My massage therapist was born in the 1980s, before the internet and school shootings. As we talked yesterday about student anxiety, the demands placed on kids today and school shootings — not exactly the most relaxing massage 🙂 — I was struck by a realization: She cannot relate to today’s students as they get off the bus and walk into their schools.

I catch echoes of today’s fear. I was young in the time of duck and cover drills, of shut-your-eyes-so-you-won’t-go-blind advice. My elementary school’s subbasement had large steel drums of water and food stored behind the black and yellow sign of the times: 

But I am far away from that shelter in time and I was never the most nervous kid on the block. Despite my echoes, I don’t know what it’s like to think you might die on any random weekday because some random kid got tired of being bullied or feeling invisible.

I should probably feel more fearful. I substitute often enough. My past is peppered with scary moments. I tried to keep my students away from windows, knowing a kid with a gun was on his way to my school. We do so many drills that students do not take us seriously sometimes. I have done a few “real” lock-downs and the toughest part of those lockdowns is convincing students that this time we are not playacting.

Eduhonesty: That woman in the temporal window between the A-Bomb and the shooters? She does not know how school “feels” to our more sensitive students. In a sense, I don’t know either. I’m older and I’m numerate. I can assess the odds, and those odds are good enough. I don’t worry about walking into new classrooms.

Many students cannot accurately assess their odds, though. Even those who can run the numbers are experiencing school as a calculated survival risk. Every day, they put themselves out there and the more fearful among them cannot be certain they will return home.

Today’s schools are not yesterday’s schools. I envied my massage therapist. I envy the lucky people who grew up after fallout shelters and before snipers.