My father was a teacher. He taught geography, history and English. He also taught music for a time despite having no skills in this area, having been selected after accidentally walking into the music room, after mistaking it for the stationery cupboard. But despite a breathtaking lack of talent, he gave it his best shot. Teachers are like that. My mother in law was a teacher also. Our neighbour from across the street too. The schools I went to had loads of them. In fact, I’ve been surrounded by teachers my whole life. To the best of my knowledge, all of them were unarmed.
My father was a teacher. He taught geography, history and English. He also taught music for a time despite having no skills in this area, having been selected after accidentally walking into the music room, after mistaking it for the stationery cupboard. But despite a breathtaking lack of talent, he gave it his best shot. Teachers are like that. My mother in law was a teacher also. Our neighbour from across the street too. The schools I went to had loads of them. In fact, I’ve been surrounded by teachers my whole life. To the best of my knowledge, all of them were unarmed.
I can’t pretend to understand it. A tragedy of unthinkable proportions unfolds on the other side of the world. Students step forward and speak bravely and passionately for change and a President who, to preserve his right to anonymity I’ll refer to as ‘Donald J Trump, c/o the Caretaker’s Cottage, Mar a Lago Resort, Florida’, decides the best response to school shootings in America is to arm the bloke teaching social studies. It’s not so much a matter of jumping the shark on water skis as it is jumping the Sharknado whilst naked, standing backwards and wearing a blindfold. And, quite possibly, sporting a small cactus for a hat. Put simply, it’s the strangest, craziest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.
My father owned a rifle. But I can’t imagine him ever taking one into the classroom. Besides, I don’t really picture my father as a heavy armaments kind of guy. He’s more a nunchucks person. I can almost picture him; talking at length about great sedimentary rock formations before losing patience with the chatterbox at the back of the class, dropping into the combat stance and somersaulting the full length of the classroom as he brings his nunchucks crashing down on the desk of some delinquent no hoper who’d rather be outside terrifying sheep than listening to father talk about rock formations.
I can’t imagine my mother in law taking a weapon to class either. Unless, of course, it was something practical like a flamethrower. That’s the kind of hardware that has multiple uses – not only can you can ensure that you retain the full attention of the class, you can also use it for other things – like get rid of any spiders lurking in the multi purpose room or toasting your sandwiches quickly if you’re on yard duty.
When I was student, the weapons of choice for the faculty were chalk and blackboard dusters. They could propel those items to any corner of the room with pinpoint accuracy. One moment you’d be talking to the person next to you; the next instant you’d be struck by a stick of white chalk right between the eyes. Dusters were worse still. When hit, a small cloud of chalk dust would erupt, the scent lined your nostrils for days. Worse still, the duster would leave a chalk outline on your jumper that you could never fully erase. Which was kind of ironic, really.
Reflecting back, I was a good student but there were definitely times when my attention wandered. I was in year 11 when I started to daydream for extended periods of time. Had it been a subject for VCE, my score would have been much improved. But, it begs the question: would I have been a better a student if some of my teachers were packing heat? Probably. There’s no way I would have been late handing in my Year 10 history assignment, that’s for sure. Under such heightened circumstances, I would have feigned greater interest in Maths B. Maybe.
I don’t think you could ever convince teachers to take guns into their classrooms. In fact, it’d probably be a lot easier to find people who are completely comfortable with guns and train them to be teachers. Charles Bronson would be terrific teaching Home Economics. I had an Australian History teacher who kind of looked a bit like Bruce Willis. Why not get the actual Bruce Willis? In fact, why limit it to teachers? Get Dirty Harry as the lollypop person in charge of the pedestrian crossing. Believe me, everyone’s gonna wait until the whistle blows before driving across when Dirty Harry’s in charge. Sylvester Stallone, wearing a Rambo-style bullet sash could do Tuck Shop duty. ‘Doyawansorswifthat?’ he’d mumble, muscles glistening under the flickering blue light bug zapper as frightened kids decide to skip lunch altogether.
That someone even remotely important has suggested something as patently insane as arming school teachers says a lot, much of it unprintable in a newspaper. I don’t mean to make light of a tragedy – it’s a reflex action in response to something absurd. I will say, however, that I was deeply impressed by the students in Florida who spoke. I couldn’t have said anything so sensible at that age. But it does make me think how lucky we are. That teachers get to teach and are not asked to carry a concealed weapon. Thank goodness. A high calibre student should mean one with good grades. Marking essays doesn’t earn you the title of ‘marksman’. Nor should it. So far as I’m concerned, the only Magnum at a school should be frozen, covered in chocolate and available from the tuck shop for four bucks. Possibly served by Sylvester Stallone.