Florida Teacher of the Year Writes Gun Violence Post after School Shooting
In the wake of the Florida shooting, everyone has an opinion on how we could prevent something like this from happening.
Many of the takes involve some form of gun control — which isn’t completely invalid — but don’t address the root cause of these situations.
We’ve always had guns in this country. We probably need to make them less available for disturbed individuals, but they’ve always been there.
What we haven’t always had are mass school shootings.
It’s a modern phenomenon, and one Florida teacher went viral with a Facebook post addressing the issue.
“Okay, I’ll be the bad guy and say what no one else is brave enough to say, but wants to say. I’ll take all the criticism and attacks from everyone because you know what?
“I’m a TEACHER. I live this life daily. And I wouldn’t do anything else!” Kelly Guthrie Raley began.
She went on to discuss mental health, the media, and parenting as some of the root causes of the modern epidemic of school shootings.
“Until we, as a country, are willing to get serious and talk about mental health issues, lack of available care for the mental health issues, lack of discipline in the home, horrendous lack of parental support when the schools are trying to control horrible behavior at school,” she wrote, “… we will have a gun problem in school.”
Raley wrote that she grew up with guns, but with discipline as well.
She said her parents stayed on top of her, and that’s one element she feels is lacking in today’s society.
“Parents: it’s time to STEP UP! Be the parent that actually gives a crap! Be the annoying mom that pries and knows what your kid is doing. STOP being their friend,” Raley wrote.
“They have enough “friends” at school. Be their parent. Being the “cool mom” means not a damn thing when either your kid is dead or your kid kills other people because they were allowed to have their space and privacy in YOUR HOME.”
As a teacher, Raley faces this reality every day. She wrote that she fears calling students’ parents, because she knows “9 out of 10 would cuss me out, tell me to go to Hell, call the news on me, call the school board on me, or post all over FaceBook about me because I called to let them know what their child chose to do at school.”
Raley’s post has now been shared over 700,000 times. It’s clear that she struck a chord with her Facebook rant.
The teacher finished her post by writing: “Those 17 lives mattered. When are we going to take our own responsibility seriously?”
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