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Teachers are there, brave and strong in face of ordeals
Regardless of their political stance, teachers have been the victims and witnesses of violence, as well as the protectors of their students and consolers in the aftermath.
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A woman cries and hugs a young girl while on the phone outside the Willie de Leon Civic Center, in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday. A teenage gunman killed 18 young children in a shooting at an elementary school in Texas on Tuesday in the deadliest US school shooting in years. (AFP/Allison Dinner)
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o amount of education or training could prepare any teacher to be there and witness the paralyzing catastrophes recurring on school grounds, most recently the killing of 19 innocent children and two teachers – Irma Garcia and Eva Mireles – at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, the United States on Tuesday.
Education Week records that there have been 27 school shootings so far this year, and there have been 119 school shootings since 2018
The news coverage following such incidents in the US usually focuses on the event, comments from witnesses and politicians arguing for or against gun control. Little is reported on how teachers handle and cope with the catastrophe themselves while remaining strong for the students under their care.
Regardless of their political stance, teachers have been the victims and witnesses of violence, as well as the protectors of their students and consolers in the aftermath.
Mourning the death of their students while also comforting and counseling the surviving classmates is not part of teachers’ job specifications. Yet there have been teachers in such nerve-racking, life-altering ordeals, and they remain brave and strong.
Little were the teachers (or any other professionals) prepared to be in that situation. They may have undergone training and drills on emergency situations, including a school attack. But no teacher signs up for this situation when they enter the profession. Yet they were there and remained strong.
The teaching profession is not for the faint of heart. Teachers are strong. In their field of work, they have often been tested to stretch their human capacity to the limit of not breaking down when experiencing the destruction of human lives by other human beings, many of whom are possibly still school-age, through their acts of atrocity.
