One More Responsibility Outsourced To Teachers
If you’re like me, there’s a teacher that sticks out in your mind as having changed your life. If you’re quite lucky, (also like me,) you might even be able to name more than one teacher who had such an impact on your becoming who you are, that you still think of them decades after you left their classroom. These figures work tirelessly, day after day for years to build a brighter future for all of us, while remaining some of the lowest paid professionals in our society. So why do we want to give them one more thing to solve? Why do we want teachers to be responsible for stopping gun violence?
This is another one of those topics that I wasn’t planning on writing about. As we’re seeing play out, even with abundant public support, change is not something elected officials seem interested in. I’m not here to talk about specific gun laws or freedoms or restrictions or any of that stuff. Outside of this sentence, I don’t plan on mentioning the 2nd amendment at all. After the increasingly recurrent tragedies, the same types of solutions come up. If the solution isn’t some modified regulation, a lot of voices suggest that it’s teachers. I’ve heard two different versions of this argument and I’m not sure which upsets me more.
The obvious one is that we should give guns to teachers. Never mind that that’s a moronic idea and rejected by almost every educational, psychiatric, and law enforcement professional who would be involved. It is, but even if we ignore that part, it’s still a garbage suggestion. Especially in this state, teachers can’t get reimbursed for dry erase markers; you think the school is going to pay for weaponry? And the “proper training” would have to find time between regular class hours, grading, lesson planning, the other professional development hours teachers have to complete, and the occasional break to eat and sleep.
I’ve also heard the suggestion that teachers should be trained as counselors to recognize the warning signs. There are teachers who haven’t had me in class in over a decade but are still up to date on the personal affairs of both me and my brother. I remember teachers I never had who knew my name and if I was having a rough period. The problem is that teachers aren’t invested enough? I can’t think of a more insulting suggestion. Maybe, like with other recent topics, the issue isn’t that people aren’t speaking, it’s that people aren’t listening when they do.
Some of you might be yelling, “Not Mrs. Whoever. She was mean and didn’t teach me nothing.” Ignoring your grammatical evidence for the moment I’ll simply ask, do you really think that’s all teachers? Don’t get me wrong, there are such things as bad teachers. But there are far more good ones. I challenge anyone reading this to spend a single day teaching in any classroom. A single day! Spend the time to plan it, perform it, and grade it. Then come back and tell me how easy teaching is. Come back and tell me you didn’t get invested in the students.
Let’s call it like it is. When we say “teachers should be responsible for stopping gun violence,” the continuation of that thought is “because we the society aren’t going to do it.” Educators are given the responsibilities that society has failed on. From instilling manners to providing a consistent breakfast, the list of services provided by education because the outside can’t be relied upon gets longer every year. We can’t be adding guns to that list.
