescu\u2019s death in 2007, very few American classrooms could be locked from the inside.\u00a0Teachers, during lockdowns,\u00a0had<\/em>\u00a0to go out into the hall and lock their classroom doors.<\/strong>\u00a0Most of us who taught before 2007 did this\u2013grabbed our keys at the principal\u2019s urgent voice, dashed into the hall as quickly as possible, hurriedly locked our\u00a0doors, and ducked back in, saying grateful prayers that we were okay, having done our required duties\u2013and kept your children safe.<\/p>\n My husband, also a teacher, was pulled from his classroom several years ago and told, \u201cThere\u2019s been a bomb threat . . . look around for bombs.\u201d Your children? Safe.<\/p>\n At the same school, he was also told that, if there was a fire, he was to \u201cgo deep into the building to see if any children were left inside.\u201d As a teacher\u2013not a firefighter\u2013he was expected to display this level of de facto heroism. To keep your children safe.<\/p>\n Right now, though, I\u2019m not being brave. I\u2019m at home eating pimento cheese on Ritz crackers in my blue polka-dotted pajamas. School was called off early today because there was a chance of tornadic activity. So far, a drop of rain has not fallen, and\u00a0our school system was ridiculed by a meteorologist on TV in the next major town.<\/strong><\/p>\n That meteorologist has never been in a classroom. Taught 115 kids for 180 days. Pinned their Homecoming boutonnieres on; visited them in hospital rooms after football injuries and\u00a0car wrecks; held their hands in funeral homes after\u00a0their relatives died; videotaped their Promposals, having first been complicit in the hiding of the teddy bears and the Snickers bars.\u00a0That weatherman has never been knee-deep in children.<\/strong><\/p>\n I have been. I am.<\/strong><\/p>\n For those of you who have not been, imagine this: you are single, but have a large brick home, and you are hosting a spend the night party for your son, Johnny. He has invited thirty friends, and they\u00a0all<\/em>\u00a0said yes. Everyone is coming.<\/strong>\u00a0You have assembled a bouncy-house, pre-ordered the pizza, and iced the homemade Power Rangers cake. You\u2019ve rented a party bus to transport them to Chucky Cheese for a night of fun. Imagine, then, just fifteen hours before, you hear that a squall line with 60 MPH winds, large hail, thunderstorms, and perhaps tornadoes too, is likely headed your way.<\/p>\n Your next move, of course, is to cancel the party.<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s a no brainer. If parents insisted on sending their kids before the storm hit, you would lock the doors and hide. You would not let those kids in your house because they\u00a0might<\/em>\u00a0get hurt. You would cancel the bus and forfeit the deposit because\u00a0who wants to be on a bus with children in a tornado??? Who would chance that? Who would make that gamble?<\/em><\/p>\n As a party host, you would assess the risk\u2013you would think about your liability; you would consider how many things could go wrong. You would choose the wiser path.<\/p>\n Sure, a wind shift could result in you eating hypothetical cake alone under a sunny sky while people Facebooked about how foolish you were. However,\u00a0the alternative hypothetical, with your son surrounded by seven of his best friends\u2019 bodies and people still Facebooking about your idiocy\u2013well, that\u2019s too much to bear.<\/p>\n So, know this: of all the heroic teachers listed above\u2013Sanders,\u00a0Librescu, Soto, and Doan\u2013only\u00a0Doan\u00a0could have possibly been spared her trauma.<\/strong>\u00a0Her school system likely had\u00a0two hours\u2019 notice\u00a0before the EF5 tornado flattened Plaza Towers Elementary. \u00a0They stayed.<\/p>\n I\u2019m grateful\u00a0I didn\u2019t have to stay at work today in potentially dangerous conditions. Because I already knew about the pregnant teacher who tried to keep her students safe during a tornado.<\/strong><\/p>\n Who lost seven students.<\/p>\n Who holds a baby in her arms who is named for the student who died\u2013whom she felt die\u2013beneath her palm as they lay together, crushed in the rubble.<\/p>\n Most teachers, like me, already knew about her. Now, you do.<\/p>\n Please, tell me again about how this weather day hurt you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dave Sanders was the first teacher to haunt me. I would wager that, although you have forgotten him, many teachers could instantly tell you, \u201cHe died in Columbine. His students held up his pictures of his family members as he bled out on the floor.\u201d Liviu Librescu\u2019s name cannot be spoken with enough reverence: a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-true-crime"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"ll\"](\"https:\/\/cynicalchristianlikeyou.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/ll.jpg?w=300&h=300\")
I have hidden my autistic elementary school students in a bathroom while an angry man with a weapon roamed the campus. I have had a rib broken and rotator cuff torn by a student. I have been threatened by an angry, belt-wielding parent as I stepped between her and her child. I have dashed out of a prom carrying burning decorations. I have been brave for your kids.<\/p>\n