I'm finding it extremely hard to process this week's events. Here's the details:
Tuesday afternoon, there was a shooting at the mall about 10 minutes from my apartment. 2 victims died, 1 was sent to the hospital in serious condition, and the shooter also killed himself.
This was hard for me, my students, my coworkers, and my entire school community. One of the victims of the shooting was a basketball coach, and one of my students was on his team. The coach was like a dad to this student. So intense. One of our teachers put together a prayer service for Wednesday morning.
Just 3 days later, the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut. This hit the staff pretty hard. We didn't tell the students yesterday; it's not our place to do so. We had a staff meeting to discuss how we were going to handle it, and multiple teachers were crying at one point or another during the meeting. We are having a prayer service on Monday morning for this as well, with all the teachers getting involved.
The hard part, in my opinion, is that there are 2 things that make Friday's events more intense for us. Number one, it happened so soon after the events at the mall. We hadn't had time to heal from that yet. Second, it happened at a school. We discussed at our meeting how school is almost like a second home to our students, and if they can't feel safe at school, where can they feel safe? This is our new challenge.
Prayers, friends. That's the key here. Our country, our world, the people in it need our prayers. Please pray for my school community, and all other school communities, to establish a sense of security and community within themselves. Pray for God's protection and guidance. Just pray.
I've been thinking about you a lot Erin. I didn't realize you knew one of the victims from the mall shooting. :(
ReplyDeleteSchool shootings are just awful and I hate thinking about them happening at an elementary school. I'm praying for your school & community. I hope your last week of school goes okay.
Love you.
I didn't actually know any of the victims. Some of my students knew him. It's still hard. I just reread what I wrote. He wasn't a coach at our school, but two boys (possibly more) from our school were on his basketball team.
DeleteI was wondering if you were anywhere near the mall shooting. :( School shootings are difficult to process. My brother-in-law has been a victim of three - one as a student and twice as a teacher (or twice as a student once as a teacher?). Obviously he survived. As a teacher he has set up his own precautionary methods to make sure that he can keep his students safe in the event that it happens. No one ever wants to think that it would happen to them, but you have to be prepared just in case. What annoys me most is how involved the media gets, interviewing the children and their parents, plastering it everywhere, not letting the families grieve! Sigh. I'll be praying for you and your colleagues and students during this time. I hope you can get some rest and peace!
ReplyDeleteI agree-the media is WAY too involved. We don't need all those details, nor do the victims' families and survivors need the relive the painful experience. Ugh.
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