Armed

I hear a lot about my chosen profession. Lately, it is the selflessness, its courage and dedication. Stories of teachers who died protecting their students or lived talking them through it. Clever and kind and true.

A few months ago it was the selfishness. There were strikes and outrage that this union dare want more money at a time so many are unemployed. Listened to others debate my hours, my dedication, my pay. I have heard that term babysitter and watched eyes roll as I have summers "off". The profession is so easily scorned or adored.

The latest idea that we should be armed has touched off a debate that would redefine what it is we really do. Most teachers know that what we should be armed with is compassion, empathy and education. As people, no matter our profession, what most of us need are words. We have lost, through technology, and the crush of life, the ability to use words to communicate with one another. Complete sentences and eye contact are drifting as we watch our phones. There is no other way to empathize than to speak and to be spoken to, to listen and to be heard.

I choose to arm myself with books, information and understanding. I will fill my arms with as much as I can carry, read as quickly as I can and share with my students. Ignorance kills dreams. Ignorance encourages misunderstandings.

Education creates plans in hope and the future. A path. It is easier to be protected when you know where you are going than when you are wandering lost with no life. Choices are different when you are lost, desperate. Our collective responsible is not to use as targets those lost but to identify and guide. To offer help enough to decide before an evil deception is conceived, dreamed and seen as an infamous exit. A scheme that shatters all of our dreams and redefines security. We must try to find a way to make right a life wronged.

I also know that teachers would be much more likely to reach out to the gunman, to use their words, to negotiate both lives while sweeping those they are protecting behind them. I know many who would be more likely caught between, than ready to aim.

It is not the gun that kills, it is the person with the gun, but if that person had words, compassion and empathy we would all be better armed.