Confidence and freedom for tomorrow

Abstract

What has happened in our American society, in public education, and sadly, in many public schools? I am nearly speechless. The amount of news coverage devoted to violence and death is numbing, not to mention economic strife resulting from inflation and rising costs everywhere due to a post-pandemic recession. And I wonder how educators, students and their families and communities are all handling these troubling situations? Surprisingly, it has already been 21 years since the World Trade Center attacks in New York by terrorists who had evil intent. I had only been teaching three years at that point in my career. I can still vividly remember coming back from having taught freshman English during the first-block period of the school day. I was greeted by my colleague who was clearly distraught. She mentioned the attack on the first building, just as we witnessed the attack on the second from the audio-visual cart rolled in from the media center. Shortly before that incident, the Columbine Shootings took place in Colorado in 1999. I had only been teaching a few short months. It was 20 April 1999, and most in public education at that time had their worlds rocked by the event. As a new teacher, I wondered about my future, my career. But I also wondered about my students and their futures and the world in which they would one day work and live. And I wish I could say that history does not repeat itself. I wish I could say that those incidents were isolated events, carved into the fabric of sorrow and pain, not to be repeated again. Sadly, that is untrue. In fact, as I, Ellis, write this editorial, I am faced with the realization that we have witnessed yet another horrific public school shootings. This time, the place is different. The shooter is different. The victims are different. But the sadness and sorrow and pain are all too familiar. From the recent Uvalde, Texas shootings, I have since learned that Uvalde was in fact the 27th mass school shooting this year alone (Diaz, 2022). And at the time of writing this editorial, we have already suffered over 392 general mass shootings in the United States this year (Gun Violence Archive, 2022). More telling are the exponential increases in gun related injuries and deaths recorded since 2013. The nonprofit Gun Violence Archive group, which began in 2013 and is not affiliated with any advocacy organization, collects from over 7500 law enforcement, media, and government and commercial resources daily (Gun Violence Archive, 2022). Their seven-year review shows that these issues are getting worse. The number of children between the ages of 0 and 11 who have suffered an injury resulting from gun violence since 2013 is 446, and the number of children who have died is 201. Moreover, the number of teens between the ages of 12 and 17 who have suffered an injury resulting from gun violence is 2,176, while the number of teens who have been killed is 809 (Gun Violence Archive, 2022). These numbers speak volumes about the issues we are facing. What is more, our Black and Brown communities and youth suffer even more than others when it comes to societal violence. They see and face more violent episodes, exponentially, than other communities in similar locations (Lopez,2022). As educational advocates and middle level specialists, we must ask ourselves how exactly educators can create positive environments for their students for understanding the world around them. Educators must critically think about how to empower young adolescents to process what is happening in their daily lives.