Safe

Quick update on life with the Professor and His Wife: Effie the cat is still a cat, and we had an interesting visit to the animal hospital last night after we came home to find her left eye swollen shut. It's conjunctivitis, by the way, part of an upper respiratory infection (her third since we've had her). She got a nice hefty dose of an antibiotic and they swabbed her for feline herpes and other kitty maladies. The vet also hinted that - surprise! - Effie may or may not be pregnant! Which would be interesting, since the agency from which we adopted her guaranteed us that she was spayed. The vet said she didn't see any spay scars or markings, and that when she was doing the examination, felt some lumpy bits down by Effie's baby-makin' parts. Which could be one of two things: kittens, or a full colon. We are crossing our fingers that it's just a little constipation. Given the typical cat gestation period (and the fact that she has not set paw outside since we adopted her so if she is prego, it had to have happened while she was in the care of the adoption agency), we'll know in about a week! Stay tuned!

Now to the point:

I've been thinking a lot about the word "safe" lately. In my education classes at the Big University, we've been talking about helping students feel safe. Making school a safe place. Safe to tell, safe to report, safe to talk, safe to be yourself. But what does that really mean?

Given the events in Boston yesterday, it's not hard to say that the world is not a safe place. Events and places we think are safe, we think we can attend or visit without hesitation - it's becoming vastly apparent that we must always be on alert, even in places we thought were safe. Schools are quickly becoming notorious for being dangerous - school shootings, bullying, teachers and faculty being arrested for abusing or assaulting students - for the teachers who don't have a mug shot and who are actively teaching and trying to protect their students, it's becoming increasingly difficult to reconcile to the fact that we have very little control over whether or not our students are safe. We can spearhead initiatives to make our schools physically safer - metal detectors, locker searches, assemblies and programs geared toward greater student awareness - and we can make cracking down on bullying a higher priority, sure. But we cannot guard against the greater evils that threaten our students. We cannot shield them from a bomb at the Boston Marathon. We cannot physically remove them from an abusive situation, though we can do everything in our power to help someone else do so. We cannot guard them from bomb threats, terrorist attacks, drunk drivers. So what can we do?

North Korea has been in the news recently, thanks to threats of missile attacks on the United States. While they apparently aren't solid on American geography, Colorado Springs was mentioned by name. Now, I don't feel entirely threatened by North Korea, and I have great faith in NORAD's ability to head off any impending missiles by miles, given that I live in the shadow of their mountain fortress. All the same, though, what do these threats mean for the future? They seem empty now, but what happens when they aren't? Will I be responsible for the education of our children under the gloom of World War III?

Perhaps it's the murky weather outside affecting my vision, but don't things seem dark right now? Financial crisis, promises of impending doom from North Korea, death in the news every time I turn it on - how am I going to make students feel safe when they are just as plugged into the world as I am; they know what's going on, they will ask questions and seek reassurance that their world won't be getting turned on its head before they can graduate high school. And I can't offer them that reassurance. Because the older I get, the more I realize that the world is already turned on its head. That stability is a myth, and that raising a well-rounded child who knows what's happening in the world and is still willing to go outside is next to impossible. So what can I do?

I can teach my students history. I can show them how it runs in cycles, and how the stakes rise each time it comes around. I can teach them to look at their own histories, how their decisions have affected their world, how they can make decisions now that will ripple out through the future and last forever. I can introduce them to the idea that it just takes one person, one person with an idea, with the resolve to change the world. I can introduce them to the people who have changed the world, and I think I can do it well.

So while maybe I can't make my students safe, while I can't shield them from the perils of the world as it is, maybe I can help them to understand that every single person who ever changed the world, every game-changer, every revolutionary, every peacemaker - all of them started as one person with one idea, with the resolve to change the world.

What are you doing today that will last forever?

-The Professor's Wife