Education students at Wesleyan have been navigating their worries about personal safety and that of their students in the face of gun violence as they prepare to enter elementary and high schools as educators.
On September 4, a 14-year-old student opened gunfire at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia. Two students and two teachers were killed, and nine injured in the shooting. The student, Colt Gray, will be charged with murder and tried as an adult. His father – the owner of the assault rifle used in the shooting – has also been taken into custody.
Natalie Jacocks ‘25 is a double major in Secondary Education and receiving an endorsement in Middle School English endorsement. She is currently a student teaching at a local high school.
“While it should not have to be, the consideration that your life must
be put on the line in order to save your students is a necessary one to cope with before choosing this career,” Jacocks said.
Lacey Hodge ‘25 is pursuing his Music Education degree and will be student teaching in the spring semester. “I recognize that there is an element of inherent fear that I cannot escape in my line of work,” he said.
“It makes me uncomfortable, nervous, and hopeless at times,” Music Education major Elijah Dalla ‘26 said.
In the wake of the shooting in Georgia, students considered how to broach the topic of gun violence with their students. many future educators emphasize the need to be honest with students about the dangers of gun violence.
”I believe in transparency with students,” Jacocks said.
”Trying to hide the horrors from them to ‘protect them’ is fruitless. If anything, it only leaves them vulnerable to more fear and confusion.”
”I’ve thought about this since coming to college as an education major,” Hodge said. “I would say the best way to talk about this topic would be with utter transparency and clarity.”
“This is something I’ve avoided talking about in my first two years here, but I feel the best thing as an educator is to be transparent and upfront with you students so they know how to react,” Dalla said.
Jacocks claimed the educators at her placement addressed the Georgia shooting with “a calm, knowing tone of ‘this has happened before and will happen again.’”
However, Hodge claims that IWU education topics fall short in addressing gun violence as a future educator. “I don’t believe any teacher has ever mentioned anything about this at the collegiate level,” Hodge said. “There is no class telling you how to deal with this scenario and there aren’t a ny preventative protocols.”
Also on September 4, there were false claims of an active shooter on campus. While the claim of a shooter was discovered to be at Western Illinois University (WIU) and not IWU, Student Affairs has since tested the emergency alert system in the case of an active shooter or other emergency on campus.
“No child should fear for their given right to education,” Hodge said. “We still see it at the collegiate level with rumors like there were just last week.”
To prevent further issues of gun violence in schools, Dalila suggested a series of background checks prior to purchasing a gun and “better mental health faculty and procedures for students within the schools.” He also urged fellow students to “vote, petition, advocate, and lead.”
In 2023, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed the Protect Illinois Communities act, which highly regulated the sale and possession of assault weapons, including the AR-15.
”I think we must shift from thinking ‘it could never happen to us’ to thinking ‘how do we ensure it will never happen to us,’” Jacocks said.
”I believe that my teachers here at Wesleyan have the same opinion of fear and disdain for gun violence,” Hodge said. “They can recognize it’s a problem in our country.”