Something very disturbing is happening in America. It is not happening in any other high income country. In fact, in the U.S. the gun murder rate is 25 times higher than other countries.
When I began teaching in 1968 about the only thing teachers and administrators had to worry about was the occasional fight between a few students in the hall. There weren’t a lot of guns involved, and there weren’t mass shootings (there was one in 1968 related to integration in which three people died). In the classroom it was students not paying attention or talking back to the teacher or maybe teasing a fellow student. I began my teaching career in a pretty rough area of Atlanta — and at 21 I was glad that was all I was worried about.
Fast forward to 2018 - 50 years later. I am glad I am no longer in the classroom, because our country has gone through some drastic changes. Some would say that people have changed and that is partially true because of our immediate access to news — real or fake — through television, websites, blogs, social media, and smart phones. Poverty remains high in urban areas where there has been an increase in gangs. In fact, poverty in rural areas remains high also.
Letter to the Editor: What is happening to our country?