The hijacking of innocence on the YBR.

“Between May 1961 and the end of 1972, there were 159 hijackings in American airspace. The majority of those were between ’68 and ’72, a five-year stretch, and sometimes they happened at the rate of one per week. You could have multiple hijackings in the same day — it was not an infrequent occurrence.”

I am a member of that shrinking community that remembers hijackings. In the spring of ’69 I flew home on El Al after spending a year studying abroad. Two soldiers holding machine guns were sitting in the rear of the plane. El Al was a likely candidate for being hijacked. Was I scared? Not really, and not because I felt invincible. I just didn’t want to be paralyzed by fear.

Today airline passengers rarely, if ever, worry about being hijacked. Measures are in place to minimize the risk. Today, though, we have new and more pernicious fears. The fear that fills us today was activated by yesterday’s elementary school shooting in Texas where 19 “innocent” children and two “innocent” educators were killed.

This tragedy overshadows any other fear we can think of because it is universal. Rare is the person who doesn’t have an emotional connection with a child. Rare is the person who has not been moved to tears by the tragic loss of life…again, in a school where innocence should reign supreme.

The airwaves and every form of social media will be flooded with outrage. Gun-talk will dominate many conversations. And the opinions will be divided. Stronger measures to make our schools a safe place will be bandied about. Some will argue that short of making our schools more “prison-like,” our schools are too vulnerable. They are literally sitting targets.

Teachers, who are on the front line, are totally distraught today, and rightfully so. They feel so helpless. They can’t help but think that such a tragedy could happen at their school. They are at risk of being paralyzed by fear. And it doesn’t help to tell a teacher that the “odds” of a school shooting happening at their school are a million to one. What happened at Robb Elementary (Texas) yesterday…what happened at Stoneman Douglas High School (Florida) in 2018…what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary (Connecticut) in 2012…and what happened at Columbine High School (Colorado) in 1999, happened in EVERY school in America because there isn’t a teacher who doesn’t believe or wonder that it could happen “here.”

Short of gun laws and extreme protection methods what can a teacher do? The fear of not being able to do anything will result in emotional paralysis…and that would be terrible for their students. As tragic as last week’s shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo was, people will continue to shop. The reason behind the Tops grocery store shooting can be identified and isolated. It can be rightfully called an extreme racist act, and as such the matter can be discussed. But, a school shooting? Such an act defies reason, and that’s why it leaves us heartbroken and helpless.

Does that mean we can’t do anything? I think there is something we can all do, and it needs to go way beyond talking about mental illness, even though mental illness has been a common factor among all the shooters.

Here’s something to consider, or should I say, ponder, and I suggest this at the risk of being called a sexist. The shooters were all males—-teens or young men. That’s not to say that a teen girl or young woman could not have been a shooter.

I have no answer, but I do think it is a question to consider.

And while we’re considering that, here’s something else to think about. Regardless of the age of the shooter, once-upon-a-time he was an innocent young boy. He was a pre-schooler, a kindergartener, a first-grader….He was in “your” class.

With anywhere from 20 to 30 students in a class, it is a gargantuan task for a teacher to connect with each and every one of their students. When a teacher greets their students on the first day of a new school year, they have no idea who those students (really) are. Since in my experience teachers are generally kind and loving people, they only see the goodness and innocence of their students. But, not all students are alike. As much as we don’t want to admit it, not all children come from loving homes. And where there is no love being shown at home, it is a challenge for a child to believe they are capable of being loved, and as a result they often don’t know how to love.

Unfortunately, many of those children fall through the cracks, especially if they are quiet loners. And then there are the “troublemakers,” the student who is the bane of existence for even the strongest teacher.

The expression that the “child is father to the man,” is so true. Without the ability to deal with the pain of not being loved or fitting in, or being the butt of “mean” kids, many children sail the seas of childhood without a rudder.

Teachers, since many of them are also parents, know how difficult it is to parent a child. If a parent is not really equipped to be a parent, there is a risk that the parent might overlook the tell-tale signs of a troubled child. Or in some cases, the parent is dealing with emotional or mental issues that have a long-lasting impact on their child.

Love is never part of a school curriculum, but loving always has a place in every class across America. Just imagine that if even only one or two teachers along the way provide that love and care a student needs, what a difference there could be. And if a teacher’s gut tells them there is something amiss with a child, how great it would be if just one or two teachers might be the “force” for change in a child’s life.

Love and kindness. Openness and inclusion. Cheer and goodwill. All are, in my opinion, in a teacher’s “wheelhouse.”

The “Prayer of St. Francis” comes to mind

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

That’s a big order for a teacher, but I believe if a teacher believes they are a force for good, they can do something to change the horrid landscape of school shootings. Instead of going to the head of the class with fear in their hearts, they need to shower their students with the goodness that comes from being a teacher.

Of course a teacher still needs to be cautious and prepared for the unexpected, but the fear of what could happen should not overshadow all the good that will happen.

Needless to say, we are living through extraordinary times. Anger and hatred have divided us in ways that none of us ever expected. The chasm that divided us has caused a terrible vacuum…and the little I know about the subject, nature abhors a vacuum. As a result, our children are being sucked into the black hole of despair. Our children are suffocating.

There should be an app to take care of this heinous vacuum. The funny thing is, there is an app. It’s the app of care and kindness. It’s an app that is powered by the love we have stored in our hearts.

While there is no way to say for certain that school shootings will go the way of air hijacking, I believe that our teachers, with the help of sane legislation, will make a big difference for our children.

Dedicated to the innocent victims at Uvalade.
In memory of all our children lost to the madness of school shootings.
In honor of my daughter Jennifer Begley Devine; my daughters-in-law, Sarah Miressi Begley and Courtney Muller Begley; my sister-in-law, Annette Luzon Harstein; and my niece, Jenna Hartstein – wonderful teachers all who teach our children to reach for the stars.

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You will be found on the YBR.

Optical illusions. Just parlor tricks to amuse and entertain us?

In the pen and ink drawing above, you see. And then again when you look at it you see. The amazing thing is you can see both (but not at the same time). There is no right or wrong. Or at least there shouldn’t be.

We are living in what I call optical illusion times.  You might see pain, suffering and death. Or you might see sacrifice, selflessness and courage. Then again you might see grave administrative mistakes. But then again, you might see political power used to benefit…all of us.

Having only 300 posts to my name since I started this blog one thing remains constant.  I keep following the yellow brick road. Over 70 years as a passenger on planet earth I can’t even see the Emerald City. And that’s a good thing.

Despite the fact that I don’t have enough followers to be considered as crowd and despite the fact that none of my posts have gone viral, I continue taking one step after another on the YBR. (Maybe the word ‘viral’ shouldn’t be used during a pandemic. Just saying.)

My drive or motivation always seems to come from pieces of life that don’t really go together until they all do come together and I understand what was going on in that old head of mine.

This afternoon my youngest son sent me a very old but classic puzzle. It’s called the Trick Donkey puzzle or what I call the Donkey Trick.

If you are game, print it out and follow the instructions.  It’s just the thing to make you totally bonkers during the quarantine.

I printed out the puzzle and followed the instructions.  My head was filled with questions and doubts.  The puzzle looked impossible. I It was a joke.  It was a waste of my time.  So after ten or fifteen minutes, i put it aside and had dinner.  After dinner I cleared my desk and placed the puzzle pieces down and didn’t think about how impossible it was.  I knocked down my walls of doubt. Wonder of wonder, without thinking about it, I didn’t solve the puzzle. It solved itself.  I let it happen.

That got me thinking.  We are living through a period of time that challenges us. It is filling us with doubt.  On the road to Oz we’re in the deep, dark part of the forest that is closing in on us.

It’s an optical illusion. We are alone. We are not alone. We are on the verge of despair. We see rays of light.

Dorothy’s journey to Oz eventually led her to the Wizard. He, too, was an optical illusion.  He looked powerful and scary. But when Toto pulled back the curtain, the great and powerful wizard of Oz was a humbug.

With a twister going on inside my head, I sought relief in a movie. For reasons that escape me, I watched The Great Debaters with Denzel Washington. (If you’ve never seen it, I heartily recommend it.)

The movie is really an optical illusion. It’s about the racial disgrace that polluted America during the depression. (Racism is and continues to be a pandemic.)  It got me thinking that no voice should go unheard.

In the end, the puzzle, the oppressive sense of pandemicism, and the movie all came together.

Every day we are on the yellow brick road we have opportunities to understand that we don’t take the journey alone.  We have opportunities to discover new and wonderful things about the power we have to make a difference.

I only hope that after the corona bug is put to rest that we don’t forget the lessons we (should) have learned on the YBR.

We are not lost. We will be found.

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