My
students are in the midst of a five-day weekend, and their well-deserved break
began at about the same minute that a 19-year-old began shooting ex-classmates
and staff at a high school in Parkland, Fla., on Wednesday. It soon became
clear that this was another school shooting with multiple fatalities, yet also
a shooting in which students had used their phones and social media platforms during
the event to document for the world just what a school shooting looks and
sounds like.
I’m
aware that nearly every media platform has been a forum for gun-control debate
over the past four days, and I’m also aware that many students at this Florida high
school have been speaking out, channeling their grief toward gun-control
activism. It’s a teachable moment, so what does a journalism educator do?
First,
you respond to the messages you’re sent. The first journalism student who
reached out to me about the shooting sent an email at 1:30 a.m. on Friday. She
had stayed up late writing a powerful opinion piece about guns in America. I responded
to tell her she had done what she needed to do, which was to get her words down
on paper. I followed up with emails to the editor-in-chief and business managers
to see if they were interested in adding more pages to next week’s paper, in
order to cover this issue. They said they were up for it, and other students
began volunteering to write and lay out pages for our coverage. My advice to
the writers was to do what that first student had done – write what is on their
minds. We’ll have time to do more reporting on this issue in the weeks ahead,
but for now the kids seemed to need an outlet for their emotions.
I have
witnessed the powerful emotions this debate produces. Twenty years ago, I was a
reporter for the Staten Island Advance,
and I was assigned to the gun-debate beat. School shootings were on the rise, and
so were protests. I traveled with a group of protesters to Springfield, Mass.,
the home of gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson. The protesters placed pairs of
shoes belonging to individuals who had died from gun violence in a local park,
then traveled to Smith & Wesson’s headquarters to march.
One of those
protesters had lost her husband to a gun murder, and she had become a nationwide
leader in the cause. Another had lost her son when a neighborhood child got his
hands on a gun left unattended in a home, and accidentally shot the young boy.
This protester told me about her commute to work, and how it took her past the
cemetery in which her son was buried. She would drive into the cemetery each
morning, mourning her son’s death before continuing on her way to work.
I also
interviewed gun advocates at the local sportsmen’s club. As they gathered for
dinner and fellowship, these avid hunters told me what I’ve heard time and
again over the past two decades: Guns don’t kill people; people kill people. I
listened, took notes, and thanked them for their time.
The following
year, two young men shot and killed many of their classmates at Columbine High School
in Colorado, and now school shootings had become part of our national parlance.
I interviewed Staten Island students who had been questioned in their schools
because they, like the Columbine shooters, wore trench coats. They were
confused as to what a coat had to do with gun violence. So was I.
Two months
after Columbine, I left full-time reporting for full-time teaching. My working
life, since the summer of 1999, has been devoted to teaching first, and writing
second. I have taught writing skills to many students, and over the years the
classrooms and schools in which I’ve taught have become more and more protected
from the outside world. The Newtown, Conn., shootings of more than five years
ago led to stricter security in schools across the nation. The school
shootings, however, have continued.
At no time
during these two decades have federal legislators passed any laws regulating
the Second Amendment rights that Americans have. When nothing happened after
Newtown, it seemed as though federal gun regulations were simply an
impossibility. Now we have Parkland, with Snapchat videos documenting the
violence. We have students appearing on the Sunday-morning talk shows to
challenge their legislators.
As an
educator, my job is typically to keep my own political views out of the
classroom. My role is to ask good questions, support students in their journeys
of discovery, and remain present for all voices that arise. I’ve had students conduct
projects on safe gun use, in which they documented the ways in which they and
their parents used guns safely at shooting ranges. I’ve also had students write
passionately about the need for stricter gun control. And just a few months
ago, I helped a student as she wrote a news story about her peers’ views on gun
control, featuring students on both sides of the issue.
When we resume
school on Tuesday, I will remain dedicated to helping my students feel safe and
protected in finding their own voices on this issue. But I also want my
students to feel safe and protected in the literal sense, and that’s where it
becomes difficult for teachers like me to remain truly objective on this issue
of school shootings and guns. I have a very hard time understanding why we can’t
regulate a guaranteed right more closely. Full background checks, a national
gun registry and bans on semiautomatic weapons seem like common sense to me. Laws
like those passed in Connecticut after Newtown seem completely reasonable, and in
keeping with the Second Amendment rights that many Americans treasure.
I’m happy to
share those views with students if they ask. But back in the classroom, I will
encourage them to talk and listen and find their voices. I am a teacher who
views gun control as a must. But I am also a teacher who must support his
students. I’ll start by encouraging my student-reporters to go after it, both
in their opinion pieces and in their own reporting. Their peers in Parkland have
experienced a nightmare, and instead of hiding their heads these teens are
inviting us all to a serious and necessary conversation. I’m going to encourage
my kids to take part.
No comments:
Post a Comment