There are many facets to the current debate over gun control, but a lot of focus has fallen on two extremes. One extreme is a call to ban all guns. On the opposite side, there is a call for teachers to be armed. As a teacher, I find the idea of arming teachers to be ludicrous for many reasons.
I was called to teach. I was not called to arms.
My job as a teacher is much more than just knowing content and how to deliver it to a teenage audience. I’m also a counselor, cheerleader, parent and confidant to hundreds of students every year. I call them “my kids” for a reason. I love them. I want to nurture them into kind, open-minded, knowledgeable individuals, and of course– to protect them. Would I defend them if a gun were pointed at them? Yes.
But I was called to teach. I was not called to arms.
To quote my friend and colleague, Rebecca Field, who wrote “An open letter from a furious Henrico teacher,” “At the end of my teaching contract, it says that I will perform ‘other duties to be assigned.’ I do not interpret these words ‘as bleeding to death on the floor of my classroom.’” Nor is it in my contract that I have to protect my students with a gun. Would I be able to use a gun on a student I know? No.
I was called to teach. I was not called to arms.
Financially, arming and educating teachers how to operate a gun is impossible. State and federal funding for schools is and always has been low. Many schools can’t afford to give teachers basic classroom supplies, to send teachers to state required professional development, or to give them a step in their pay each year. If schools can’t even buy their teachers whiteboard markers, how would they afford to buy each teacher a gun? Lock boxes? Ammunition? If schools can’t even pay for teachers’ continuing education in the content they teach, how would they afford gun safety training? If schools can’t even give teachers the next step up in their pay, how would they afford to offer teachers a bonus for being armed? It would cost billions of dollars that do not exist, and even if they did, those taxpayer dollars be better spent on mental health services and social-emotional learning in the classroom. Or on books that teach students compassion. Or on making smaller class sizes so teachers have more time to get to know their students.
We were called to teach. We were not called to arms.
We, teachers, call to be armed with more counselors, social workers, school psychologists, and nurses in our schools. We call to be armed with community support to make our schools educational, cultural, and healthy environments. We call to be armed with the knowledge that our students are safe from violence while they are in our buildings.
We were called to teach. We were not called to arms.
Neither banning all guns nor arming teachers are solutions to making our schools safe from gun violence. The Second Amendment can’t be entirely undone. Guns won’t simply disappear. However, the answer is definitely not more guns, especially in our schools. The answer is to empower teachers to use tools of teaching, not war.
Again, I say, we were called to teach. We were not called to arms.
Meredith Sizemore Swain has taught middle and high school English in both rural and urban counties. Meredith is currently taking the year off from teaching to be a stay-at-home mom to Claire, 3 months old.
