The Mass Shooting Down the Road.

On any given day, at any given time, in any given school, in no particular order, any one of our children or grandchildren could be killed while trying to get an education.

Today it was the school down the road from my house. Today 17 people lost their lives just 15 minutes from my home. In a beautiful neighborhood, in an academically excellent school, while the sun was shining, while I ate lunch, a gunman murdered 17 human beings, just down the road.

This morning parents said goodbye to their children never realizing that their precious darlings would never return. All this happened in my perfect little Florida community on Valentine’s Day.

As a retired educator I spent 36 years of my life teaching children. I never dreamed that something like this could touch my community. Not mine. But it did, and just down the road from where my sweet grandchildren sat in their classrooms in a nearby elementary school.

There is a gun epidemic in America that is more deadly than any virus or disease. And It is destroying our beautiful bright future and killing our children. And what do I say to my grandkids who will now be terrified to go back to school? I don’t know how to make them feel safe again. This is NOT how we should have to raise our children. This is not how America is supposed to be on any given day, at any given time. Not America!

Dear neighbors and friends, together we must make this nightmare stop. It Is fixable! By voting for representatives and leaders who are bold enough and care enough about our families to pass safer gun laws, “We The People” can save lives. Together we can do this! Our children do not have to be sitting ducks any more. We can stop this slaughtering of innocents. But, we must demand change and vote out those who don’t care about our loved ones.

These home grown terrorists,who are mostly young white males, can be identified and denied fire arms if Congress passes new gun safety laws and enforces them to protect our babies.

The President and Congress can keep their prayers to themselves. It doesn’t help those students killed just down the road from my house. Only safer gun laws will protect the rest of our children. Not speeches or bowing down to the NRA. Until better laws are created, then we will continue to live in the Wild West of Ignorance . And Americans don’t want to live in that world anymore. Enough is enough!

What is Congress Teaching Our Children?

I’m watching the news and waiting anxiously to see if we are going to have another government shutdown. The clock is ticking…

I am so relieved that I am finally retired and not teaching in the classroom any more. Gifted students ask questions and while I never got political or took sides (Not ever!) when I taught school, it would be really hard to answer questions honestly during these trying times.

With Congress acting like bullies and non compromising fools, how do parents and teachers expect children to “play nicely” when our leaders and representatives are always fighting and finger pointing? It’s like Kindergarten! My new name for them is: KINDERGARTEN CONGRESS!!!

And NOW we have a leader who wants to spend a fortune on a parade???? Good Lord, you just know gifted students would come into school and want to debate that issue. So, I would have to let THEM debate and stay out of any political implications (And boy would that be hard.)

But, teachers have NO business pushing any agenda in school. So, I would have the students brainstorm topics, let them break into groups, do research, and then based on their data have a debate. It sure would be interesting to see what the students  think about everything happening in the world right now. I wouldn’t rate them on being right or wrong, but on their research skills, presentation ability, logic, and teamwork etc.

And MAYBE, just maybe, I’d have a group of youngsters who actually learned a lesson from seeing all this bad behavior from the people who are supposed to be in charge. MAYBE they would learn that intelligence, reason, patience, education, compromise, open-mindedness, willingness to listen to one another, is the best way to help the American people.

And just MAYBE a few of those children might run for office some day. Now wouldn’t that be grand?

I am still hopeful that this mess we are watching every day will be a lesson for what NOT to do when our kids grow up. Let’s hope!!!