A Slightly Funny Inspirspective

Again, some background information is necessary before I can get to the funny part; I apologize.

Two days a week, I aide during my morning study hall. I start out in study hall until lunch count and announcements are over and then I go down to aide. The teacher I aide for (who is also the football coach so imagine a big football-player-looking guy) has me go over online social studies lessons with a student. His room is next to the Senior English room.

Here's the story part.

As I was listening to our secretary give a cheerful slew of announcements, I hear one particular announcement about the morning's upcoming lockdown drill. At the conclusion of announcements, our study hall supervisor tells us that procedure is to hide underneath the chairs. I walked down to aide thinking that what my peers in study hall were doing sounded way more exciting than what I would do.

Looking back, I'm very glad I was aiding that period. During the drill, the English IV students next door came over and we all sat against the wall in silent darkness. After the administration came to check us off, the football coach looks at the English teacher (who is also the cross country coach and my independent writing teacher) and asks her if she brought the golf club she stows in her room for precisely this purpose: lockdowns. She whispered an exclamation that she'd forgotten it.
"That's okay," says the football coach. "I have wasp spray that shoots - like - twenty feet."

I'm not sure if anyone else realized what their comments meant for us as students in their care. I thought back to the Virginia Tech shooting when the Israeli professor barricaded the door and died trying to protect his pupils. It hit me like a ton of bricks that these two teachers as my puny high school had every intention of risking their lives to save ours if the situation should ever truly arise. I understand that intending to act and actually doing so is quite different, but it touched my heart nonetheless. Both teachers have families and successes and goals and dreams and lives to live, but if it came down to the wire, I truly believe that they would stand up and fight for us.

I'm sure it's more than just these two teachers, and I'd like to personally extended my thanks to all of the teachers who will, would, or have fought to protect their students in a time of crisis. And specifically, thank you to the two teachers who unknowingly touched my heart with their banter about golf clubs and wasp spray for I saw the implications behind it.

It's people like you who make the world better and school safer.