Now the question that wakes me: What can I say to my students?
Death is not unfamiliar to most of them. One eighth grade student just uncovered his brother's dead body in bed last month after a drug overdose. He was absent for three or four days, and when he returned he was eerily "normal," just a bit hyper-focused on his work. As the weeks have passed, Dylan's grip on himself has continued to slip. He cannot sit still. He runs and jumps into the reading corner bean bag chairs, throwing a pink one overhead while the rest of the students looked on from their group work, annoyed. I've been quietly reminding them to be patient with him, but how can they fully understand his grief? How can I gently help him cope in class, beyond linking him with the appropriate trained psychologists and counselors outside of my classroom?
So many students, so much pain. Some are not very well cared for, in dirty clothes, with unwashed hair and darting eyes. So many in foster care or living with aunties and grandparents.
And now this.
How will I start the conversation in a way that is sensitive, gentle, productive, healthy? How else would an ELA teacher proceed? Books.
A professor of mine at the University of Kentucky's Library and Information Science program introduced me to the field of bibliotherapy. Books can help start healing conversations with students, as well as help them cope with the myriad issues with which they struggle. One caveat though, exemplified in the case of my student Dylan, is that the student must be ready to cope with the issue. If not, they might react negatively to the book I give them, as it might force them to acknowledge a pain they're avoiding.
Still, for tragic events that affect all of us, I think it's important to start the conversation, because the kids are going to have a lot of questions. One blogger who has been through tragedies with her students, including witnessing a suicide and 9/11, writes of success using Charlotte's Web with her kindergartners to help them cope with these tragedies.
Of course my early adolescents need something with more grit. I found a list of school shooting books on GoodReads, and I just ordered Columbine by Dave Cullen and Shooter by Walter Dean Myers from the local public library. I'll share this student review of Teen Ink, and when I go pick the books up form the library, I'll ask for picture books about grief to start the conversation.
After a tragedy like this, my first thought is, how can I help my students? My second thought is how can we, as a society and as teachers, prevent such tragedies from recurring? While some make the case for the rarity of mass public shooting, that it happens at all should be an impetus for prevention.
William Glaverson of the New York Times writes an important piece on the difficult questions we ask after such a tragedy. Apparently, in all or most of the public massacres in the last twenty years, the mad men (and they have nearly all been men, and all mentally ill) have made numerous "cries for help" before they committed their murders. I believe the social stigmatization of mental illness, particularly for men in our nation, is partly to blame. If only they could receive mental health treatment as easily as they could acquire automatic weapons.
On the front end, teachers and adults in the community can and should do more to support the emotional well being of all their students. It is easy to ignore the loners, the boys who eat lunch alone, who face ridicule, who are unwell, especially if they don't cause class disruptions. We must take the time to reach out to them, to their parents, and to get them the mental health services they may need early, before more fall victim to the violent expression of pain endured to the breaking point of the mentally ill.
What can I say to my students? How about, "Are you okay?"
During this individual reading time, I want my students to enjoy themselves, but I also want to practice reading skills and build vocabulary. My students are required to find one new word a day, or four new words a week, look them up in the dictionary and record the word and definition in their reading notebooks. On Friday, I walk around the room, checking their nightly reading logs and vocabulary words. I confer with them to make sure they understand the words, and if there are any words that I think could improve their writing, I have them write the word and definition on index cards. (This is considered a kind of honor, btw.)