Jamie Tobias Neely: We didn’t become teachers to kill our students

College teaching often begins like this: Turn on the podium PC, a video projector and a wireless mic. Lower a projection screen. Figure out the light touch panel, the DVR and the volume controls. Open the course management system. Then navigate via laser pointer through a PowerPoint, remember every student’s name and condense decades of expertise into one lecture.

Frankly, the laser pointer is always the first to go.

Last week the president championed arming teachers with yet another device – presumably a loaded handgun – to help prevent school shootings. The idea was so ridiculous that Republican Sen. Marco Rubio expressed discomfort at a CNN town hall. Even an NRA spokeswoman with all the warmth of “Snow White’s” Evil Queen hedged a bit.

As a journalism professor at Eastern Washington University, I admit I worry each spring as the sun shines and the hibernating crazies begin to stir.

At the start of spring quarter, I survey my new classrooms. I check the doors to see if they lock, figure out the closest exits and imagine how to hide my students.

My imagination has been aided by university police trainings. I’ve tried to memorize the advice: Watch for the kid carrying the unusually long duffel bag, for example. Hear shots? Call 911. Make calculated decisions. Are the shots far enough away that I can direct students to race out of the building? Are they so close that I should barricade the door, hide students behind desks and ask for volunteers to throw backpacks at the gunman?

In April, on the day before the anniversary of Columbine and Hitler’s birth, I’ll be celebrating my fifth birthday as a grandmother.

As each year goes by, I find more wisdom to share with my students. This week’s gem: Several of the most outspoken Parkland teens are journalism students, including David Hogg, who chided the nation the day after the shooting: “We’re children,” he said. “You guys are the adults.”

According to the Columbia Journalism Review, student reporters started shooting photos and video while they were hiding from the gunman. They haven’t stopped telling the story since. One of the student editors texted this week, “We are going to use the newspaper to change the world.”

Faculty members share similar ideals. None of us entered this line of work to train for an unthinkable day when we’d be expected to shoot and kill one of our own students.

On one ordinary day after another, thankfully, I simply head into classroom and wrangle with a maze of technology that would have confounded my own grandmothers. It’s generally pretty smooth, but I’m not sure where I’d fit in the time – or the brain cells – to also wield a loaded handgun.

I can think of a few sharp-shooting grandmas, but I have a better idea: Let’s ban military-style, semi-automatic rifles instead.

Jamie Tobias Neely is the director of the journalism program at Eastern Washington University. Her email address is jamietobiasneely@comcast.net.

Editor’s note: This article has been corrected to show that the Evil Queen is from the movie “Snow White.”