although i can see myself being flexible, i think that one shouldnt have ones private life get draged into the classroom. it puts the kids in danger. i think, if you are someone that NEEDS a gun for your own personal protection, then you shouldnt be teaching, or at least, you're far from being the ideal teacher.
one could make oneself disappear and teach somewhere else or take a break or vacation until things blow over, also i don't see why someone that is targeted by their own family can't work things out away from school.
if the kids themselves are being targeted, then i can see that they might need more than the ordinary teacher with a gun.
j
It's nice in theory, to say that one should keep one's personal life out of the classroom - or any other workplace, for that matter. But while I chose teaching because I enjoy it, I can't
afford to take off because my personal life might come crashing in through the door, and neither can any of the teachers with whom I am personally acquainted. Can you afford to take off from your job when you're having personal problems?
As far as the kids being targeted, we can only do something about it if someone in the family tells us what's going on - and while we know about a number of students who are under orders of protection, we don't always know about all of them - usually, we find out when the non-custodial parent attempts to pick the child up, isn't on the approved sign-out list, and the custodial parent is called, at which point our SRO takes over.
Incidents such as the one described in the article are, thankfully, rare - which is why they are covered so thoroughly in the news. Like any other similar situation, however,
we were not there, and therefore, IMHO, second-guessing those who were strikes me as an exercise in futility. We can only attempt to learn from the past, so as to affect the future - we cannot change it.