A place of learning should not instill the fear of death. My time in the public education system has taught me, through every lock-down drill, active shooter training, news story, or intrinsic thought, to fear the seemingly inevitable scenario in which I would have to fight for my life in a classroom. On multiple occasions, I have imagined what I would do if a gunman began firing upon my innocent students. Anticipating and planning my actions for the event of an active shooter, beyond the directions given at active shooter training, when a gunman comes rattling at the door. What would I do? Throw a textbook? Throw a chair? My shoes?

Monday night, February 13th, I was proctoring an exam from 7:15 pm to 8:35 pm at Michigan State University. At 8:32 pm, a notification showed up on the computer screen—which we use to project a clock in front of the student—titled “Shots Fired,” issued by the MSU Police Department. The alert reported shots fired on or near the East Lansing campus. It directed us to immediately secure in place and run, hide, and fight. At that time, I do not believe anyone understood the severity of the situation, which dawned on us perhaps too slowly.

I was with eight teaching assistants and nine students. I took control; we did not negotiate. I was in charge of the exam; perhaps it was for the best? I had training from my time teaching high school chemistry. Regardless, I did not quietly have this conversation with myself; I told people what to do.

We received more information; emails from the police department, from my department’s chair, texts from family and friends who were listening to the police scanner, and from the people I was with who had been looking at the news and social media. Once we had learned the location of the first shooting at Berkey Hall, my mood changed. The lecture hall we were in was within a 10 min walk from Berkey. Once I learned people had been killed, my heart sank.

This lecture hall can hold around 400 people. No tables, no chairs, no freely moving furniture to be used to barricade the doors, only terribly uncomfortable desks screwed to the floor. The entrance to the lecture had four large double doors, which open outward, and cannot be locked. At the other end of the lecture hall, where two metal doors which open directly outside. Luckly these doors do not have handles on the outside, preventing anyone from entering from the outside. I told everyone to sit on the floor next to them. I however was pacing between the four doors at the other end of the lecture hall holding my shoes in my hand—I had used my belt and shoelaces (and other peoples belts and shoelaces) to tie the doors closed.

Occasionally, I would walk back to the group of students and teaching assistants, both to receive more information and check on them. The first time I did this, I notice some TA’s missing. I found one TA casually sitting in a desk a couple rows from the front. Every time this TA moved and made any noise, all the other people would jump, and turn towards the doors, fearful. After I quietly told, and swore at the TA to sit with the others, I notice two other TAs laying down between the rows of desks. I approached them, and one of them turned toward me, asking, “Jake, are we going to be alright?” Her voice was shaky, she was scared. I was scared. I told her, “Yes, I have tied the doors close with my belt and shoelaces, and you are going to sit with everyone else.” I lied. You do not know if you are going to be okay. The state of unknown is terrible, it allows any seemingly plausible thought to worry you.

For most of the four-hour lock-down, I was pacing back and forth between the entrances to the lecture hall, thinking only about fighting to the death whoever attempted to enter. A couple of hours into the shelter-in-place, I heard someone attempt to open the door. I ran over and found a young male, probably a student, but in the moment, I was not convinced. I yelled at him, “what the fuck are you doing?” I think this scared him, and he ran off. This moment causes me the most pain, it is by far the most terrifying thing that has happened to me. I quietly whispered across the lecture to let everyone it was just a student. Fortunately, moments later I heard an older man talk with this student and take the student into a classroom. When I began walking between the doors again, I found a note slipped under the door. I was written by that student, explaining that he was looking for his friend who was supposedly there, probably from the exam. The note asks if there is anything he can do to prove who he is and why he is there. I keep thinking about this student. What was going through his head? What if something happened?

Recently, I read a blog post by Brandon Van Der Heide which articulated something I was feeling but could not capture with words. Van Der Heide is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Michigan State University and wrote about the societal agreement that teachers take on the moment they decide to be teachers. On Monday night, I accepted this agreement, I accepted that I will be the first to die. I am not special; I am a teacher. What angers me is the feeling of inevitability. I am not shocked by my experience. Traumatized? Yes, but not surprised by this nonsensical violence or by my own acceptance of death. I was already dead during the Oxford shooting; I had died when I became a teacher. Not because I wanted too, but because that is the expectation.

JLS