Overview:
A teacher recounts a frightening classroom incident involving a student bringing a gun, but ultimately emphasizes the resilience, community support, and commitment to preserving a space of peace and growth despite the intrusion of real-world violence.
“When despair for the world grows in me,” writes Wendell Berry. “I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.” This poem is recited at the beginning of every class I teach. The class is called Wilderness Literature. The intent of the poem is to transition from the cares of the world to the “peace of wild things.” I generally find the poem to be an effective tool in this transition. But unfortunately, this time, “despair” and “grief” made their way to my classroom.
And so it came to pass. A gun was brought to my room. Room 211. The room that Kevin and I share. A gun came into our room. I was not aware of its being brought, but it was brought nonetheless.
On Thursday, September 4th, I was teaching my fourth-period class. On Thursdays, I start my class by having students write for an extended period. I usually take some time to introduce my prompts, and I was doing this as students straggled late into class. Finally, the last student showed up. I was already teaching, so I quickly asked him to check in his phone in our phone holder in the back, and then I asked him to write his name on my chalkboard. I have late students write their names under silly, slow metaphors like “Bikes with no chains” or “Three legged dogs”. The student complied and wrote his name on the board.
I stole this idea from Todd Madison. Thanks, Todd.
The student took his seat, and I continued teaching. While teaching, I noticed a security guard at my door through the glass door window. She was out of the line of sight of most of the students in the class, and it is not unheard of for someone to interrupt a class with a note or announcement to pass on to a kid. She beckoned me. So I went back to the door to see what the security guard needed.
She whispered the name of the student who was late to class, asking if he was in the room. She asked where he was sitting. I responded that he was sitting by the teacher’s desk and the south-facing window. I was trying to be as specific as possible. I asked her if I should go back to teaching. She said yes.
Before I left the door, I noticed the School Resource Officer (SRO) crouching and trying to stay out of sight. I returned to the front of the classroom and continued my lesson when the security guard entered the room.
She came to the front of the room, and she went to the wrong student. She was close, but she was a couple of desks away. I tried to correct her, which involved a comical “discreet” combination of pointing and whispering, but mentioning the student’s name gave it away.
The security guard moved to the correct student. She said to him that he wasn’t in trouble.
Then she grabbed his bag.
Then he grabbed his bag.
Then she did a tuck and roll move with the bag, but the student held on, and together they tumbled past another student and into the aisle between desks. A whirlwind of activity had entered my classroom without my permission. I watched, confused at my role.
I summoned my teacher voice and began repeatedly saying to the student, “let go of the bag, young man… let go of the bag, young man.”
Upon hearing my voice, our SRO entered the room like an action hero. He came around the front of the room to the aisle and, with efficient strength, completely ended the scuffle by separating the student from the bag. The SRO deftly guided the student and the bag out the door. The security guard followed.
And it was over. The quiet flooded the room, in contrast to the noise the scuffle had made.
We tried to go on with our day. Soon, a school dean and a school psychologist came and tried to make sense of it all. I remember a student saying that it seemed like a lot of commotion if the security guard was looking for drugs, so he wondered aloud what was in the bag.
A few hours later, we discovered that there had been a gun in the bag. I wish that this was the first time my school day was affected by gun violence.
As a class, we processed the next day as best as we could. We talked about what we had witnessed. We listened to each other. We agreed on the absurdity of it all.
And since that time, I have received so much love and affection from so many different people. The SRO apologized (which is nuts, thank God for him) for having to enter the room to subdue the student. I am so thankful for our SROs and the fact that our district has chosen to accept the importance of having them on campus. Two years ago, he would not have been there to resolve the situation.
I have received trauma hugs and fistbumps from students. And trauma pizza and beer paid for by Luke, Paulina, Tommy, and Lindsay.
And trauma apple butter from a student, trauma banana bread from another student, and even trauma sourdough from Jonathan and Amanda.
I have 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 and on… all current and former colleagues. The English Department, under the guidance of Hellrung and Buddenhagen, organized a pizza Friday, which I later discovered was inspired to try and help me feel better. And “my cup runneth over” for the love I have received.
I work hard to keep the world and its worries out of my Wilderness Literature classroom. And on September 4th, the world and its worries chose to invade my class where we, in the words of Wendell Berry, pursue the “… peace of wild things.” Our peace was robbed. But that moment will not define period 4. It came to my room, but it will not define my room.
At the beginning of the year, I told my 4th-period Wilderness Literature class that it could be boiled down to two basic ideas. The first being that there is incredible beauty to be discovered in our daily lives, and that if we can, in the words of Annie Dillard in her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, “… cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days.” The second lesson for the class is that life will be difficult, but that if we can be resilient, we will not be broken by difficulty, but rather made stronger. So it is a class that is in the business of pursuing pennies and strength.
On September 4th, there was a very real attempt to take our peace. There was an attempt to cease our penny pursuit and rob us of our strength. But I am happy to report, our pursuit continues, and we are the stronger for it. The world and its troubles may continue to attempt to take our “peace of wild things”, but our penny pursuit and our steadfast strength continue and carry forth!
