WE CANNOT LEARN IN FEAR

by Colette Mrozek

Wewalk into school every day, aware that someone else might walk in too, and pull out a gun. Any day, our friends and teachers could be victims of a school shooting. Our friends could die, our teachers could die.

We could die.

We carry this knowledge with us in the backs of our heads; always floating a few layers beneath the surface. 'We' is me, my friends, my classmates. 'We' is students across the US.

School should be safe. It's not.

School is supposed to be many things, serve many functions. It’s supposed to be a place of learning, where our nation’s children gain the knowledge and skills needed to pursue careers. It is supposed to be a social scene; a place to spend time with friends, some of whom we only get to see during the school day. For some kids, school is their first foray into close friendship. School is supposed to be a place where creativity thrives. It is meant to be a place where students can discover and pursue new interests.

But how can school be any of this, when each time an announcement comes on, students and teachers flinch inside, knowing we could be about to go into lockdown; when each time students sit down in class, we mentally map our path to the nearest exit — in case we hear gunshots.

Because it is unsafe, school is inherently dysfunctional to any of its purposes.

Elementary school children are taught what to do if there is an active shooter in the building before they even know what a school shooting is. When I was in elementary school, my teachers told us the drills were in case someone was in the building “who wasn’t supposed to be.” I didn’t understand what that meant.

I do now.

I am lucky. I have never experienced a school shooting, and my high school, Bethesda Chevy-Chase, has never had one at all. But this doesn’t change the fact that the threat of a school shooting is always there, looming behind the curtains in my subconscious, ready to spring.

Each time there is a school shooting, I am relieved it didn’t happen at my school.

But next time, it might.

There is always a next time.

The US has had 57 times as many school shootings as all the other G7 nations combined, according to an analysis done by CNN in 2018.

There are dozens of school shootings in the US each year, and that number keeps growing.

105 in 2018, as researched by Everytown for Gun Safety. 130 in 2019. 202 in 2021.

Over 100 so far in 2022.

Even in 2020, when the pandemic led to a mass closing of schools, there were still 96 school shootings, almost a hundred.

When I say students are in danger every time we walk into school, that isn’t an exaggeration.

It's a fact.

This is not OK. This is so far from ok. The rate of school shootings in the US is atrocious.

Every time there is a school shoot- ing, I am struck by the feeling that the playing field has thinned, the chopping block shortened. How many more of these tragedies until a shooter picks my school as their target?

10? 20? 100? That means that at recent rates of school shootings, I and those I love could be a victim this year, perhaps within weeks.

200? By next semester.

400? 500? In a year.

This is the reality I live in as a student in the USA. Where children are shot at, injured and killed by school shooters, each and every year. Where I face the constant threat of becoming one of those children.

I am 15 years old. I should not have to contemplate my own death. I should be worrying about grades and SSL hours and clubs.

We live in the “land of the free” — but what does that freedom actually mean? Who is it given to?

Does it mean having the freedom to go to school unburdened, unafraid? Do I have the freedom to live my life knowing that I am protected from individu- als who use guns for murder?

Am I given the freedom to go to school in safety?

Three days after I originally wrote this article, my school went into lockdown while police responded to a report of a gun in the building. Thankfully, no one was hurt, and in fact there had never been a gun at all.

That does not change the fact that for an hour I sat in the corner of a darkened classroom in fearful silence, texting my parents, and then my friends, to tell them I loved them. I sent what I knew might be my last words so that if I was shot dead — the people I adore most wouldn’t be left to grieve alone.

I already felt the specter of a school shooting looming over my shoulder before this. Now, to go into lockdown mere days after writing about the danger I face everyday from just walking into school — it makes that fear all the more visceral.

What then, does that promised freedom mean?

Does it mean that those murderous individuals have the freedom to buy a gun, often with very few restrictions, very few safeguards? Does it mean that those individuals then have the freedom to walk into a school building and start shooting?

Does it mean those individuals have the freedom to buy and carry the weapon with which they will take the lives of children?

I, my teachers, classmates, and friends, we are all lucky that it was a false alarm. But we were terrified during that lockdown because so, so, so often a school shooting is tragically, brutally real.

Each day that I go to school, my life is in danger. As long as this is true, I am not free. As long as I can’t live my life secure in the protection of my right to literally live my life at school, I am not free.

My friends are not free; my classmates are not free; my teachers are not free. We are not free.