On Carrying a Gun in My Classroom

WARNING: You may hate me after this post. I'm a little scared to hit "Publish." But if you'd like to know about the reality of what so many are asking, I have to do it, and encourage you to read it.

My classroom is an energetic place, to say the least. On any given day, a student's experience is one or all of the following:

• Jumping up and down
• Screaming and yelling of vocabulary, life experiences, sound effects
• Dramatic re-enactments of literature or life experiences
• Throwing of candy to well-deserving students (they like Jolly Ranchers best--you should see when I accidentally drop one; they dive at it like a herd of Walkers in The Walking Dead)
• Me, running around in erratic circles to hold the attention of seventh graders who hate to read, all the while bumping into things because I'm klutzy, which I accept because it further holds their attention. What's funnier than seeing your teacher trip and fall?
• Loud music
• Amazing and intense Powerpoints set to inspirational music
• Leaping off of furniture
• The Hokey Pokey
• The Chicken Dance
• Final Copy Day; in which my students must turn in final manuscripts of a writing piece on which they've worked for weeks and which must be free of errors lest I return it to them and mark it in my grade book as a zero until it is corrected. High tension situation right there, no exaggeration.
• Writing Workshop, with students wearing headphones to create their own "soundtracks" or else me playing a loud "Study Playlist" to block out distractions while they work
• Writing Workshop, in which I travel student to student through the classroom and work one-on-one with them to meet their particular needs for writing improvement. I have between 115 and 130 students year to year. I sit beside each one with a purple or green pen and mark up their drafts from beginning to end with suggestions and changes. I have conversations that include uncomfortable eye contact so they will (to any degree) absorb what I am teaching them.
• I am an anxious person. This isn't really anyone's business because I do my job well, but for the sake of this discussion, I'll share that I do get migraines, and have, on occasion, taught through migraines accompanied by an aura (spotted vision/vision loss). 
• I do not have enough sick days because I'm a young mother whose children are sick often. We have a lot of doctor appointments that can only be scheduled during school hours. This means I often come to school exhausted and/or not feeling the greatest. 

Due to all of the above listed items, I am not capable of operating a gun. I should not be given a gun, because in all truth, the above items will affect my judgment and ability to obtain the (presumably locked up or not-immediately-ready-to-fire) gun. I cannot be trusted to aim well for any of the reasons listed above, not least of which is the wellness factor. I will hesitate to pull the trigger because I am not confident I could attack another person, no matter the situation.

Fire me and find someone who can and will carry a gun? Okay. But know that I'm not alone in this. I am not the only teacher whose classroom looks like this and who has the same reservations. I'm willing to bet I'm in the majority, in fact. So what will we end up with? Military teaching our kids? Sacrifice the success of education (which is already a hot-button issue currently being ignored...by the way, please opt your children out of state tests since nothing has changed enough yet to make those tests effective) so that, bottom line, gun laws don't have to change? Not to mention the cost of training and arming educators. But don't worry. School districts have bottomless funds...oh, wait. They don't. Countless fantastic educators have lost their jobs in the last decade. Valuable programs and extracurriculars have been eliminated. Because schools don't have enough money to begin with.

Further, I am going to be one-hundred percent honest with you. Every year, I get to know and truly love my students. But no matter what, I love my own children more and my greatest fear is that I will die and they will grow up without me. Self-centered? Vain? Conceited? I don't care. Call me whatever you want. Bottom line? I'm an EXCELLENT TEACHER, but I will NOT sacrifice my life for anyone but my OWN FAMILY. I will follow all protocol and use logic to the best of my ability to keep students safe, but I won't be the hero on the news. I am needed elsewhere, and that will always be my priority.

Follow the success stories of so many other countries. Limit access to guns. If you're looking to teachers for guidance on this, learn from our example. If a student starts poking a classmate with a pen, a ruler, a pencil...I take the fucking thing away.