Madeline Rhiel Doran: More than anything else, we need cultural reform

By Madeline Rhiel Doran

I was in second grade when Columbine happened. Three chimes of the loudspeaker before our principal calmly came over the classroom intercom stating, “We are in a Level 1 lockdown.” Business as usual in my Denver suburb classroom, but we would be missing out on our afternoon recess because all exterior doors were to stay closed and locked. Before Columbine and on the day of Columbine, that is what we had. Two lockdowns, one was “stay in the building and keep learning,” and one was for tornados. That was my understanding.

In 2012, I was working in an elementary school when a co-worker mentioned to me in hushed tones that something horrible was happening at another elementary school, this time across the country in Connecticut. I still have the small work room I was sitting in etched in my mind: I can picture the stacks of colored paper, the cubbies filled with scissors and crayons. Just staring in disbelief, silently weeping. I wonder if that small workspace used for reading groups now has a tourniquet tucked in somewhere, an addition many schools added to their emergency supplies kits. In this small closet, you can learn to read or stop the bleeding from a gunshot wound. A versatile space.

And now, as I listen to the news of the atrocity that has happened in Uvalde, Texas, I am a parent to a 4-year-old headed to kindergarten in the fall and a 3-year-old.

Why is it that my biggest priority when touring our neighborhood schools is safety? Why do I demand locked doors at my daughter’s future elementary school and buzzers and intercoms standing between any adult accessing her school and her classroom? When I first moved to Nebraska, I was disturbed by the lack of security in places where kids played and learned. Not nearly enough preventative measures, as if the experience of Columbine hadn’t extended far enough and that Omaha hadn’t Plexiglas-ed its entryways the way so many establishments did in my hometown.

At our church, our new pastor arrived and he did Plexiglas the church front office and create a buzzer system. I heard a few grumblings at the inconvenience of additional, seemingly random security measures. Perhaps he watched the news last week with a degree of validation that he is trying to keep his flock safe.

Until Uvalde, I hadn’t considered that in three months, my daughter will learn to follow the protocols of her own school’s active shooter drills. She will sit against a wall silently in order to demonstrate the class’s collective understanding of an active shooter drill.

During one drill in my teaching career my principal burst into the room through an unlocked door and each of my fifth-graders heads shot up as we gaped at each other. The more savvy students read the expression of his face, seeing not nearly enough panic or fear and realized this was simply a drill and started to get squirrely. Tired and bored of sitting smushed together out of sight of the windows. The 1950s era doorknob was clearly harder to lock than I had realized.

I think of the parents, who will now have to live their life as if they are dying. The pain of losing a child, a 10-year-old to a school shooting, is a level of hell that we are not supposed to understand.

We all need to feel that death. We need to die unto ourselves as a society in hopes that we can possibly overcome this cultural suicide. We are killing ourselves – our own young. We cannot continue as a society of death, destruction and violence. Whether these conversations center around guns, or violence or societal disconnect, I don’t really care anymore. Are you filled with rage on behalf of these victims? Are you brought to your knees in total agony? Do you hug your kids tighter than you ever have because this world is rejecting them, not as adults, but as their purest, simplest selves: an innocent school-going child.

So yes, let’s batten down the hatches. Let’s continue to ensure that all school doors are locked, drills are followed and protocols are implemented. Let’s enact true gun reform. Controversial, I realize, but any legislation that monitors, tracks and makes effort to ensure that only qualified people are owning guns responsibly is the smallest of steps that must happen. Frankly, I’m not convinced you need your guns at all.

But most crucially, we need cultural reform. Let us rise together. Let us be methodical and deliberate, as if raising a child. Move away from a culture of individualism, violence and poverty. Let us raise our children as a village, as if we all lost our beloved sons and daughters last week.

Love, love, love your neighbor. We cannot go on this way any longer. Let us treat our society the way we treat our toddlers. With slow, patient, deliberate education that works to dismantle the violence and isolationism, and promotes something far better. Let us vote for others’ dignity. As a child growing up in Colorado, Columbine was a weighty word that defined our collective experience. Now, there are simply not enough words that can be associated with mass violence. Our own children are being robbed of even a collective experience of trauma because it is now the norm.

Madeline Rhiel Doran graduated from Gonzaga University in 2013 with a degree in International Relations. She taught fifth grade in Denver Public Schools. She now resides in Omaha, Nebraska, with her family.