Yesterday morning, for the first time in my life as far as I know, I heard someone get shot.
The whole ordeal was surprisingly innocuous. It was about 10:30 I had just begun teaching my 2nd period class when we heard three gunshots. Everyone's eyes in the room got really wide, and we all had the same thought at once: oh shit.
I'm not really sure what I said, but I just tried to keep teaching. Pretty soon we heard sirens, and students tried to look out the windows. "Sit down," I said, and walked to the window myself. There ended up being about ten police cars, a fire truck, and an ambulance outside.
So I finished the lesson and that was about it. I kept an eye out the window and watched the paramedics bring a guy out on a stretcher. He was looking around and seemed okay. The police hung out for an hour or so, putting up yellow tape and talking to people on the sidewalk.
In a way, it seems stupid to be talking about context clues when there are people being gunned down all around you. I think students realize this as well. As I was talking, sirens blaring outside, a student raised her hand.
"Mr. McAlister. I'm not trying to be rude, but someone just got shot." She looked at me. "Are you really gonna keep teaching right now?"
I did, and I suppose I will, at least until bullets start flying through my classroom windows. At that point I'll take a week off, write a new blog post, and go back to work.
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