Letter to The Aegis
December 20, 2012 | 3:07 p.m.
December 20, 2012 | 3:07 p.m.
Editor:
Returning to another Monday morning at work after a
horrifically violent attack. I will pray for my students and for my own
strength as we try to learn in the midst of grieving for the loss of so many.
Maybe diagraming sentences will occupy their minds or maybe we can get lost in
a story. Teachers like me all across the country will pretend to our students
that it isn't on our minds. We will close our classroom doors and think we will
be safe; we want to believe we will be safe but we can't really think it. Not after Columbine. Not after Virginia Tech. Not after Perry Hall. Not after Newtown. Not after too
many. Some will point to the causes of these mass killings and unfortunately
there are many — guns, mental health, desensitization, and violent images
perpetuated in our culture — but there isn't one solution.
Others will point to securing our school buildings,
classroom doors and locks in a similar way that prisons are. And that may deter
some who want to commit violence but it will only slow others. Because adding
video surveillance and police officers in every school will not stop the
violence, it hasn't so far. And then we will need to be prepared to fortify our
malls, churches and other public places in the same manner. Then, where will it
stop? Will more gun shops open in strip malls offering more assault weaponry and
body armor? If our public places have to be protected from violent attacks,
then surely our individual bodies will have to be similarly protected. Instead
of grabbing my morning coffee and attaché with my car keys, I will grab another
two rounds and sling my assault rifle over my shoulder before heading off to
work.
For obvious reasons, maybe because the pain is too
much, we want to honor this event and move toward the future quickly. Already
social networks are posting about other mundane daily events. But for the
community of Newtown, their lives will be anything but mundane. They would
trade us a thousand of our minor life "traumas" for their one
unimaginable trauma. Let us not let their children's lives be in vain. Let us
stand beside them and say enough. It is time to truly act on the issue of
violence in our country. We owe it to our children and to all of the children
lost to school violence.
Suzanne Lindsay
The writer once taught English at Aberdeen High
School, where she also worked with the school newspaper and yearbook. In 2002,
while teaching at Aberdeen, she was among a group of local teachers selected by
former students to be included in the seventh edition of Who's Who Among
America's Teachers.
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