I Witnessed a Rural Teacher Pull a Gun on a Student

Thanks in advance for your generous donations! You make this happen! Upgrade at 30% offJenny always sat in the front row. She was to be valedictorian. In the final months of school, she was under such stress that she frequently burst into tears in the hallway. The rest of us watched and didn’t understand.In farm communities, when you see somebody crying, you’re taught to walk by and pretend it never happened. That’s called, “Giving people their space.” It’s considered a cure-all.On the day of the gun incident, I remember thinking that there was something odd about Mr. Murphy’s mannerisms. He squirmed like a butterfly on a pin. Something seemed to be tickling him from the inside that he wished to share with us. He bowed to the commands of an inner voice.“Oh, they’ll all laugh! They’ll think it’s hysterical!”His eyes shone and he flashed a leering grin that displayed an uncomfortable amount of teeth. Every now and then you get a glimpse of an expression that reminds you human beings are animals.It’s disturbing.Today, if I saw somebody walking around taking manic, jerky steps, giggling, and twitching, I’d intervene. If I saw somebody barking out fake laughs like coughs and flashing a wild grin, I’d know something wasn’t right.But I was raised in a farm community, and I was taught that when you see somebody acting strangely, you walk on by and pretend that nothing bad ever happens.The importance of fairnessMr. Murphy walked to the podium, his gaze fixated on Jenny.We all knew that he’d been fighting with Jenny. Well, not “fighting,” but there had been a squabble involving the band teacher.You see, Mr. Murphy cared about fairness.He clung to the concept. Fairness was his personal code.Mr. Murphy’s class policy was to deduct points based on a lack of attendance. He felt strongly that the same rules should be applied to everyone.Jenny had demanded an exception.The baseball capA few days earlier, the principal had been walking through the halls wearing a baseball cap with the school’s logo. That might seem innocent enough, but baseball caps were against the rules.It was the principal’s rule.As the principal strutted up and down the hallway, a defiant smirk on his face, Mr. Murphy’s jaw tightened.“I hate that he did that,” he muttered to us later in class. “If we’re going to have a rule, that rule needs to apply to everybody. No exceptions!” He hit the podium with his fist for emphasis.Mr. Murphy was an outlierMr. Murphy was one of the only teachers in the school who gave you a grade based on the rules he laid out at the beginning of the year. “These are the rules, follow these rules and you’ll do well.” That’s what every teacher said, but Mr. Murphy actually held himself to the promise. He was an outlier.I wonder if Mr. Murphy had any friends in the teacher’s lounge. I wonder if they all tried to pressure him to give up on his strict and ridiculous obsession with “fairness.”“Mr. Murphy, that’s not the way things are done. We have our preferred students and they get the good grades. We’re teachers, we can do whatever we want.”I’d often see Mr. Murphy in the hall, retreating from the teacher’s lounge with his jerky, manic steps, and a large false smile on his face like everything was fine.The squabbleJenny played clarinet. The band had a concert coming up. Jenny had to attend rehearsal. Rehearsal was scheduled for Mr. Murphy’s class.Jenny felt enormous stress. She was to be valedictorian. She just needed to do well in her final semester of classes.Unfortunately, that ambition crashed headfirst into Mr. Murphy’s strict attendance policy.Jenny, in tears, complained to the band teacher.The band teacher complained to Mr. Murphy.“Assaulted” might be a better word.The complaintI was there when it happened. The band teacher threw open the door like a tornado. There was the heavy sound of wood smashing against brick. “How dare you deduct points from Jenny for ATTENDING MY REHEARSAL!”It started out as a personal attack and got worse from there.Mr. Murphy recoiled.We all had to watch, everyone but Jenny. Maybe she’d received a warning about what was going to happen.My classmates and I all had experience witnessing enraged adults screaming at each other. We knew what to do. Self-preservation. Make yourself invisible…You put your head down and pretended it didn’t happen.Humiliated in front of his studentsWhy did the band teacher think it was appropriate to air a grievance like this? Why did he come storming into a room screaming and yelling and throwing his fists in the air? He was so angry, and his head was shaking so much, that his hair flew wildly in all directions. He looked like Hitler giving a speech.Did he really need to confront Mr. Murphy in front of students like that?Did he have to humiliate him?Couldn’t he have brought it up in the teachers’ lounge?Couldn’t he have asked in a normal voice instead of a scream?Mr. Murphy gestured at his grade book, “I have no other option, I told my students about my attendance policy at the beginning of the year and I have to honor that. It’s not fair to the other students if I make an exception…”“How dare you deduct points from Jenny for attending MY REHEARSAL!” the band teacher screamed. “You WILL NOT do that!” Then he stormed out of there, slamming the door behind him.The aftermathMr. Murphy was left shaking at his desk. The other kids were silent. Kids know when they can act up and when they better be quiet.This was a time for being quiet.But in that moment, I approached Mr. Murphy. My instinct is to be a peacekeeper, and I felt oddly at home in awkward moments like this. I knew what to do. I approached Mr. Murphy’s desk taking quiet steps.In a low voice I said, “I appreciate that you follow your rules. You’re one of the only teachers that does.”He looked up at me. I thought he might order me back to my seat, but he didn’t say anything. He wore an expression of vulnerability.“Maybe you could offer a compromise here? You could give Jenny, and everyone, the option of some extra credit. After all, she should have to do something extra because she missed class. But since it’s because of the request of another teacher, it’s not really her fault. This would be a way of being true to your rules, while also not penalizing Jenny for her other obligations.”Mr. Murphy, began shuffling some papers. “That…” he muttered, “that’s a good idea.” He shook a crooked finger at me. “Maybe I can do something like that.”He gave me a final nod. I know when you shouldn’t push your luck, and I followed my instinct. I returned to my seat.I don’t know if Mr. Murphy took the proposal to the band teacher and Jenny. I don’t know if it was rejected. All I know is that the next day, Mr. Murphy pulled a gun in class.The next dayMr. Murphy strode to the podium, his face pulled into an unnatural grin. We all watched him with unusual intensity because we knew something was off.Jenny, in particular, squirmed because Mr. Murphy’s look was so aggressively directed at her.Mr. Murphy said something by way of introducing his joke. It was the lead-up. He explained the events of the previous day along with the band teacher’s complaint. Then came the punchline. He reached into his podium, pulled out a gun, and pointed it at Jenny.Jenny screamed and began to tremble with terror.Then Mr. Murphy burst out into insane laughter, “Ha ha, it’s only a starter pistol. See?”I can’t remember a bang. I don’t think he pulled the trigger. There was an odd mix of terror and broken tension in the room. We didn’t know what to do.A couple of the other students began to laugh. Even Jenny began to laugh. She was both laughing and trembling. She looked around and I remember meeting her gaze briefly. Then I met Mr. Murphy’s gaze.His expression seemed to say, “Now my issue with Jenny is resolved. It’s all taken care of. There’s no need to mention this conflict ever again.”I remember thinking it didn’t seem like it was resolved.In the hallway, after class, Jenny was crying again, but she was always crying. We’d been trained to walk by and pretend we didn’t see.Guns were a way of lifeIn those days, in the town where I grew up, most of the kids had a gun hanging from the back window of their pickup truck. It was always hunting season for something. They’d stop off on the way home to “harvest” a rabbit or a squirrel or a deer.They always called it “harvest,” even when they just killed for fun.It wasn’t unusual for us to see guns. I lived with guns. There were guns at school.When Mr. Murphy pointed the starter pistol at Jenny, I recognized that it wasn’t a real gun. My eyes went right to the barrel. I’d had people point guns at me out hunting, so instinct took over and I looked for danger.I recognized it wasn’t a real gun, the barrel was wrong. I didn’t recognize that it was a starter pistol, I just thought it was a toy.I never truly thought Jenny’s life was in danger. Later, I remember thinking, “Well, that was extreme.” But I didn’t complain about it. I never even brought it up at home. That’s how little impact it made on me at the time.A teacher pulled a gun on a student and I didn’t even think twice.Our children are ill-equippedWe were taught to “respect” our teachers and I was often punished for “talking back” or questioning the decisions of adults.“Learn your place kid!”They were always right and I was always wrong.Does it mean I’ve “revealed myself as evil” because I didn’t take a stand in that moment and denounce Mr. Murphy’s actions? It would take me years to even process what had happened. I remember being numb. I didn’t have any tools to help me understand what I felt.Zero tools.Those tools exist. I’ve found them. Why didn’t we ever mention them at school? The students need them, so do the teachers.Today, they might say, “Well, if it was so bad, why didn’t you say something then?”Because I was caught up in the throes of generational trauma then. I didn’t recognize it was wrong until I had the opportunity to heal.Back then, I just let bad things happen to me and waited for them to be over.A life changed in a momentI don’t know anything about Jenny’s experience with guns. I remember her voice in the hall. “He pulled a gun on me.”“Well, it wasn’t a gun, it was a starter pistol,” somebody said.“It looked like a gun to me!”What impact did that moment have on the course of Jenny’s life?She didn’t fight with Mr. Murphy again after that. The band teacher never returned to the room.The school year ended, we graduated, and we left. Mr. Murphy continued to teach. My siblings had him as a teacher.The philosophy of punishment has failed usThe point of this story isn’t to say that Mr. Murphy should have been punished. The point is that the gun should have never been brought into class in the first place.People say you can’t change the past, but that’s a dishonest statement. I’m not trying to change the past. I’m trying to change the future. We need to change our perspective. We must evolve until we are as fixated on prevention as we currently are on punishment.Punishment doesn’t solve anything, it only creates more victims.It was the philosophy of punishment that compelled Mr. Murphy to bring a gun to class. That’s the real problem.That’s the lesson we have to learn.Systems are flawed, not peopleIt’s irresponsible to declare a single individual “flawed” and then consider the matter closed. All that does is clear the way for another life, or many lives, to be destroyed.Once we’ve established a “criminal,” we refuse to recognize how our own behaviors were a contributing factor.Perhaps if the principal hadn’t flagrantly broken his own rules, Mr. Murphy wouldn’t have snapped.Perhaps if the band teacher had treated him with respect, Mr. Murphy wouldn’t have snapped.Perhaps if somebody had helped Jenny with her stress, she wouldn’t have complained and Mr. Murphy wouldn’t have snapped.We can’t be content to think that some people simply “reveal themselves as evil” and absolve ourselves for failing to take any action to avert preventable tragedies.We never change. We never learn. We never recognize the root of the problem. We never do anything differently. Instead, we witness horrific events and then carry on as if there was nothing we could do to stop it.This philosophy is wrong.Death by a thousand cutsI didn’t do enough. I know I didn’t do enough because Mr. Murphy pulled a gun on Jenny. I didn’t do enough, but at least I did something.Perhaps the fact that I recognized Mr. Murphy’s distress and I offered him a word of sympathy represented one less cut. Perhaps that was enough to grant him the strength to reach for a starter pistol, instead of a real gun.Perhaps…Our purpose in this life isn’t to find fault. Our purpose is to help each other. I’m conflicted about this memory. The thing is, I liked Mr. Murphy. He shouldn’t have done what he did, but he wasn’t “evil.” He was one of the few people who tried to be fair in a corrupt community, and I expect they constantly tormented him for it.Our community failed. It continues to fail. We fail to learn anything. That’s why these tragedies happen again and again and again…We let it happen. We’re complicit.You all make this newsletter happen! Thanks for your sponsorship! 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