One of my many roles/jobs has been as a teacher in secondary education. For many years I taught theater classes and film appreciation courses for U of H-Downtown and various campuses of Lone Star College system. I was happiest in a classroom but became a more than competent distance-learning instructor.
A few years ago, I was teaching one section as an instructor-led class, and at least one section online each semester. School shootings escalated and touched communities in Texas. My campus, which had always been a gun-free zone, was suddenly unable to enforce that status when Texas changed its gun-carry laws and began encouraging teachers to arm themselves. I did not purchase a gun. But I did begin each new semester by going over an active-shooter plan for our classroom. I assigned students who chose to sit at the back of the classroom tasks related to securing the doors and overturning furniture. We went through the steps we would execute to impede the shooter and their bullets, and the safest behavior for that situation. It took up the majority of my first class-period, in a semester already jam-packed. After a couple of semesters, I opted to teach only online classes.
About that time, (2019) Boston Review published this article, “Teachers with Guns” by an Ohio school principal, Thomas Baxter (a pseudonym). It recounts his experience with the school board’s decision to arm select staff members, the training he went through, and the first time he had to use his training. It is an educational and somewhat disturbing article.
Claire Hart-Palumbo 