<p>I do think this is different. Look at us… we are out here a week after the event, still brought to tears by thinking about it. And we are just a tiny, tiny slice of the people who feel this way. I am heartened by many of the reactions I have seen this week from people who would not have spoken out in the past (or would have taken a different side in the past). It won’t be easy, but I see more hope for action than with past events. I think NYmom2 hit it right on regarding why this is different.</p>
<p>My daughter’s friend went to one of the teacher’s funerals . Her father works with the father of the teacher ( don’t know specifics ) Same friend had shooter’s mom fro a first grade teacher. Very , very sad</p>
<p>I think one of my strongest emotions is awe of the teachers who sacrificed their lives to try and save the students, every time I think of them I am torn both by a tremendous sense of sadness, that these fine people were lost, and the admiration and awe of their sacrifice. In a time when we spend a lot of time demonizing teachers, the teaching profession, these were a group of women who gave literally their last dying breath to try and save those kids, and it literally brings me to tears to think of it. I don’t know what kind of medals they can give to a civilian, but whatever it is, they are owed that, as small a thing that that is. I think what they did outweighs what they give the medal of honor for, if only that they were never trained as soldiers, didn’t go to work that day planning to do what they did, and yet rose to a level of sacrifice almost never seen.</p>
<p>Yes, I too am awed by the tremendous courage that these teachers and faculty showed, putting their kids first and successfully shielded many of the innocent from deadly gunfire. They are all heroes and heroines, which kept things from being even worse than they were. They spent their dying breaths protecting kids and the rest of the school.</p>
<p>cnp55: You are definitely not alone. We are all the way in California and feel the sadness and overwhelming feeling of helplessness. Even my kids are not in a Christmas mood. It has become a national epidemic of sadness. Looking back to other mass shootings or 911 I remember feeling the same way, but something about this Newton shooting just tears away at the very core. My daughter brought up a very interesting point that another sad thing is that most of us will go on to remember the shooters name. The media is a frenzy with information…how many of us will remember the actual names of the victims? I am posting all of them on a sticky on my laptop so that I will stop to pray for their families. It is very hard to understand the cruelties of this world, but as tragedies unfold it is just as amazing to see how many wonderful people come together and find joy in one another and find ways to reach out in acts of kindness.</p>
<p>Here’s one thing we can probably all agree on doing: SUPPORTING OUR TEACHERS. They have had a rough couple of years anyway (at least in states like mine where they have been vilified and called “thugs”)…and now this. I have several friends who are teachers and I could never do what they do, even without the threat of violence in their schools. So, yeah–hug a teacher.</p>
<p>Will be going to a dinner party tomorrow night. Most of the women are teachers or nurses. Both professions have been having a LOT of stress these days and nearly all the women I have spoken with would love to switch careers or retire if they could. The stresses are taking a BIG toll on all of them. I will give them virtual hugs unless I have licked this infection that I’ve been battling over the last few days. Don’t want to share that, though I am on antibiotics and my docs say only someone with my bad lungs would get as sick as I invariably do. No one in my nuclear family or anywhere else has gotten what I have. :(</p>
<p>While I’m deeply sorrowful for the parents of the slain children, I’d prefer to put my financial help toward the families of less means who also have lost children to gun violence. Slate Magazine reports that in the week since Newtown, four teenagers and two younger children were killed by guns in the US. So I extrapolate that some one hundred families lost a young child this year, aside from the Newtown families. Does anyone have a suggestion of an organization that aids families of young victims of gun violence?</p>
<p>I barely made it through reading ‘The Night Before Christmas’ to my class today. When I got to the part about the children were nestled all snug in their beds, I had to stop for a few moments. </p>
<p>The parents at our school are quite wonderful and have always been supportive. Their parent organization sent out a link to an article. In part, it said:
“So hug your kids. And a teacher. We talk an awful lot about teacher effectiveness. But leaving that aside, most teachers teach because they really love kids. And I don’t personally know a single teacher who wouldn’t have done exactly what those heroes at Sandy Hook Elementary did….try to tackle an armed gunman, shield their students’ bodies with their own, hide their students and sacrifice their own lives instead. So hug a teacher too, won’t you?”
The full article is at [Hug</a> your kids today…and while you’re at it, a teacher. | disrupt learning!](<a href=“http://karenmahon.com/2012/12/14/hug-your-kids-today/]Hug”>Hug your kids today…and while you’re at it, a teacher. | disrupt learning!)</p>
<p>Our state is still wrangling to get an updated contract. Their union & our governor & others can’t agree on the terms–each lobs a unilateral contract at the other. The teachers, kids and families have to keep functioning with all the additional stress and uncertainty of even a potential strike. It’s really sad that things are so unsettled.</p>
<p>@crittermom, I actually do not want to know the names or faces of the children. It isn’t that I don’t care , but it makes it more painful to me.
There was a detail that I heard about the victims that I really wish I didn’t hear and I think I just went into the mode of sticking my fingers in my ears for my own protection and ability to process this tragedy</p>
<p>sally305, I couldn’t agree more! I’ve watched, shocked and baffled, as certain politicians have managed to turn teachers into greedy thugs, or worse, in the minds of many people.</p>
<p>My D is a first year teacher. There have been several threats called in to schools in the area since this attack. Her school had a fake call yesterday. They also lost power. She said you realize what an emotional attachment you have to the kids when you are locking the door and following the protocol you are taught. She teaches juniors and seniors in high school.</p>
<p>Excepting a couple of events like the Bath School shooting and explosion and the clock tower shooter ,there is a change in the last couple of decades in what we are seeing. </p>
<p>It used to be a fairly straight forward person A has a grudge against person B type of crime (for instance: “March 12, 1951: Union Mills, North Carolina Professor W. E. Sweatt, superintendent and teacher at the Alexander school, was shot to death by students Billy Ray Powell, 16, and Hugh Justice, 19. The assailants had been reprimanded by Sweatt, and they waited for him as he locked his office door.”)</p>
<p>Now we have things that are fundamentally different- aggressors specifically targeting innocent, uninvolved parties as an act of self-immolation. The Virgina Tech shooter target people in classes he never took. Lanza attacked a school he wasnt going to. Same pattern with Kip Kinkel and Kleblod/Harris. </p>
<p>Obviously something has changed in the last few decades in the way these shooting happen. There was plenty of access to weapons in the 1950’s after WWII. Schools even had rifle teams where kids brought their weapons to school. And gun licensing was much looser (except in selected cities) and there were no background check laws. And there were no “gun free zones”.</p>
<p>So something has changed and I dont think its the guns. Maybe the clips but that seems like a logical stretch. </p>
<p>I’d suggest that we really need a full look at the issue. Is it societal? Media glorification of violence? Should we restrict gangster rap and violent video games? Are there specific issues with mental health drugs that kids are on these days that never existed in the past. </p>
<p>Something(s) have changed, and I dont see how its the guns.</p>
<p>^Thank you for adding this. I follow Chicago news, and every time I read about a child getting shot I make a point to learn about him or her, just as we are all doing now with the Newtown victims. The innocent kids caught in the crossfire of gang violence are every bit as deserving of our attention and sympathy, but because their deaths don’t get the same publicity (and, sadly, are more “expected”) fewer people know about them.</p>
<p>Our local weekly paper that also serves Sandy Hook has all the obituaries of the students and teachers today. The news here for the last week has been completely dominated by this tragedy.</p>