No one wants to teach in the era of school shootings. Let’s demand gun reform | Opinion
It is no secret that the country is experiencing a significant teacher shortage. The reasons are challenging, complicated and systemic, but the May 24 mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas reminds us, once again, why young people are opting out of teaching.
A 2019 report published by the Economic Policy Institute indicated a 27.4% decrease in the number of people who completed a teacher preparation program between 2008-2009 and 2015-2016. More recently, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) reported colleges and universities awarded fewer than 90,000 degrees in education by 2018-2019. Florida International University, one of the largest producers of Hispanic teachers in the country, is no different. In 2009-2010, FIU awarded 193 degrees in elementary education. In 2019-2020, we awarded 53.
Every day, our faculty members work hard to prepare future teachers to educate our children. We teach them the science of reading. We teach them how to use active learning in the classroom. And we teach them how to ensure all children have the opportunity to succeed beyond school. When they walk across the stage to get their diploma, they smile, brimming with hope that they too will impact the life of a child.
Last week, I spent a couple of hours with some of the very best teachers in our community. One of them talked about the love she has for her students. But the events of Sandy Hook, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Columbine, and now Robb Elementary, to name a few, have taken the lives of teachers, and the students they loved. The teachers that survive this tragedy, their students and the families will live with the unimaginable trauma that comes with these horrific shootings.
The script is always similar. We mourn the incredible loss of life. We grieve as a nation and then we claim that nothing happens. In reality, a lot happens. We talk about the murderer’s mental health, we look to the adults around him “who did nothing.” We bIame other teachers and school practitioners who “missed the signs.” We make them participate in more professional-development workshops on mental health, and we blame everyone who couldn’t predict this would happen at their school.
The only thing that doesn’t happen? Gun reform.
I’ll take suggestions on how we are supposed to recruit future educators in the era of school shootings. I recognize that, despite the gravity of these events, school shootings are still rare. Yet, teachers and their students are required to participate in code-red drills because school shootings happen often enough that teachers and their kindergartners should be prepared.
Legislators across the country want to pay teachers more while simultaneously moving legislation that would allow them to carry guns in the classroom. How much are the lives of teachers and the associated trauma worth? Should we add firearm training to FIU’s teacher preparation curriculum? And if we do, would that make you more likely to encourage your child or grandchild to become a teacher?
As my 17-year-old daughter told me through tears, “No child should have to go to school afraid.” When you drop your child off at school tomorrow morning, consider that the child’s teacher is willing to protect them from a person with a gun. Then go home, and call your legislators and tell them you want gun reform, not only because you want your child and the child’s teacher to go home alive tomorrow, but because you also want there to be teachers to educate our children in the future.
Laura Dinehart, Ph.D., is dean of Florida International University’s School of Education and Human Development, College of Arts Science and Education.
