Seventeen

 

“Ms. Putorek,” one student shouted as soon as they walked in my third period class. “Are you going to walk out too?”

“Walk out where?”

“You know…outside…for the shooting.”

Wait. What?

“Uhhh…what are you talking about?”

Those were the words that sent me down a black hole of emotions – dismay, anger, dread, fear, exasperation, exhaustion and absolute frustration. My kids left the class. All but two walked outside for…well…no one could really say why exactly they walked out. But as they walked down the halls, my stomach did somersaults and twists and I tried not to get in my head.  Nonetheless, I catapulted into my mind, where I was held hostage for about an hour.

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You see, I haven’t been sleeping well since last week. I’ve had at least 3 nightmares involving vivid and detailed school shootings, and I know for a FACT I’m not the only teacher who has had to plan exactly what they would do if a gunman entered their classroom.

I know what my students would do, where I would be, what objects I would use as a shield and as a weapon – these weapons are school supplies and decorations in my room: staplers, scissors, old milky-glass chemical bottles from the high school’s chemistry lab (at the original Sheldon Clark), chemical sprays, and the biggest text books I could grab.

My weapons of choice probably wouldn’t be much against a military-grade assault rifle…let’s be honest.

However, in second period when my students asked me if I would carry a gun to school if it became legal, my answer was a firm “no.”

…pay me more for putting up with my wild 2nd period….

“Why, Ms. Putorek??? It could save you! AND US!”

“Guys…if I wanted to carry a gun and try to save other human beings, I would have been a police officer or a military person. I didn’t want to have that kind of responsibility, to be honest. Yet, here I am, planning what I would do to save your lives.”

“Yeah, right.”

“No, really! I know where you would crouch and everything. Firing a gun to keep you safe just was never part of the plan. So…no thanks. Oh, by the way. The government won’t buy y’all pencils. They won’t buy you technology that you need, and they won’t fix my smart board. They certainly won’t be purchasing my handgun anytime soon, even if I wanted them to. So.”

The students looked at me with looks of confusion. They glanced at me out of the side of their eyes, and I’m not really sure what they thought about the fact that I wasn’t all too happy about having to take on a role of “protector” that I never signed up for.

Here’s the thing: when people find out I’m a teacher, they say things like “thank you so much for what you do,” “that can’t be easy…especially with everything happening in our world today,” and “you’re way braver than me.”

I’m not brave. Teaching isn’t supposed to be brave. It is most certainly important, necessary, and terribly challenging work. But I didn’t get into teaching because I’m brave, and I am really pissed off that my profession is now something lauded as courageous.

Damn, y’all.

I just want to help kids write poems. I want to read “To Kill a Mockingbird” and discuss themes and metaphors and prejudice. I want to listen to them create conspiracy theories about Boo Radley, and I want to help them articulate a really strong argument in favor of school uniforms. I can even manage the daily/weekly chats about the importance of mental health awareness and self-love.

You know what I don’t want to do?

I don’t want to jump every time someone knocks on my door. I don’t want to genuinely yelp when I hear loud noises in the hallway. I don’t want to feel sick every morning I wake up, fearing for my life and the lives of my students. (Did you notice I said MY life first? See? I told you I wasn’t brave. I’m actually incredible selfish, and very much afraid of having to dive in front of a kid a love, saving him or her from another kid I love who is aiming a gun at us).

If you’re still reading, I hope you won’t think I’m trying to get political. To me, what happened today isn’t about gun control: it’s about a child’s desire and right to feel safe at school. It’s also about me: the teacher people either hate or idolize. The teacher who “gets paid for only 9 months of work, and still expects more!” It’s about the fact that these students shouldn’t have to think about whether or not the day will bring another shooting/bomb threat or worse.

Prayer in schools won’t help, because the people who come ready to light it up aren’t really thinking about Jesus’ great sacrifice. Someone in their life, long before they came packing, already screwed up religion for them.

Smarter gun laws also won’t solve the problem…at least not entirely (though it FOR SURE can’t hurt to make sure people who buy assault rifles are mentally sound, and have to pass some sort of test and background check…and maybe have to be in the MILITARY..since it’s literally a weapon designated for war).

Obviously, most people are assuming it is a “mental health issue.” And they’re RIGHT…but it’s not just a severe shortage of school counselors that is fully to blame for these atrocities that just.keep.happening.

This crisis we are facing in our country is very, very complex. I’m not smart enough to even dive into the various obstacles and stigmas we must overcome to fix this problem for students, teachers, and the parents that send their kids to school every single day. I’m not smart enough to even pretend to understand the various obstacles we must overcome to fix this problem.

However, I still have to show up to a job that I (for the most part) absolutely adore, with students I would do anything for. I don’t say that lightly, because I truly believe if it came down to it, I would do everything within my power to protect them.

BUT I DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO DIE TO PROTECT THEM. Does that make sense?

I believe I would die to protect them, but I don’t want to live in a world where that is okay.

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My reflection was mostly a rant of frustration, specifically surrounding the walk-out today. I felt conflicted, because I know some students are genuinely terrified to be at school. I also know, however, that some students will use whatever excuse they can possibly come up with to get out of class – even if that excuse is 17 dead human beings who were massacred as they began to wrap up their school day.

“17 people are dead.

Even more if you count the school shootings already long forgotten. I remember the VT shooting – worrying about my cousin who went to school there at the time. I remember hearing about a Holocaust survivor who was killed while barricading the door of his classroom. He survived to move to America, HOME OF THE BRAVE, to teach at a prestigious engineering college, only to get slaughtered by a gunman. Home of the brave?

Now I’m a teacher, and I’m scared every single day for my students…for myself, for my coworkers, for my family. 

But I show up anyways.

And now, today, here’s this walk-out. Why? What do you stand for, kids? 

Because if you stand for time out of class or just for the fun of it, may I remind you that 17 people are dead?

If you want real change – fine. Walk out. Petition. Riot. Organize. 

But if you’re searching for drama or excitement or some sick form of entertainment, MAY I REMIND YOU THAT 17 PEOPLE ARE DEAD?

This. Is. Not. A. Joke. 

Action is fine – needed, even. But don’t you dare use these atrocities to justify your immature desire to skip 3rd period. Please. There’s too much at stake.”

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One of the best parts of my jobs is obviously all the GOOD I get to witness in my students.

What has become impossible to ignore, however, is the constant fear and stress and frustration I’ve begun to notice almost daily. I have students writing poems about a society that does nothing to empower and inspire them, or, even more shockingly, makes them feel unsafe. These students are humans who feel fear. They know what intolerance looks like, and they certainly know what it means to be scared. Take a look below – those are words from a kid I LOVE. How is this okay?

People joke about “safe zones,” but hearing the way children speak to one another, and recognizing the magnitude of the news stories and societal “norms” they have been exposed to, I totally understand the need for these areas of safety.

…And if you’re someone who thinks kids being and feeling safe and valued is political, then we are NOT cut from the same cloth. (I almost said another curse word there, but felt like my anger and sadness shouldn’t make me curse again in this blog post).

So here’s what you can do, if you’re reading this.

Arm the teachers around you with a few things:

Goodness. I’m tired and sad, and hopeful that one day soon, my students and I won’t have to discuss the various items around my room we will use as shields. I’m excited for the day a slamming door won’t make me jump out of my shoes. I’m hopeful that tonight I will dream of happy endings for my kiddos, and not our funerals.

What do you stand for?

Halie

P.S. This meme spoke to me on a spiritual level.

 

 

Water

“Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become…so God said to Noah…’I am going to bring flood waters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens…'”  [Genesis 6: 11-17]

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You have to be careful how you say the word “water” as of late. The community that I find myself living and working in, is one with a serious water problem.

Of course, the problem of the water is entirely dependent on which side you find yourself pressed against, and who you believe, like anything else in life. Is the water unclean, or is it just the overreaction of those “left-wing, nut-job media enthusiasts?” Have the citizens of this community been bamboozled year after year, questions unanswered, totally ignored…or did they even ask questions at all?

Will this water actually give me cancer? Will it make me sick, like the Mexican water did back in 07′? Are we on a boil water advisory? Is that even a real thing? I’m being told I can ignore it by some people, and others won’t touch a coffee pot percolating the unclean Martin County water. Flint had a real crisis – Mercury in their water. Is ours that bad?

Water is not a safe topic of conversation anymore.

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“And have you seen the water that you drink? Is it you who brought it down from the clouds, or is it We who bring it down? If We willed,
We could make it bitter, so why are you not grateful?” [Qur’an 56: 58-70]

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Water has always fascinated me on about a hundred different levels. Certainly, molecularly, water is fascinating. For fear of sounding idiotic, I’ll pretend I don’t want to bore you with “science,” (when really I just don’t remember much from my 11th grade Chemistry class)…but water can take the form of all three states of matter. We can breathe water into our lungs when it’s in the form of a gas, or we can drown in it, if it’s liquid…or we can slip and fall on it if it’s a solid.

Water has the ability to cleanse, right?

You all know those scenes in movies – something bad has happened – a death, a violation, an unwanted epiphany, a diagnosis – and the main character stands looking into the faucet as the water washes over their skin. Comfort pours out like rain.

I was baptized last summer in the water of the Jordan River, and I’ve never felt cleaner.

I was able to float in the Dead Sea last summer, too. The miracles of water!

Water can cleanse.

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“… I’ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boats nearby, ‘cause there is no heartbreak that chocolate can’t fix. Okay, there’s a few heartbreaks chocolate can’t fix. But that’s what the rain boots are for, because rain will wash away everything if you let it.” [Sarah Kay, “If I Should Have a Daughter]

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Water can destroy.

I remember watching images of Hurricane Katrina. I remember seeing people on their roof tops, waiting to be rescued by those helicopters that hovered on my television screen. Never mind the fact that another helicopter hovered nearby – not to save anyone, though. Just to bare witness to the power of the water. A new and sick spectator sport – watching people who are suffering while sipping rosé in Malibu.

I saw my state ravaged by floods last summer.

I saw the Tug River begin filling the basins on Turkey Creek just two nights ago. The water was creeping into the roadway, fingertips reaching towards it’s other half – as if Mother Nature recognized that roadway as just another piece of land to reclaim and renew. I saw the trash from the Appalachian riverbanks making its way down to destinations unknown. The trash that littered the newly-cleaned banks of my home will only get pushed along to an unwilling trash collector. Disgusting.

I saw waterfalls, and I saw and felt roaring white water- look out for the cheese grater rocks, because the river water holds no bias. You can get sucked under just as easily as the person sitting next to you. Riptides. Waves that surprise and destroy. That tsunami in Asia way back when…news coverage that was unimaginable. A man standing on the beach, not bothering to run, looking straight ahead at his fate – an image seared into my brain, but one I always think about when my toes find the water of an ocean.

How can something so naturally cleansing become something so dangerous?

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“[iii.5] … the storm
… were yoked
Anzu rent the sky with his talons,
He … the land

[iii.10] and broke its clamor like a pot.
… the flood came forth.
Its power came upn the peoples like a battle,
one person did not see another,
they could not recognize each other in the catastrophe.

[iii.15] The deluge belowed like a bull,
The wind resounded like a screaming eagle.
The darkness was dense, the sun was gone,
… like flies.

[iii.20] the clamor of the deluge.” [Epic of Atra-hasis, Babylonian Flood Story]

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And now, back to this topic of water in Martin County.

I have been witnessing a division that seems almost comical, in a way, if I might be so bold. We don’t have water, so everyone is pointing fingers at everyone else. It’s everyone else’s fault because obviously it has to be a person’s fault. Or one single group’s fault. Obviously!

We have water, but it’s not clean enough, so everyone is pointing fingers at everyone else. We don’t have water, so everyone is pointing fingers at the sky. We have too much water, so everyone is pointing fingers…at the sky again?

I still can’t say the word “water” without starting a debate. I can’t have a gender reveal party (or whatever those things are called) without inciting violent threats and hate. I can’t reasonably point out the irony/potentially bad-timing of said “gender reveal party” without inciting violent threats and hate. I can’t say the word “w&%#@” anymore…it’s like a curse word… and that is terrifying…but can I drink it, or not?

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“The… land shattered like a… pot.
All day long the South Wind blew …,
blowing fast, submerging the mountain in water,
overwhelming the people like an attack.
No one could see his fellow,
they could not recognize each other in the torrent.
The gods were frightened by the Flood…”

[Epic of Gilgamesh, Mesopotamian flood legend]

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There’s a poem I like, that many of you may have heard. One line references the narrator’s frustration with being surrounded by ocean water: “water, water, every where, nor any drop to drink.” How interesting to realize that we as humans demand so much perfection and convenience, we can’t even look out to an infinite ocean horizon without being immediately frustrated by our inability to totally control it or utilize it at our whim.

We want control, but we don’t want to take responsibility. We want convenience, but don’t want to actually take steps to make necessities like water convenient and healthy. If there’s a problem, fix it…but if you’re not trying to fix the problem, don’t keep complaining.

“Be careful what you wish for” is an old adage that comes to mind when I think about the filth and hate I’ve witnessed as of late. Division even amongst people who cry out “unity!” Irony and hypocrisy flow as freely as the flood waters.

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“He waited seven days and again sent out the dove from the ark. When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in it’s beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth.” [Genesis 8: 10-11]

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I’m waiting for the promise of happier times and happier people and moments where an entire region doesn’t hate one another for reasons they can’t quite explain. I’m anxious for the olive branches of honest dialogue, with no more finger pointing.

…But I’m afraid that the dove might not be ready to return to the Ark, yet. The ground is still covered in water, and until people move away from computer screens in favor of real human interactions and looking each other in the eyes, the dove won’t find any sign of life among us at all. Just flood waters.

Be careful what you wish for.