SXSW EDU 2024: Do You Remember Where You Were When … ?

When I shared this slide during our panel, I had another moment of “I remember where I was when …” that will stick with me. I recall looking at one of my fellow panelists, Kiki Leyba, and seeing him visibly cringe at the slide and nod in agreement with me that I could not name the 13 schools that had school shootings so far in 2024.

Let me tell you why Kiki’s reaction will stick with me by telling you a little about him: Kiki is fun, he’s outgoing, he’s goofy, he’s a teacher of 25 years, and he’s also a gun violence survivor of Columbine High School. If you ask Kiki, “Do you remember when…,” he will say that 25 years ago, he was a first-year teacher at Columbine High School when the deadliest school shooting (at that time) broke out. Five years ago, he was profiled in Time magazine in an article titled, “He Was a New Teacher at Columbine During the Shooting 20 Years Ago. Here’s Why He Never Left.”

When Kiki cringed, it made the reality of the 25 years of school shootings all too stark.

Now, let me introduce you to José Vilson, another panelist: He is a public school teacher in New York City, author of This Is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education, and executive director of EduColor. Two days after the shooting in Parkland, he wrote a piece in the Huffington Post titled “American Schoolteachers Are Heroes. They Shouldn't Have To Be.”

In José article, he wrote:

Teachers, administrators, counselors, social workers and other support staff are serving as stopgaps to safeguard children’s lives. Legislators, meanwhile, offer nothing but thoughts, prayers and misguided policy “solutions.”

 When I asked José if his quote from 2018 still rings true today, his answer was an unequivocal “yes.”

For José, changing the school gun violence cycle means ensuring that “every child feels like there are responsible adults who care about them.” During the SXSW Edu panel, he shared:

For every school counselor, guidance counselor, and social worker we have, we should double or triple what we have per school. I imagine a world where, instead of being reactive, we are proactive. The signs were all there for all the children who were enacting gun violence. I imagine a world where we don’t have to sue parents to try to get some justice and fairness. I imagine a world where we have enough guidance counselors who aren’t tired to the bone, and where they have to work with so many kids that they miss signs. There’s a deep relational work that we need to do to move forward with the issue. It’s good for us to be reactive to these things, and it’s quite another to have a full set of schools, 13,000 school districts, where every single one is supported well enough where every child feels like there are responsible adults who care about them.

Our panel also included Sari Beth Rosenberg, who is a public school teacher in New York City, a regular contributor on the PBS NewsHour Classroom Educator series, a regular contributor to Share My Lesson, and very active on social media. More important to this conversation, she co-founded Teachers Unify to End Gun Violence. 

For Sari Beth, the constant attacks on public education contribute to our ability to solve the school gun violence epidemic. During the panel, she shared:

Our classrooms can be places where kids can feel safe to share their feelings. And we can be the teacher they talk to before they get to that terrible place where they pick up a weapon. We can be that person. A lot of times, we’ve been that person without realizing it—creating spaces of empathy for kids. That’s the unseen work of teaching that people who don’t teach don’t realize. If we continue to attack schools. If we continue to attack the books that kids are reading (books that will make that one kid feel seen and safe and not turn to violence because they cannot take it anymore), and if we continue to attack our schools and our teachers, we can never have the safety that we want.

As for me, not only was it an honor to moderate the panel at SXSW EDU, but it’s also a profound honor to be on the Teachers Unify to End Gun Violence board. I’ve known the teachers on the SXSW EDU panel and the co-founders of Teachers Unify to End Gun Violence in different capacities over the years because each of them has a connection to the AFT and to Share My Lesson. When we say Share My Lesson is a community, we mean it.

José Vilson was a keynote speaker for our Share My Lesson Virtual Conference back in 2016. Sari Beth Rosenberg grabbed our attention in 2020 during the pandemic as she provided necessary guidance on teaching in the new COVID-19 world. Sarah Lerner (not on the SXSW EDU panel), is a co-founder of Teachers Unify and is a teacher and a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas massacre. She also gave a keynote presentation for us on Share My Lesson in 2019, a year after the Parkland shooting, and has written blogs on gun violence prevention. Kiki Leyba is someone I just got connected with at SXSW EDU. I feel like I’ve known him for ages, and it turns out that I have known his wife for ages; she is actively involved at the AFT and a big supporter of Share My Lesson (my apologies for not making the last name connection, Kiki!). Finally, Abbey Clements, the executive director of Teachers Unify, is also a teacher and a gun violence survivor from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. She is the heart and soul of the organization—never giving up and always saying, “Enough is enough!”

Over the 10-plus years I’ve worked at Share My Lesson, we’ve had many moments of “I remember where I was when …” that interrupted an evening, a weekend or a vacation; our incredible team would then come together to assemble resources on school gun violence prevention and trauma-informed resources to support educators. Sometimes, we’ve felt as though we were on an island or in a void trying to wrap our heads around the latest tragedy while finding content that would be helpful for educators. I have lost count of the number of times we’ve updated our resources on school gun violence prevention and trauma-informed practices. That said, we are stronger together when we stand together, and I am grateful that our Share My Lesson educator village continues to grow each day. Seeing our virtual community expand and grow, even in the darkest times, gives me hope.

So, where do we go from here?

1. If you are a parent/caregiver or educator, a teacher, paraprofessional or specialized instructional support personnel—and you care about schools being safer and ensuring educators have a voice in this process—join Teachers Unify to End Gun Violence.
2. Support commonsense policies that will make our schools safer, such as red flag laws, safe storage, banning assault weapons and providing free locks for guns. And support fully funding public schools and supporting our educators, just like José and Sari Beth recommend. 
3. Don’t wait for another “I remember where I was when …” or until you too become a survivor and an advocate like Kiki to get involved. Go back to step 1.

As we navigate the complexities of this issue, it's clear that the path forward requires collective action and compassion. Whether you're an educator, parent or concerned citizen, we all have a role to play in supporting commonsense policies, advocating for the resources our schools desperately need, and ensuring every child feels seen and supported.

Join us in the movement to end gun violence in our schools. It's time to move beyond remembering "where we were" during these tragedies to creating a future where they no longer occur. Together, we can make a difference.