Taught: The Podcast
Taught is a podcast where educators and others discuss how they really feel about education, burnout, and strategies to make the world and education burnout-free.
Taught: The Podcast
Voices of Courage: Navigating the Aftermath of School Shootings
Ever wondered how students and staff navigate the traumatic aftermath of school shootings? Join me, Melissa Lefort, as I engage with two incredible women, Kaela and Michela, who have experienced this harrowing reality firsthand. Explore the depths of their resilience and discover the untold stories of teachers assuming unexpected leadership roles during crisis situations. Together, we unravel the complex emotions and challenges involved in returning to school post-tragedy, highlighting the profound importance of community support and sensitive storytelling.
Our conversation is a heartfelt call to action for community collaboration and meaningful dialogue. As we reflect on the pervasive issue of school shootings, we stress the importance of recognizing when something is amiss and providing ongoing support to those affected. By fostering a supportive environment for healing, we can inspire positive change and offer hope to educators and students navigating the trauma of such events. This episode is a testament to the power of resilience, teamwork, and the collective effort needed to create a safer educational landscape.
https://edition.cnn.com/us/school-shootings-fast-facts-dg/index.html
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/05/nx-s1-5101684/preventing-school-shootings
I Love You Guys Foundation
Contact Michela Laverty:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lavermic
https://www.olyable.com/connect
Season 1 :
Join the Conversation: https://taughtbymelef.blogspot.com/
Interested in being a guest on the podcast? Email promelef@gmail.com. Include your name, role in education, and a summary of your story.
Here's the book that started it all:
Taught: The Very Private Journal of One Bad Teacher
Available @ Amazon in ebook or audio:
https://a.co/d/1rNZ84h
For immediate help use link for resources:
https://www.healthcentral.com/mental-health/get-help-mental-health
Other resources:
Amy Schamberg Wellness: https://www.amyschamberg.com/about
NHS - Resources for Grief and Burnout
https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/feelings-symptoms-behaviours/feelings-and-symptoms/grief-bereavement-loss/
Melissa Anthony MA, LPC Trauma & Grief Counselor
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/melissa-j-anthony-grand-rapids-mi/944381
And they really didn't speed us back into the whole idea of being students, because from that day I mean, that idea changed, for each and every one of us Sitting in that classroom didn't mean the same thing. One thing that didn't help was the news folks. They kept coming and they really wanted all of these interviews with students who were just trying to figure out how to be kids again. And you know I can't speak for the staff, but I'm sure folks like those that were involved with taking down the shooter, I'm sure they were exhausted just trying to process things on their own, much less trying to help the community process that. I ended up on the front page of the local newspaper, which was a complete shock, and there was a photo that was a picture of me in one of my worst moments.
Speaker 2:A few years ago, I started writing a fictitious story based on my time as an educator. It is called taught, and the story was partially inspired out of anger and frustration fueled by burnout. Okay, actually it was more than partially inspired by anger and frustration. But taught has also become a vehicle for me to tell what I thought at the time and in some ways continue to think was and is the real story of teaching. I now realize that my perspective is not everyone's perspective, but there are some pieces of taught that resonated with many educators perspective, but there are some pieces of taught that resonated with many educators. This podcast is an extension of that story and I, a former teacher, will interview other educators, asking them to share how they really feel about the current state of education. Why are so many teachers burnout? Why are so many like me leaving the field? We likely won't solve any problems or come up with any solutions, but we can create a community of voices that maybe begin the conversation around how educators can take back teaching. I'm Melissa LaFleur. Welcome to Taught the podcast. I like to be educated.
Speaker 2:Hey, everybody, before I even begin this episode, I want to issue a trigger warning. We are going to have a roundtable discussion today about school shootings. This subject is extremely sensitive and not for all audiences. Please stop here if you have young children listening and or you find the content too disturbing and if you need assistance in coping with any of the topics that come up in today's episode. I always have the immediate help link on each episode to Health Central's section of emergency help resources. There you can find contacts for most resources worldwide, including 988, the National Emergency Mental Health Hotline. You can call or text 988 at any time to get support.
Speaker 2:So we're going to start out with some statistics, and this first statistic that I'm going to give you it's actually a group of statistics. It is from an article on CNNcom that was published on December 16th, and the article states that as of December 16th, the 351st day of the year, there have been 83 school shootings in the United States in the year 2024. 27 were on college campuses, 56 were on K-12 school grounds. The incidents left 38 people dead and at least 116 other victims injured, and again, that was on cnncom. On the day after this report came out, I just happened to be listening to music on my computer and doing research for an upcoming podcast that was not about school shootings and it popped up on my computer another report about a school shooting. This shooting was in Madison, wisconsin, and had happened on December 16th, which is why it was actually not part of the original report on CNNcom. So it changed these statistics to 84 school shootings, 57 on K-12 school grounds, 41 people dead and at least 122 other victims injured.
Speaker 2:Today I have two people with me and we are going to discuss the toll that this specific issue is taking on education, from students to educators. Kayla is a research project coordinator in Kansas and has had the frightening experience of being on campus when a shooting occurred. Michaela is a special education teacher currently residing in Colorado, and I'm going to have each of you tell us a little bit about yourselves, and let's start with Michaela.
Speaker 3:Hi. Yeah, I had a lot of time to think about these things, but I was a special education teacher in Olympia, washington, for about a decade. I needed a bit of a life change and I wanted to be a part of the solution I keep seeing education really need. So I moved to Denver, colorado, and I started my educational consulting firm, oli Able, with the intention of raising and preparing our teachers to be able to handle unique students that all you know, that all learn differently and just do what my kids deserved and the future kids deserve.
Speaker 3:I had my school shooting experience, my first year of teaching, and it was a very it felt like a very unique situation. As a first year teacher who had been in run, hide, fight trainings, had been watching TV, grew up in the Columbine era where pop culture shows were covering it. But when you have to go through it and then figure out how to finish the year out with students with intellectual disabilities and explain it to them, that whole part of the journey was really interesting and it's shaped the way I see the world.
Speaker 2:I don't want to say we're looking forward to hearing about what that was like, Michaela, but I definitely think the fact that I could say I want to do a podcast like this and easily find two people who have been through similar experiences says volumes. So, Kayla, I asked you to do this podcast because I knew you had experienced this firsthand and that you now are also working in education. You are not in the classroom, but still you have probably more interaction than most with the world of classrooms and students. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and then your experience with this issue?
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you, melissa, for having me and for discussing this topic. I know it's really hard to talk about and you know it never feels like you're saying the right thing and that there's a solution that, even being through it, that you know you know better than everyone else on how to deal with this. So thanks for giving me a place just to talk about my own feelings and my experience, and just a little asterisk, like if I mention any other places. These are my own opinions, so take that with a grain of salt. But I currently work as a research project coordinator out of a center in Kansas and what the center focuses on is making learning more accessible for students. So a lot of that work pertains to creating and facilitating professional development opportunities for students and teachers and other folks who are involved in education.
Speaker 1:That's been absolutely eye-opening to me, because I'm starting to see firsthand just how much stuff staff within the education system takes on and they're always taking on more and those things just tend to avalanche and lead to burnout despite best intentions. And so you throw things like school safety on top of all of that and it feels like being an educator isn't just about teaching. You have so many other hats that you have to wear when you step into the classroom. In a past life, I was also on the board of directors for the I Love you Guys Foundation, which works in the school safety sector by creating and training on a range of different responses so crisis response, post-crisis reunification and it's geared towards educators, to first responders and a whole bunch of people in between. And I actually got involved with that work after being a witness to a school shooting when I was in middle school. One of the teachers who actually ended up tackling the gunman saw that I really struggled with this and found that doing something about it, being involved, was a great way to heal, and I found that so far for myself as well. So a little bit about me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that that action piece is actually something that I get stuck on sometimes. So you know, one of the issues that I have with just the whole issue of violence in schools, and school shootings in particular, is that it is so prevalent at this point in our history that it's easy to forget when it happens. And social media, in my opinion, gives people a false sense of doing when what we need is a call to action. So kudos to the educator that got you involved in action steps, Because posting a caring heart on social media that's not an action. It gives us that feeling of action and it was really all of this kind of posting here recently that motivated me to attempt to address this on my podcast.
Speaker 2:Someone posted something in a forum about wishing they could give teachers in one of these incidents a hug, and I think that that just kind of slapped me in the face when I read it, because it just seemed like, I mean, hugs are great and they have their place, they can be comforting, but they don't address the underlying issues that we have with school violence and they definitely don't address the action piece. It's something that I just feel like there's a lot of things that happen on social media that give us this sense of. I did my part by being supportive when really we need to be brainstorming as a society what some actionable items could possibly be and what changes need to happen. So I'm curious from your perspectives, and you can feel free to tell us a little more about the incidents that you were involved in. But, Michaela, what do you think are some actionable things that maybe we should be thinking about?
Speaker 3:I have so many ideas and thoughts because this is all I think about and I've actually been thinking about what we should be doing as a system. When I was a high school student, watching One Tree Hill's school shooting episode because that was the first time where I got to see the picture and more of like the story instead of a news article because no offense to 2020, it didn't mean anything to me when I was 14, 15, 16. It didn't make an impact on me until I watched an episode like on One Tree Hill and I got to see the people and the players and the nuance. And you have to remember that the aftermath of the situation is so much worse than when you're in the moment, in that emergency situation. And I think when you brought up the first thing people want to say I want to give them a hug.
Speaker 3:I don't, we don't want hugs. We want you to come and do the paperwork for us, because we don't want to do any executive functioning, filing, figuring out our real jobs when we're trying to pick up the pieces and take care of our kids. Right, come and volunteer, give us. I don't want cake, I don't want ice cream, I don't want to cop. Oh, I do want coffee, so I won't turn that down.
Speaker 3:But we want help, because school, when we go back to school, we have to keep doing all those different things that aren't the reason why we're there, and the extra workload of taking care of ourselves, each other and our kids, you know. And I think that's first step. Second step is when we're on the news, you need to share stories of the aftermath, stories that are more nuanced and not just the gore of it all, because no one cares about that. We're all numb to it. But the next week, two weeks, three weeks, how do we all work together as a community and put that next step? I think that's a huge piece that we need to fix as well.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate you saying all of that especially. I don't know that I have heard anywhere where teachers have said when this happens, this is what we need need. So you saying that is huge. I don't know that as a society we think to even ask in the aftermath, what do you need?
Speaker 3:I see a lot of posts and people talking on TikTok or whatever about. You know family members who lose a loved one and they don't want thoughts and prayers. They don't want you to have them make a choice. They just want you to come and do their laundry. They just want you to send food. They just want you to send those things. So I know that they're having those conversations, thankfully, right now, about what happens when tragedy hits your family. The thing is a school shooting. It's your family in a different way. It's your community. You raised each other, you take care of each other and we still have to do paperwork. And I don't want to freaking, take attendance. I don't want to click on the 17 tabs that I have to do. I don't want to call home and say, hey, you have an F, because who cares when you have all this stuff going on? So those are the things you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, kayla, what do you think about that? You, I know also, you're already involved in some actionable areas.
Speaker 1:So give us your thoughts on this. Yeah, just responding to Michaela, I think, experiencing this from the student side during my event, we felt the same way. I mean, coming back to school was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my entire life, and there were certain things that made it easier. There were certain things that made it so much harder than it had to be, and one of the things that I really appreciated was how much support that we got from the community. I mean, we showed up that first day and there were posters everywhere. One school had made a bracelet for every single student in the school who had experienced this. We had teachers out in front giving hugs if people wanted hugs, but respecting and speaking with students in whatever way that they needed. And, of course, you know, parents helped a lot with that as well and especially the first few days getting back to school, they were always there to help us try to be comfortable and they really didn't speed us back into the whole idea of being students, Because from that day I mean that idea changed, for each and every one of us Sitting in that classroom didn't mean the same thing.
Speaker 1:One thing that didn't help was the news folks. They kept coming and they really wanted all of these interviews with students who were just trying to figure out how to be kids again. And you know I can't speak for the staff but I'm sure folks like those that were involved with taking down the shooter, I'm sure they were exhausted just trying to process things on their own, much less trying to help the community process. That help the community process that I ended up on the front page of the local newspaper, which was a complete shock, and there was a photo that was a picture of me in one of my worst moments and you know that's not something I ever needed the community to see and you know I kind of have mixed feelings about it, where it didn't help my healing, but maybe it helped the community in a way in that they did get to see kind of raw emotion and difficulty and how hard it was actually going back to a place that we would all like to think is safe.
Speaker 2:So just to touch on the media piece there, Well, I'm thinking that that must have felt a bit exploitive at your process. I mean, I'm just thinking we all go through our own process of grieving, depending on the event, but for that to happen so soon in your process I would think it would have made you feel exploited.
Speaker 1:Well, when you Google the event too, I mean, there are a billion pictures of other people that I know. You know they're sobbing in their parents' arms, they're being rushed during the reunification process from the school to the separate reunification point, and it's just all of these really raw emotions. And as kids, I think you're a little more inclined to want to speak to a reporter because you don't quite realize the impact of what you're doing in that moment. It's just hey, I'm going to be famous, I'm going to be in the newspaper, um, but I think, looking back, you kind of second guess that decision.
Speaker 3:Well, you were too young to make that choice.
Speaker 1:You know, in my case I didn't even make the choice. They found out information from you. Know about who I was. No one ever spoke to me, so who knows what happened there? But you know teachers and school staff I do say you know, protect your kids from that. The focus should be on you and not being in the news.
Speaker 2:I think you said it well when you said we went back to school trying to remember how to be kids again, you know, because you experienced something, yeah, that no one should have to experience, but you also didn't have the mature processing to deal with it. And it does take you from childhood to having to deal with things that we do think more of adults being more capable of processing. Now, whether that's true or not, who knows, but you just want to go back to your innocence, right, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Now, one thing I will say for my school is they were incredibly prepared for this type of event. We're actually considered one of the success stories. So when you think of Littleton Colorado, most people think of Columbine, and you know we could go down a rabbit hole there, but I actually went to Deer Creek Middle School, which is right down the road from that.
Speaker 2:So can you tell us a little bit about the event that happened at your school?
Speaker 1:little bit about the event that happened at your school. Yeah, um, so I will say that I am very strongly opinionated that we should all practice no notoriety. Um, so I won't speak the shooter's name at all in this story, and I highly encourage everyone else to do the same, but on February 23rd 2010, the shooter took his father's rifle and went and purchased ammunition. He then stopped for lunch and drove to Deer Creek Middle School, which was a school that he had attended 20 years prior. He parked across from the street and waited until a sheriff's patrol car left the parking lot of the school before he relocated to campus grounds. He then entered the school and he was actually stopped by a custodian, and that custodian was probably the first hero of the day first hero of the day, as he told him that he needed to go check in at the front office and kind of blocked him from getting into the rest of the school. So the shooter ended up in the front office, had a discussion with the secretary who was working there at the time, and he had mentioned that he wanted to see a new wing of the building and asked about some teachers that he had known from his time at the school. So secretary was our second hero in that she told him he was welcome to see the new wing, but he had to wait until school was out and you know, pausing here, there's some theories that he had wanted to get into the school, open a side door and then come back with his rifle and carry things out that way. So just first things first, making sure everyone knew who was in the building, not letting people in when they weren't supposed to be there. That is something that doesn't always happen, and so I've been incredibly grateful to both of those people for their steps there. Both of those people for their steps there.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, he proceeded to leave the school and waited until the final bell rang, where he then grabbed his rifle from the car and re-approached the front doors of the school as all the students were being let out. He asked a group of students if they went to school there and, upon hearing them answer yes, he announced that they were all going to die and he fired a shot from his rifle, hitting a student. He then reloaded and fired another shot, which hit another student, and that all happened right before a teacher who was out on parking lot duty noticed him and tackled him to the ground, disarming him. Parking lot duty noticed him and tackled him to the ground, disarming him. A bunch more staff and parents came over to help. One person even thought to grab the gun and put it out of reach while the struggle was ensuing. And I think even some parents were there with zip ties because they happened to work in, like with HVAC systems or something. But it was a lot of folks who put themselves on the line when that's not part of the role they're supposed to have.
Speaker 1:But there were some pretty serious injuries, a lot of heroes who helped with those injuries. I think we even had a nurse who happened to be picking up a student and she was able to help with some of that. The second student actually was able to get back into the school and was helped by teachers who were on lockdown back there. And then, of course, you know, law enforcement showed up and they also helped defuse the situation, take care of and then clear the school that had gone into lockdown. So I myself was on the school bus and I saw everything more than any.
Speaker 1:Let's see, it was 2010. So I would have been like 12 or 13 years old at that point and it's kind of amazing the kinds of things that you remember, like there's some weird flashes. But also going back and putting this kind of recap of what happened together, I realized just how much I've forgotten as well and the brain processes trauma in such an interesting way. Um, but yeah, the school and staff handled things so well. Lockdown and reunification went as practiced and they'd actually just shifted to and trained on the standard response protocol which was created by the I Love you Guys Foundation, maybe even just a few months beforehand. So I can tell you it worked. Staff were able to keep them out of the building, School locked down, everyone inside the building was kept safe and reunification for those who were in lockdown went extremely well.
Speaker 2:I mean this could have been so much worse, and just the efforts and the seriousness. How many years go by to tell that story, and I'm thinking you know 2010,. Even back then, we felt we had to prepare schools for this type of thing. Michaela, can you share your story with us?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Hearing Kayla's story was very. We have a lot of things that are actually, I think, in common, which is really interesting to me.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to interject. I want to interject here and say I set this up and you two didn't know each other and to be honest, michaela, I didn't know you had a similar story. I did know a very small piece of Kayla's and then when Kayla did her questionnaire, it was way more than what I even knew that she had experienced. So it's just, I believe there's a universal push for us as human beings to do better in this area and help one another. But I just wanna thank both of you from the bottom of my heart, and what a blessing to me that I chose two people who it's not a blessing that this happened but have so much experience and so much to share. So go for it, michaela. Lay it on us.
Speaker 3:And we were very lucky no one got physically let me rephrase, significantly, physically harmed One of our teachers who was my old high school teacher. I forgot to mention that I taught at the high school I graduated from, so I know all these people, I know the community, I know the police officers. It's the front of the front of the front. It's like a small town Not a small town, but it's a community, and I was just thinking about it and I can pretty cut myself off really well because I have to be in control for my kids, right. But hearing Kayla brought me up like it just reminded me of my students and hearing their perspective, I spent so long making sure that they thought it was fine. I spent so long making sure that they thought it was fine. It just reminded me of their moments, you know, and I fully thought I was cool. I'm blaming Kayla, but it's funny because I'm used to telling the story to people who don't have experience with it, so I click on and I do my thing, but we don't talk about it with each other enough. So I taught at the high school I graduated from. It was a really unique situation. I taught life skills to kids with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities. And I was just changing the game already because my kids, for the most part it was very an old school spread of platforms, so we stayed in the same room. They were with each other. It was just kind of like we didn't even transfer like walk the halls at the same time. So from September to April I had spent so much time and being intentional about making my kids a part of the community. Inclusion is a big core about who I am, but figuring out how to implement it in a way that made sense for everybody and made it genuine was huge for me. So I was networking. I joked that I didn't get to teach. That was like the last thing on my list. I was PR and marketing. So we were doing a lot of stuff. I started a special Olympics club. My kids were out and we did unified sports. We were in it to win it and we knew a lot of people. And so by spring I'm so grateful that we had that foundation because in the morning it was before school started, so it was in like passing lunch breakfast time.
Speaker 3:In the morning we ended up having a shooting. A student walked up to the top of the stairs so he could oversee the whole commons, and that's when over a thousand people are walking around this place. We have a lot of other staff members that are supervising, but it's the same staff members who've known each other for 20 years and are shooting the shit and just like making jokes and talking about their golf swing and I'm so grateful those staff were there and I'm so grateful that my old teacher and I think that's the other part about it I love when I talk about Brady, my old social studies teacher I learned so much from and he was a big reason why I wanted to be a teacher and he is vigilant. He paid attention and he tackled the kid who took two shots in the air. He shot at the ceiling first, so he had a mission. He wasn't who knows what his story was and we were really lucky. He could have done way worse.
Speaker 3:Within that time, friend, colleague and former teacher, brady Olson was able to tackle the shooter and take care of us. Now I was fun fact in the principal's office with the principal, another teacher and one of my students. We were going through his backpack at the time of the shooting because there was an allegation that he had a knife in his bag. And it was this drama where I was like he doesn't have a knife. I'm like I know it's not there, but we have to follow the protocol because safety and I know the story is one student was jealous of another student and they both wanted to date the same girl and the girl was like, oh well, he has a, and so it turned into this mess.
Speaker 3:Well, when the shooting happened, we had to go under the desk and it was a teacher, my student, I under the desk. The whole time we're there I can hear the people in the front office. I can hear the tremor in their voices. I can hear them all trying to take care of business and be scared at the same time. We didn't know what happened. Luckily, everything was safe right away, but we don't know anything. We don't know the story for two hours. So we don't know who's hurt, we don't know what happened, we don't know anything.
Speaker 3:And I'm underneath the desk and a colleague looks at me and says should I answer my phone? And I'm like, absolutely not. I've watched too much TV and I've been in three run, hide and fight trainings. You put that phone on silent and you text them. Don't answer. So I'm talking to this person and I'm thinking in the back of my head this was my student who brought the gun and this is all over. My student that has an intellectual disability, who doesn't know better and was manipulated. And wow, what am I going to do? Like I'm worried about this particular kid Thankfully it wasn't my student but that whole entire time I'm thinking how am I going to protect the people in this office? How am I going to protect that student who I know it wasn't his fault? So how am I going to advocate for this kid? I think is mine. Who brought a gun, whoever, how am I going to handle this stuff? And I'm 22. I think I just turned 23. So I don't know anything, but I'm doing the best I can with the situation that we were given.
Speaker 3:Long story long, everyone was safe. The injuries were from a herd of people trying to run down the hallway at the same time. So there were sprained ankles, some scrapes, but in comparison to what we see every day on the news, like we were lucky. I will never forget the good things that came out of that day when you go. No one also talks about reunification, that whole process. I never hear a lick any real conversation online. And we did. We killed it.
Speaker 3:I watched all the teachers and some of these people I've known since I was 12, 13, 15. Some of them I've watched look like crazy people in an assembly with like booty shorts and bright pink leggings and they were all taking care of business and, you know, getting kids where they needed to be, and we were just hustling Like we couldn't think about what was next. We were trying to get this person, the medication, this wheelchair, out of the room. Who's going to go back to make sure this is happening? Oh, the swat's over here. We're just trying to put all these pieces together and make it until we can think about what the next stage is.
Speaker 3:I had a student.
Speaker 3:There's a notorious situation that teachers have to deal with where a lot of times we can't get a hold of parents.
Speaker 3:Parents have too much stuff going on and school is not, for whatever reason, a safe place for them to connect with. So I had a student where I only met his mom because of the school shooting. That was the first time I had met his mom and I could have done a couple things. I could have just been like hey, bud, go over there, there's your mom, live your life. I could have done a couple of things. I could have just been like hey, bud, go over there, there's your mom, live your life. But I haven't met her. I wanted to connect with her and let her know how much I loved her kid, and so I use that opportunity to figure out how to make her feel safe and make sure she knew how cool her kid was. Who hasn't been able to take other classes, who hasn't been able to meet other friends, and I'm trying to figure out how to like be a teacher and just survive this situation. You know, it was interesting.
Speaker 1:To respond to some of your thoughts. If you don't mind, melissa, go for it. You mentioned how terrifying it was to be in the classroom and how you had no idea what was going on, and I think that's a great point. I think we tend to forget the folks who are part of that lockdown. They don't have that information flowing. We tend to focus on the ones who've seen everything and, just based on some of the other students that I've spoken with who went through the same shooting, I think honestly they had a harder time recovering from all of this because they're just piecing together information and so, just yeah, I I feel you there. And then you also mentioned the reunification and how well you guys did, and my school did great with folks who are in lockdown.
Speaker 1:Where there was a miss was students who were on buses and bus drivers. I mean this was right, as school was getting out, so they only had some of the students. Everyone else was still taking their time getting on buses and they all thought it was firecrackers until you know, someone decided oh, it's time to leave. All students were taken home. You don't know if there's parents at home. You don't know when you're doing reunification later who's missing. You're not getting that mental health, you're not getting that support that you initially need after an event like this. So I also just wanted to point that out. Where reunification, there is a checklist, but things tend to happen during very inconvenient times, and so when we are doing these drills and practicing preparing for things like this, we can't just practice during the convenient times. We also need to look at things like lunch periods, getting to school, getting out, class changes, because there's a lot of opportunity there for things to go wrong and for people to be left behind.
Speaker 3:I didn't even think about that. Sorry, no, go ahead, kayla. No, I was just saying I think about the buses. Like I wonder whether I now I'm going to have all these questions for my friends. I'm like, where did they go? Because there had to have been kids still on the bus, but I think they might have just driven them to our drop-off point, because I would have heard about them. They wouldn't have gone back home, that's crazy about them.
Speaker 2:They wouldn't have gone back home. That's crazy. I think you both brought up a lot of really good food for thought, and I think nobody knows how to do these situations correctly. So whatever happens happens. We do the best that we can in the moments that we have them, but it is, if you think about those people that don't know what's going on in the moment, that and neuroscience tells us that the brain is at the height of the fight or flight because you don't know what you need to do. You just know you need to be on alert and you don't have all the information, whereas I think it's natural to make plans. When you do have information, you can start. That's kind of how we naturally process. We start sorting the information and we start coming up with the scenarios and what our options are.
Speaker 2:For me, I've been in I don't even know how many lockdowns, but the thing I speaking to something that you said, michaela, the one thing that happened to me, the last two lockdowns that I was in my final two as a educator and it was a difference in the rest of my educational career was I just went into all of those things that we do. You know what you're supposed to do. You know the things that you're supposed to be thinking about. You start going through the checklist in your mind and after it was over I realized not one time during the hour or two hours however long it was did I ever think about my own child that was also in that school. I just went through all the things that I knew I had to do and, as you were talking about all of your responsibilities and all of those kids that you were responsible for, I sometimes don't think that the public at large realizes that every time we have a threat, whether it's real or not, we go through that as educators we go through is everybody where they're supposed to be? Are all of my kids safe? But not once did I think about my own biological child who was also in that school system. So it is really. It was kind of a jarring moment for me and it happened not once but twice, but twice.
Speaker 2:So I personally feel like the potential of an event, a school shooting or just a violent event. Those things contributed to my burnout as an educator and as a mom. And you know the brain has to feel safe to learn. It can't be in and out of fight or flight mode and we know this if we're looking at how kids learn content. But the same is true for teaching. My last year of teaching I had a kid bring a hunting knife to school and he I had a kid bring a hunting knife to school and he I'm sorry and the student threatened other kids with it and I felt like I had so many events over my years of teaching that just led me to consistently be in the fight or flight mode Most of the time I was in the classroom, in the fight or flight mode.
Speaker 2:Most of the time I was in the classroom, I mean, my nervous system was operating up here all the time. I was just trying to make sure nothing bad happened. And maybe that was just me, maybe that's not other teachers, but I don't think so. I think a lot of teachers are operating or educators I don't want to say just teachers, I think it's administrators, school secretaries. I mean, we just have this such an enormous responsibility at this point in our history in the United States, and how can that be healthy or helpful to our student population? So I'm curious to hear what you think about where we go from here. How do we, is it possible to bring back that feeling of safe schools, and if so, how do we do it? So, kayla, what do you think about that?
Speaker 1:I think, first and foremost, if you can be prepared. I think that's one of the most important things that you can ever do, and being prepared doesn't mean just going through the drills, but it actually means sitting down, thinking through some of the possibilities for things that could happen and really discussing with yourself, discussing with others, your kids, both your own personal kids and your students. What would you actually do if something happened? Um, what would you actually do if something happened? And making sure that that is just a part of you is as unfortunate as it is. Things do happen, and I mean the fact that you have two people on this call right now. Um, I mean, everybody knows somebody who's been through something, whether it's a school shooting or some other form of violence. So, just really take time, prepare, and I don't know, with my school shooting, I think it just goes to show that preparation can be everything. It can save lives.
Speaker 1:And even coming back to the school, I felt safer. I felt safer because I knew it was going to go, what was going to happen, and my teachers let me know how seriously they were taking preparation as well. Apart from that, I mean focusing on mental health opportunities. Teachers know their students extremely well, I mean as educators. I'm sure you guys have students that you know more about than maybe you do other people in your lives and I think you can notice when something's off, whether as a result of something happening at home, or even an event has already happened.
Speaker 1:But the teacher shout out to Dr Bankey who tackled the gunman. I mean, after all of that happened he noticed I wasn't the same kid and he spent a lot of time and effort making me feel supported and seen and he's always told me that I'm under warranty, even when I'm no longer a student. So even 15 years later, I mean, he's still such a wonderful friend, a supporter, and he makes me feel safer than anyone else I've ever known. So just kind of realizing the power that you have in in your students' lives, I mean you, you can make a lifetime of change and even just a short time.
Speaker 2:So Uh, kayla, thank you so much for that. You know, and again, something we don't think about the aftermath, the what can we do as educators after the fact? Ah, I love that, michaela. What do?
Speaker 3:you think.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's what they get me. Kayla, you're messing with me because I was doing great. But the I'm un-funky thing, I'm obsessed with that. And now I want to go back 10 years and just say that, okay, so I wrote that down, because now I'm obsessed and I I want to go back 10 years and just say that, okay, so I wrote that down, because now I'm obsessed and I'm thinking about the big picture and why I took a break from the classroom.
Speaker 3:A lot of people leave teaching because they are burnt out, and I get it. I've experienced burnout and a lot of. I mean, I have so many stories within that but the burnout is because of the system. It's not because of what we're doing. It's not because we're not working hard enough. It's because people are making decisions that we, as educators and students, have to follow, for whatever reason, but it's made with a bad plan, and so, when I'm thinking about the solution, we don't need more initiatives, we don't need anything new. I really love a lot of the stuff that we're trying to initiate right now, and we've been trying for years. We need better implementation plans. People will try to have a solution and they're trying to rush to provide a solution and I feel like they're rushing to say, oh, we're doing SEL, oh, we're doing this Because they want to check a box and show that they're doing something rather than doing something with fidelity. And that takes time and it takes conversations and it takes somebody to lead it that has the bandwidth and also the understanding of every different stakeholder, the experience of the student, the experiences of the teachers of the paras right, and we need to get out of the mindset that the schools are the only thing doing stuff for a community, like the schools are supposed to be serving the community, but in reality the community needs to serve that school as well. So I'm thinking about we have plenty of things. We need school safety plans, we need a lot of that stuff and we need somebody that has the emotional bandwidth to facilitate conversations with those teachers so you guys can figure out what they do need, what areas they are so stressed out about do need, what areas they are still stressed out about.
Speaker 3:I had to. I was the leader in my classroom where we had to have the conversations no one wants to have, which is how are we going to get this student that's nonverbal, using a wheelchair and 200 pounds up these stairs. What are we going to do? We can get all of these kids to hide over here, but what are we going to do with these two students who physically can't move? And how am I going to train students with all disabilities to follow the expectation? And that's stuff I have to teach from day one. Right, you have a school drills for and Gen Ed kids can contextualize it a little bit easier, but we have drills a couple of times a year. But I have to have these really hard conversations and no one taught me how to do it. I figured it out because I read a lot of books and watch a lot of TV. I guess that I had to figure it out.
Speaker 3:I would love if we had communities that brought together. I know we have a lot of small businesses and different pockets where they all work together to support each other. If we could have a community plan. What are we going to do as businesses, as doctor's offices, as the churches down the street? What are we going to do if this happens in this building or in one of this district?
Speaker 3:Right, oh, we're going to go provide food and I don't want freaking pizza Sometimes I do but we need to provide. Maybe give us a vegetable because we can't have more cake and more junk. Like, give us stuff that we really need. That's going to make us feel better for longer, not just in the moment. Oh, we're going to come and we're going to clean up your classroom because it probably looks like a mess. We're going to go and give you the space. We're going to come. If you show me this, I'll file all this paperwork and we're going to take that off your plate so you can have that time with your kids. Right, let's do a cool art project and we're going to donate the supplies, because y'all don't have the money to buy it, and then we'll give your kids the space to have those conversations and facilitate that learning. Right, there's a lot of things that community can do to tap in. They just don't know better and we don't know how to ask for it.
Speaker 2:Well, I think even within the system, sometimes we don't know how to ask for it, because I think many, many and this is not a criticism to the education system, and I have a lot of criticisms for the education system, but this one isn't one Sometimes you don't know what you need to do to prepare until the situation happens. But you can analyze that situation and do better the next time. And these are the things oftentimes that I see are not happening within the system. We have something happen and we assume that it was a one-off and we don't put in the analysis and the preparation for if it happens again. That is a learning opportunity. It is a learning opportunity not only for us but for the system as a whole, and I'm going to get off my soapbox now, but that is.
Speaker 2:I'm really glad that you brought that up, because it's not just education that shootings are happening in. I was talking to my brother-in-law this evening. We went and had dinner and I was telling him that we were going to have this conversation and I gave him these. You know, I was able to rattle off these statistics because I had just done the research and I made sure that I said but this is just school shootings. This is not mass shootings. So let's be clear this is not just happening in education, but we can learn from every one of these and make every system better.
Speaker 1:Okay, to that point, I think we're all part of the club no one wants to be a part of. I think some people have their foot in the door a little bit further than others. But, like I said before, like we all know someone who's been through something, and we're all part of a wider community and there are a lot of ripple effects that happen, you know, specifically with school shootings, and I think we tend to forget that there might be more victims than just those that saw something happen, that were part of something. So also just food for thought. You know we're all impacted by this. It's an important topic. We all, as a community, need to be focusing on making change Because it affects all of us.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day, it affects every one of us. It affects every one of us. So I'm going to ask my final question here, which is maybe an easy one.
Speaker 3:Is there anything else that you would like to share? And we'll start with Michaela. I've been thinking a lot. I have a lot of random half written notes on my iPhone and then I found my post I made on Facebook the day of the shooting and I was like just processing how my journey with processing the situation is like kind of evolved. It's really interesting and there's so many different ways to talk about it and I'm trying to figure out what to prioritize.
Speaker 3:But school shootings, they can't be normal. Any shooting in public, like mass shootings, can't be normal and they can't become the equivalent of a sad car accident. Um, it kind of feels right now and and I understand because of my reactions now, whenever I hear see a headline, see a tagline, because of my reactions now, whenever I hear see a headline, see a tagline, but it kind of feels the equivalent of driving past a bad car accident and then forgetting about it when the bottleneck clears. So you're like, oh, what color car was that, how bad was it? I don't remember, cause you get out of the bottleneck and then you're on, you're driving forward, but this is too serious, it can't be that way. And the way that we're speaking and then we're speaking about it. We're not speaking about things. It's just kind of pushing us along, to be numb to it.
Speaker 3:As a special education teacher that works with kids with severe needs the behavior of it all I am not scared of nothing. I'm really not. When I'm in an emergency, I can handle it in whatever it is. My apartment just flooded and everyone was congratulating me with how calm I was, and it's because I've been through stuff and I've learned in an emergency. I have to get us through. I have to figure it out when nine out of 10 times now when I see a headline or a news, I can't even learn the school's name anymore because I'm at capacity. I don't have anything for you there, like I can't, they'll ask me details. I don't know. I don't wanna know. I have nothing left to give in terms of learning more facts and figures until we find a solution that's conducive to honoring it in a way that feels genuine. I have a hard time following a bad plan and I just kind of feel like we're following a bad plan because people with money and a voice are leading the pack. But I will say, if I go back to my Facebook post from April 27th 2015, my first chunk said we cannot bubble wrap our kids or the world they live in. We can teach them to not live in fear but be smart, resourceful and kindhearted. Now I was 23, and I was just like optimism and I had to get my kids through the rest of the day, the rest of the year, and let them know we're not going to let anything happen to you. You're fine.
Speaker 3:And it took me a lot longer, I think, to process how it impacted me, because I didn't have the luxury to process it. I didn't pockets of it, but I didn't have the luxury to process it. I didn't pockets of it, but I couldn't really figure it out until probably the summer, and even then, I don't know if I fully intellectualized it until maybe the Florida shooting in 2018. I think it took me a couple years Just thinking out loud and thinking about where the solution is.
Speaker 3:We need to listen more, we need to take ownership and this is for all the stakeholders. We need to still have that optimism because I don't. I'm never going to be the person that's never going to go to the movie theater again. I'm going to go back to school and I'm not going to let this situation affect my experience with the school I graduated from and have all these great experiences and done all these big things with my Special Olympics club. That experience isn't going to shade my ability to navigate the world, but we need to do a better job of lifting people up, giving them the space to process and the tools they need to make it through, because we're always going to have hard stuff.
Speaker 2:I'm really glad that you said that. One of the topics that's come up it actually kind of started, it was like the impetus for starting this podcast was the number of teachers who pass too early, and I had a couple of friends in the same school district that passed away unexpectedly before retirement. Really bad CPS situation and you all know what I'm talking about, or whether it is a colleague passing is that, as educators, quite frequently when the unthinkable happens, we just simply don't get the process time. You have to save it for spring break or summer break or winter break or summer break or winter break, whichever one's coming up, and that's not fucking fair. So, Kayla, is there anything else you would like to share before we sign off here?
Speaker 1:Yeah, school shootings tend to leave the headlines pretty quickly. You know, a lot of headlines happen that first day, first few days, and then we tend to forget about the after effects, the aftermath of everything that's happened, and everyone deals with things differently and there's not really an instruction manual on how to feel better after a school shooting, how to recover from that. We just all need to. I ask that people be patient with one another. Give people space to process and feel the feelings that they have, because they are extremely complex and they pop up at the weirdest times. Um, one of my weirdest memories from the shooting was somebody dropped their cello on the sidewalk and when I think of the shooting, honestly that's the first thing I think of. Um, and now I'm a musician, so maybe that's why it sticks with me, but when I hear cello it comes up. So, just giving space.
Speaker 1:Even 10, 15, 100 years later, it's never fully going to be healed, and especially when other headlines do appear. That's just another wound, and it doesn't even have to be school shooting related. It can just be violence in general or just something, something triggering. So just be kind, be kind and give people a space to be heard and be prepared so that we can keep this from happening. And if it does happen, you know, it's not to the extent of some of the headlines that we have seen. So just listening to this podcast right now, hopefully people have learned something or I don't know. I made you feel a feeling about this and it's going to send you into a thought process that you weren't going to have before. Like those are all steps into making a difference and I don't know. I just I hope my story helps other people.
Speaker 2:I think it will.
Speaker 3:It helped me process. It really threw me off because I was like I'm fine and that you remind me of my old peer tutors and then it really put me back in a weird space. But having those conversations it's been really helpful for me because I don't talk about it with other people as much who have been through it you know.
Speaker 1:Well, it's hard to. No one wants to hear about the traumatic thing it's. It's hard to hear and if you haven't been through it yourself, I mean you can't even begin to understand. On the same level, you know there's there's a lot of yeah, I'll give you a hug, but it's not the same as speaking to people who are in in that club. So I don't know. Thanks to you, Michaela, as well, for sharing your story, because even that for me is another step in healing, just knowing I'm not alone.
Speaker 3:Sadly, we have a much bigger group than we know. We absolutely do, Melissa. I have one more thought. Do you mind if I throw it out there?
Speaker 2:Go for it.
Speaker 3:I always go back and forth about how to solve the problem and it's not going to be one extreme or the other right. So I have that optimism. We can't be afraid. We can't live in fear. But also, this is a political issue. This is an issue that thoughts and prayers can't solve. Moments of silence, none of that. We've done it a lot, we've had a lot of practice and it hasn't made a dent. It hasn't made a dent in anything. So if we can go I'm trying to phrase this If anybody listening or anybody has an opinion on school shootings and think they know the solution, you better be solution focused and not just try to get us whoever to believe in your opinion work together, intersectionally, interdisciplinary well, you know the word but we need to work together to be solution focused, and I think it's long past the venting phase and we need to figure it out.
Speaker 2:I agree. I want to thank both of you for agreeing to do this. In my opinion, we cannot talk too much about this and I appreciate your willingness to come on here and share, because I know this was not easy for either one of you. So, if you are listening and would like to participate in our conversation, this episode will be on my Buzzsprout channel, youtube channel, instagram and LinkedIn. Don't let this important conversation end here.
Speaker 2:Today's episode was produced and edited by me. The theme music is by Otis McDonald featuring Joni Ines. If you know someone who might enjoy these conversations, please share the podcast episodes as much and as often as you can. It's as simple as copying the link you use to access today's episode and sending it in a message or sharing it on social media. I'm a small, independent operation and your shares broaden our audience. Perhaps you or someone you know will be inspired to talk about teacher burnout. If you would like to get your voice on my podcast, contact me via the link on my webpage. Taughtbuzzsproutcom. Coach speaker and author Rashid Ogunlaro said it may take many voices for people to hear the same message. Join me in being one of the many voices rising up to get the message out around educator burnout.
Speaker 2:This is Melissa LaFleur. Thank you for listening to TAUT the podcast. I have an important reminder slash disclaimer to share. The views, thoughts and opinions expressed by the hosts and guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer or company. Content provided on this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be taken as professional advice. We encourage you to do your own research and consult with qualified professionals before making any decisions based on the information discussed in this or any other episode. Additionally, any opinions or statements made during the podcast are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company or individual Listener. Discretion is advised. Thank you for tuning in.