Like every public school teacher in America, I have trained and drilled on my school's response to the unthinkable. I'm guessing I'm like most teachers: I've rolled my eyes a bit when the fire drill sounds right in the middle of my carefully crafted lesson. I mean, I know this is stuff is important, and I know we need to prepare for the worst, but I've got a concert coming up in two weeks! Do we really have to run a "Code Black" drill now? Seriously, what are the odds? Columbine was a once in a lifetime event...

And so now we teachers are all faced with the reality that we run these drills over and over again because the worst case scenario actually can happen.

I'm not going to get into the gun rights issue here - at least, not for now. There are people who are far better informed about the policy and the politics surrounding gun control; there's nothing that I can add to the discussion that's worth your time at this moment.

Let me, instead, remind all of you a terrible truth:

The last adult who tried to protect the twenty (dear God, twenty...) beautiful children who died yesterday was their teacher.

more ... http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2012/12/proud-to-teach.html