Overview:
A teacher recounts a terrifying classroom incident involving a student who brought a gun, but ultimately emphasizes resilience, community support, and a commitment to maintaining an environment of peace and growth despite the intrusion of real-world violence.
“When I despair of the world,” wrote Wendell Berry. “I come to the silence of wild things that do not enrich their lives by considering sorrow.” This poem is recited at the beginning of every class I teach. The class is called Wilderness Literature. The purpose of this poem is to move from the troubles of the world to the “peace of wild things.” I often find poetry to be an effective tool for this change. But unfortunately, this time, “despair” and “grief” came to my class.
It was so. A gun was brought to my room. Room 211. The room Kevin and I share. A gun went into our room. I didn’t know about its delivery, but it is delivered anyway.
On Thursday, September 4, I was teaching my fourth grade class. On Thursdays, I start my class by having the students write for a long time. I usually take time to introduce my instructions, and I used to do this as the students were late in class. Finally, the last student appeared. I was already teaching, so I quickly asked him to look for his phone on our phone holder in the back, then I asked him to write his name on my board. I have late students who write their names under silly, slow metaphors like “Bicycles without chains” or “Three legged dogs”. The student did so and wrote his name on the board.
I stole this idea from Todd Madison. Thank you, Todd.
The student sat on the chair, and I continued to teach. While I was teaching, I saw a security guard at my door through the glass door window. He was no longer seen by most of the students in the class, and it is common for someone to interrupt the class with a note or announcement to pass on to the child. He yelled at me. So I went back to the door to see what the guard needed.
He whispered the name of the student who was late to class, asking if he was in the room. He asked where he was sitting. I told him that he was sitting next to the teacher’s desk and the window facing south. I was trying to be as specific as possible. I asked him if I should go back to teaching. He said yes.
Before I left the door, I saw the School Resource Officer (SRO) crouching down trying not to be seen. I went back to the front of the classroom and continued the lesson when the security guard entered the room.
He came to the front of the room, and went to the student who was not his. He was close, but a few desks away. I tried to direct him, which involved a funny “clever” combination of pointing and whispering, but calling the student’s name defeated it.
The guard moved to the right student. He said to him that he is not in trouble.
Then he took his bag.
Then he took his bag.
He then moved with the bag, but the student held on, and together they crossed to another student and entered the corridor between the desks. A storm had entered my classroom without my permission. I watched, confused about my role.
I called my teacher’s voice and started repeatedly saying to the student, “let go of the bag, young man… let go of the bag, young man.”
Hearing my voice, our SRO entered the room like an action hero. He came around the front of the room to the corridor and, with active force, ended the argument completely by separating the student from the bag. The SRO escorted the student and the bag out the door. The guard followed.
And it was over. Silence filled the room, unlike the noise made by scratching.
We tried to get on with our day. Soon, the school principal and the school psychologist arrived and tried to make sense of everything. I remember one student saying that there seems to be a commotion when the security guard is looking for drugs, and he wondered aloud what was in the bag.
A few hours later, we found out that there was a gun in the bag. I wish this was the first time my school day was affected by gun violence.
As a class, we prepared for the next day as best we could. We discussed what we had seen. We listened to each other. We agreed on the absurdity of it all.
And since then, I have received great love and affection from many different people. The SRO apologized (for money, thank God for him) for entering the room to calm down the student. I am so grateful for our SROs and the fact that our district has chosen to embrace the value of having them on campus. Two years ago, he would not have been there to resolve the situation.
I got hugs and fistbumps from the students. And trauma pizza and beer paid for by Luke, Paulina, Tommy, and Lindsay.
And a battered apple butter from a reader, a battered banana bread from another reader, and even a battered sourdough from Jonathan and Amanda.
I’ve had text messages, phone calls, and check-ins from Walker and Najmulski and Smeester and Clark and Misrac and Pendleton and Chang and Behmke and Nichols and Gardiner and Kohuth and on and on… all current and former colleagues. The English Department, under the direction of Hellrung and Buddenhagen, organized a pizza Friday, which I later found out was inspired to try to help me feel better. And “my cup overflows” because of the love I have received.
I work hard to keep the world and its concerns out of my Wilderness Literature class. And on September 4th, the world and its worries chose to invade my classroom as we, in the words of Wendell Berry, pursued “… the peace of wild things.” Our silence was broken. But that period will not define the 4th period. It came to my room, but it won’t describe my room.
At the beginning of the year, I told my 4th grade Wilderness Literature class that it can be boiled down to two basic ideas. The first is that there is incredible beauty to be found in our daily lives, and that if we know it, in the words of Annie Dillard in her book. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, “… cultivate healthy and simple poverty, so that finding a penny will make your day real, so, since the world is invested in pennies, your poverty will buy the days of a lifetime.” The second lesson in the class is that life will be difficult, but if we are strong we will not be deprived of difficulties, but rather strengthened. So it is a class that is in the business of pursuing pennies and power.
On September 4, there was a real attempt to break our peace. There has been an attempt to stop the pursuit of a penny and rob us of power. But I am happy to report, our pursuit continues, and we are strong in it. The world and its worries may continue to try to take the “peace of the wild”, but our pursuit of the penny and our strong will goes on and on!
