On January 6th, 2023, first grade teacher Abigail Zwerner was reading a book to her students when she looked up to see another of her 6-year-old students with his hand wrapped around the trigger of a handgun.
Zwerner barely survived the bullet tearing through her left hand before lodging itself in her front chest. Later that day, one of her lungs collapsed as she fought for her life.
Unfortunately, incidents like Zwerner have become much too common. Teachers across our nation are constantly in danger due to our country’s most prevalent epidemic – our gun violence disease. It is only becoming worse, with the BBC recording more than 470 mass shootings this year in just 252 days as of September 10th.
Specifically, school shootings have reached an unprecedented level of prominence, as EducationWeek reports that there have already been 5 school shootings since the school year started a month ago. In the wake of these devastating attacks on our children, our legislators have taken zero action.
School shootings obviously can have a lasting impact on students, but often, teachers are entirely left out of the conversation about the impacts of school shootings. As a result, their pain is normalized and they are expected to put their lives on the line as a part of their job.
Specifically, while effects on students’ mental health have been at the forefront of the movement against school shootings, teachers are often not given a voice, despite being just as affected by these shootings.
“Even in the face of tragedy, it becomes hard to speak out. [It feels] like you are calling attention to your own situation in a way that is unnatural or uncomfortable for many educators who just want to go to work, just want to teach their kids, just want to be in their classroom and serve their community as best as they can,” Columbine High School social studies teacher Zach Martin, who attended the school during its infamous 1999 shooting, said.
Additionally, the added pressure of having to watch for warning signs also takes an immense toll on our educators. They must analyze every action their students take. They must watch carefully for every conversation, every word, every emotion, every single thing that happens in their classroom – on top of effectively managing a classroom of students.
This is made even more serious when we consider the severe lack of school psychologists, both statewide and across our nation. In fact, a WOWT article reports that Nebraska currently has a ratio of 987 students to every school psychologist, compared to the recommended guideline of 500 to 1.
As a result, teachers not only have to deal with the stress of possible school shootings, but they have been forced into constantly being on the lookout for warning signs, with a lack of psychologists to discover them.
But school shootings don’t just have a detrimental impact on teachers’ mental health; teachers have also become a form of defense in schools in many states.
For example, a July 31st, 2022 New York Times article reports that in Florida, more than 1,300 school staff members have undergone training to become armed guardians, with more than 400 school districts creating programs to encourage teachers to receive armed protection training.
Teachers received just twenty four hours of weapons training, making many of them uncomfortable and underprepared to face an active shooter.
“I attended a training [for teachers outside of Millard] and in it, they told us that if we have a gun and we need to point it at somebody, you need to be ready to shoot. It’s just something I can’t imagine myself doing,” chemistry teacher Debra Compton said.
It is unfair for us to add another burden to the already overbearing weight on teachers’ shoulders. They should not be forced to give up their lives in defense of their students.
Teachers like Eva Mireles and Irma Garcia, both fourth-grade teachers murdered while using their bodies to shield their students during the Uvalde shooting last year, should not have died.
They should not have been forced into protecting their students with their bodies. They should not have been shot and killed by a nineteen-year-old who shouldn’t have been able to access a military-grade assault rifle. They should be here today.
Teachers did not sign up to become defenders of their children. They became teachers because they wanted to educate the next generation. Because they wanted to spread knowledge and make a difference. Not because they wanted to become a line of defense against completely preventable violence.
We need to start treating our teachers how they deserve to be treated – as the people who form our minds, who put in hours of overtime to make sure that we receive a proper education, who sacrifice unimaginable amounts of time and money for their students’ happiness.
Steps such as banning assault rifles and increasing funding for mental health programs in schools will ensure that we can more carefully monitor warning signs in students; there will be a lower chance that a student can access dangerous weapons; but most of all, it will lessen the unbearable burden currently weighing down on our educators.
We must remember that teachers are not our scapegoats, there to protect when our government is incapable of taking meaningful action. Teachers are people who deserve empathy and appreciation. It is high time that we give it to them.