was the favorite slogan of one local high school principal. Yet this particular morning, no district in the county opted for a day off. Buses rolled out at their usual time, kids filled the schools up, and the day of learning began.
Around 10am the first tornado siren sounded. It was so odd to hear it blaring early in the day. Tornadoes are not extremely common in the area like they are in the infamous tornado alley of the Midwestern United States, but if we do get them, they come later in the afternoon once the heat of the day has juiced up the atmosphere. I was at home that day, not in a classroom teaching, but my first thought as the wailing alarm continued was, “Poor kids at school. I bet they're terrified.”
I always think about the students at school because of the countless tornado drills I endured as both a student and teacher, and because of my niece Sophie. She, like lots of students, (myself included when I was a kid), is terrified of storms. At the first rumble of thunder nearby, she and I always exchange a quick text or brief phone call to ease her fears of what could be headed our way thanks to the thunder that alerts us. She calls me because I am a bit of a weather nerd, and she's convinced that I know where the storms are headed. She's not wrong. I do know. If I weren't an educator I would be on air for The Weather Channel no doubt! I study the weather probably more than any topic other than education. I get my obsession with the weather from my great grandma Maudie. I spent lots of time with her as a kid and she loved all things weather. She even had a little ceramic owl that changed colors based on the barometric pressure. The darker the color, the wetter/snowier the weather. Who knows if it was accurate, but I was obsessed with it. When Maudie passed away, she willed me that little owl. I am looking at it as I type this.
Within minutes of the initial siren sound, my phone began to blow up. The first text … Sophie. She was at school with a book over her head. The next one, my oldest niece, Taylor. She took a pic in the hallway in a face down position with an algebra book the only thing between her head and a cinder block wall. Not long after that my teacher friends began to text wanting updates about the storm's path. Word gets around about my weather knowledge thanks to social media. Students across the county were hunkered in place just like the drills had taught them to be, but this was no drill. The storms were loud, full of heavy rain, and indeed a real tornado.
It struck through the heart of town. It passed right over my old school taking down lots of neighborhood trees and power lines. It moved right over or within a mile of at least five or six other schools that I was connected to. The kids were terrified and many teachers were too, as their own kids were battening down in hallways without them. Luckily, no one was seriously injured, but lots of damage was done, more than just physical. Emotional damage occurred that morning as frightened students of all ages hid under their books, fearing the worst. According to my nieces they stayed in position for more than an hour. Not long after the first alarm sounded another went off and a new storm was approaching. The initial hour turned into two, three more hours. Teachers were delivering lunches in the hallways and asking students to eat with one hand and stay covered with the other. I cannot fathom how unnerving it all must have been. It gives me anxiety just to type about it.
Around 1:30pm that day, some three-and-a-half hours after the first alarm, schools began to dismiss early. The amount of debris on the roads scattered all around the county was concerning enough to school officials that they decided to release early so bus drivers would have extra time to navigate the cluttered roads safely before it started to get dark. No need to stay the last hour or two anyway. No learning was going to happen. The fear and trauma of the day had surely closed down all brain receptors.
Fear, while paralyzing, can also present as anger. In threat or protective mode, every ounce of your being puffs up to be louder, larger, and more of a threat to your adversary. The mentality of “I'm going to get you before you get me” results in destructive patterns, lashing out and hurting others without any clear sense or end goal other than to hurt someone. Fear can also make you withdraw inside yourself, hiding at the slightest sound, trying to not be seen or heard, a false sense of safety that appears to work because you are ignored but not being seen, doesn't lessen internal, psychic pain. Unresolved trauma can lead to anxiety, resentment, and sadness filling a space primed for confidence but replaced with anxiety, anger, or a low mood.
We are born with the capacity for fear. Like other emotional responses, fear can be activated by exposure to different stimuli like a moving snake or the black onset of darkness. There is an evolutionary component of fear that goes back to dangerous events, animals, or people that our ancestors had to avoid in order to stay alive. That fear response is sensory and primal.
Keanon Lowe wasn't paralyzed that day. He didn't run away from his student when he felt fear. His lizard brain was not in control. Flight, fight, or freeze was not in command. He ran to the student with the gun. Perhaps, it was Lowe's underlying personality as a compassionate helper, selfless and committed to excellence. Maybe in his training as a competitive athlete, he learned how to push through pain and fear to achieve a goal or outcome. The ability to control and self-regulate fear is an important component of self-awareness. You have to recognize that you are afraid and fearful but still in control. Some see pushing through fear towards heroic action as courage. We expect our firemen, soldiers, and police officers to be brave and achieve extraordinary feats because they trained to be that way.
When Keanon Lowe responded, his life experiences proved his mental and physical toughness. But he didn't respond to his fear with aggression; he responded with compassion. Abigail March, in The Fear Factor, writes that some individuals when placed in fearful situations see the fear in their adversary and respond with compassion or altruism. Their amygdala responds with nurturing or caring. Keanon Lowe's actions exemplified both courage and goodness. He did the “good work” that is the goal of many educators entering the field.
The Story of Kimmie
Wherever you are when you get to this portion of the book, take a pause, breathe deeply, and know that the story you are about to read is factual. It is a true account, like all of the stories of my (Jed) students that you will read in this work.
It was about 9:30am on a mid-October morning. Halloween's approaching arrival was looming over the school, and my second graders were borderline chaotic at the mere thought of the impending sugar rush. While I was standing across the room talking with a student about a book, there was a knock at the door. Per the safety protocols for my school, a student peeked out of the rectangular window to let me know who was there and asked if he should open the door. It was the guidance counselor, the principal, and some kid he didn't know. I immediately knew it was a new student. My gut reaction at that moment was, “Nope, don't open the door, our room is full.” I feel very vulnerable telling you all that, but if you are an educator and claim you have never let out a deep sigh about a new student arriving mid-year, you are lying. It is not that we don't love our students, but two-and-half months into the year and most classroom routines are clicking along nicely, and a new face can often send ripples through an otherwise calm pond.
I walked to the door and stepped outside to get the news of my new student. The moment my feet entered the hallway, the kid screamed to the top of her lungs, tears flooded her rosy red cheeks, and she took off running down the hall and darted into the bathroom. Stunned and concerned, I looked at my principal with a very confused look. The guidance counselor hurried after her leaving the principal and me alone.
I closed the door to give us privacy because you know the screams of the new kid had alerted every student in the class, and their wandering eyes and nosey ears were straining to see and hear everything they could! Can you blame them? All of us would have done the same thing.
“Cindy,” I said, “What in the world is going on? What was that all about?”
“Jed, it's so tragic. It's very complicated. I will tell you more after school, but right now we just need to get her into your room to try to have a normal day.”
Thinking
