Story of my failure

the demons in my head: cat.(ding ) I’m a kitty cat. and I dance dance dance.

I’m your kid’s teacher, and I would take a bullet for your child. But I wish you wouldn’t ask me to.

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We had an intruder drill today.

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I have shepherded children through a lot of intruder drills. I have also, on one memorable occasion, shepherded children through a non-drill. When I was a children’s librarian in a rough suburb, armed men got into a fight in the alley behind our building. We ushered all of the kids - most of whom were unattended - into the basement while we waited for the police.

During intruder drills, some children - from five-year-olds all the way to high school kids - get visibly upset. At one school, the intruder drill included administrators running down the hallways, screaming and banging on lockers to simulate the “real thing.” Kids cry. Kindergartners wet themselves. Teenagers laugh, nudging each other, even as the blood drains from their faces.

Other children handle intruder drills matter-of-factly. “Would the guy be able to shoot us through the door?” they ask, the same way they’d ask a question about their math homework. In some ways, this is worse than the kids who cry. To be so young and so accustomed to fear that these drills seem routine.

And then there are the teachers. There is no way, huddling in a corner with your students, ducking out of view of the windows and doors, to avoid thinking about what happens when it’s not a drill.

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People really hate teachers. I don’t take it personally. It actually makes a lot of sense: what other group of professionals do we know so well? How many doctors have you had? How many plumbers? How many secretaries?

Over the course of my public school education, I had at least fifty teachers for at least a year each. So of course some of them were bad. You take fifty people from any profession, and a couple of them are going to be terrible at their job.

So I had a couple of teachers who were terrible, and a few teachers who were amazing, inspirational figures - the kinds of teachers they make movies about.

And then I had a lot of teachers who did a good job. They came to school every day and worked hard. They’d planned our lessons and they graded our papers. I learned what I was supposed to, more or less, even if it wasn’t the most incredible learning experience of my life.

Most teachers fall into that category. I’m sure I do.

Looking at it from the other side, though, I see something that I didn’t know when I was a kid.

Those workhorse teachers who tried, who failed sometimes and sometimes succeeded, who showed up every day and did their jobs: those teachers loved us.

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Of course you can never know what you’ll do in the event. That’s what they always say. In the event of an intruder, a fire, a tornado.

You can never know until you know.

But part of what’s so terrifying, so upsetting about an intruder drill as a teacher, is that on some level you do know. You don’t aspire to martyrdom; you’ve never wanted to be a hero. You go home every night to a family that loves you, and you intend to spend the next fifty years with them. You will do everything in your power to hide yourself in that office along with your kids.

But if you can’t.

If you can’t.

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When people tell me about why they oppose gun control, I can’t hear it anymore.

I’m from a part of the country where everybody has guns. I used to be really moderate about this stuff, and I am not anymore.

I can’t be.

Every day, I go to work in a building that contains hundreds of children. Every single one of those kids, including every kid that makes me crazy, is a joy and a blessing. They make their parents’ lives meaningful. They make my life meaningful. They are the reason I go to work in the morning, and the reason I worry and plan when I come home.

Parents usually know a handful of kids who are the most wonderful creatures on the planet. I know a couple thousand. It is an incredible privilege, and it is also terrifying. The world is big and scary, and I love so many small people who must go out into it.

So when adults tell me, “I have the right to own a gun”, all I can hear is: “My right to own a gun outweighs your students’ right to be alive.” All I can hear is: “My right to own a gun is more important than kindergarteners feeling safe at school.” All I can hear is: “Mine. Mine. Mine.”

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When you are sitting there hiding in the corner of your classroom, you know.

The alternative would be unthinkable.

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We live in a country where children are acceptable casualties. Every time someone tells me about the second amendment I want to give them a history lesson. I also want to ask them: in what universe is your right to walk into a Wal-Mart to buy a gun more important than the lives of hundreds of children shot dead in their schools?

Parents send their kids to school every day with this shadow. Teachers live with the shadow. We work alongside it. We plan for it. In the event.

In the event, parents know that their children’s teachers will do everything in their power to keep them safe. We plan for it.

And when those plans don’t work, teachers die protecting their students.

We love your children. That’s why we’re here. Some of us love the subject we teach, too, and that’s important, but all of us love your kids.

The alternative would be unthinkable.

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When you are waiting, waiting, waiting for the voice to come on over the PA, telling you that the drill is over, you look at the apprehensive faces around you. You didn’t grow up like this. You never once hid with your teacher in a corner, wondering if a gunman was just around the corner. It is astonishing to you that anyone tolerates this.

And the kids are nervous, but they are all looking to you. You’re their teacher.

They know what you didn’t know, back when you were a kid, back before Columbine. They know that you love them. They know you will keep them safe.

You’re their teacher.

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If you are a parent who thinks it’s totally reasonable for civilians to have a house full of deadly weapons, and who accepts the blood of innocent people in exchange for that right, it doesn’t change anything for me. I will love your kid. I will treat you, and your child, the same way I treat everyone else: with all of the respect and the care that is in me.

In the event, I will do everything in my power to keep your child safe.

My brain when studying

Let me just list all the wonderful things Donald Trump has said about women.

1991, Esquire Magazine, about female journalists: “You know, it doesn’t really matter what [they] write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.”

1992, New York Magazine, about gold-medal winning Olympic ice skater Katarine Witt: “Wonderful looking while on the ice but up close and personal, she could only be described as attractive if you like a woman with a bad complexion who is built like a linebacker.”

1992, New York Magazine: “You have to treat ‘em like shit.”

1993, Newshub, about his image as a womanizer: “I don’t enjoy that image. Yes I have that image. I think women are beautiful - I think certain women are more beautiful than others, to be perfectly honest – and it’s fortunate I don’t have to run for political office.”

1994, ABC News: “I have days where, if I come home — and I don’t want to sound too much like a chauvinist, but when I come home and dinner’s not ready, I go through the roof.”

1994, ABC News: “I think that putting a wife to work is a very dangerous thing. Unfortunately, after they’re a star, the fun is over for me. It’s like a creation process. It’s almost like creating a building. It’s pretty sad.”

1997, Trump: The Art of The Comeback: “There are basically three types of women and reactions. One is the good woman who very much loves her future husband, solely for himself, but refuses to sign the agreement on principle. I fully understand this, but the man should take a pass anyway and find someone else. The other is the calculating woman who refuses to sign the prenuptial agreement because she is expecting to take advantage of the poor, unsuspecting sucker she’s got in her grasp. There is also the woman who will openly and quickly sign a prenuptial agreement in order to make a quick hit and take the money given to her.”

1997, Howard Stern, about buying the beauty pageant Miss USA: “They said, ‘How are you going to change the pageant?’ I said ‘I’m going to get the bathing suits to be smaller and the heels to be higher’. If you’re looking for a rocket scientist, don’t tune in tonight, but if you’re looking for a really beautiful woman, you should watch.”

1997, Howard Stern, about Princess Diana: “I think I could’ve [had sex with her].”

1999, New York Daily News: “I have a deal with her. She’s 17 and doing great ― Ivanka. She made me promise, swear to her that I would never date a girl younger than her. So as she grows older, the field is getting very limited.”

2003, Howard Stern: “You know who’s one of the great beauties of the world, according to everybody? And I helped create her. Ivanka. My daughter, Ivanka. She’s 6 feet tall, she’s got the best body. She made a lot money as a model—a tremendous amount”

2004, the Daily News: “All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me - consciously or unconsciously. That’s to be expected.”

2005, to a female candidate on The Apprentice: “I bet you make a great wife.“

2006, Howard Stern: “If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”

2006, Entertainment Tonight: “Rosie O'Donnell is disgusting, both inside and out. If you take a look at her, she’s a slob. How does she even get on television? If I were running The View, I’d fire Rosie. I’d look her right in that fat, ugly face of hers and say, ‘Rosie, you’re fired.’ We’re all a little chubby but Rosie’s just worse than most of us. But it’s not the chubbiness - Rosie is a very unattractive person, both inside and out. Rosie’s a person who’s very lucky to have her girlfriend. And she better be careful or I’ll send one of my friends over to pick up her girlfriend, why would she stay with Rosie if she had another choice?”

2007, Trump 101: The Way to Success: “Beauty and elegance, whether in a woman, a building, or a work of art, is not just superficial or something pretty to see.”

2007, Larry King’s CNN Show, about Angelina Jolie: “I really understand beauty. And I will tell you, she’s not - I do own Miss Universe. I do own Miss USA. I mean I own a lot of different things. I do understand beauty, and she’s not.“

In 2007 he pitched a TV show called ‘Lady or a Tramp?’ This was reported to be a reality show, in which ‘"out of control” party girls were sent to charm school to learn some manners.

2008, Howard Stern: “They’ll walk up, and they’ll flip their top, and they’ll flip their panties.” He claims to be attracted to women who are 'a bit chunky’ when Stern asks if he’s ever 'reduced himself’ to sleeping with a 'fat woman’. Trump also says he’s 'been with women with extraordinarily bad breast jobs’ and 'pancake tits’. He adds that any woman who has a breast reduction is 'insane’.

2008, Access Hollywood, about Anne Hathaway’s divorce: “So when he had plenty of money, she liked him. But then after that, not as good, right?

2009, a quote by beauty queen Carrie Prejean about how Trump would have girls parade in front of him: “Many of the girls found this exercise humiliating. Some of the girls were sobbing backstage after [he] left, devastated to have failed even before the competition really began . . . it was as though we had been stripped bare.”

2011, Trump was in court testifying in a deposition over a failed Florida real estate project when lawyer Elizabeth Beck asked to take a break to breastfeed her three-month old daughter. The property mogul and his team objected, so she pulled out her breast pump to prove it. In an incident that Trump “does not dispute”, he walked out of the room, telling Beck she was “disgusting”.

2011: After New York Times columnist Gail Collins wrote about rumours of Trump’s bankruptcy, he sent her a copy of her own article, with her picture circled and “the face of a dog!” scrawled across it.

2012, When transgender Miss Universe contestant Jenna Talackova was kicked out of the contest for not having declared her trans status in her entry, Talackova’s lawyer, Gloria Allred, angrily said that no one had asked Trump to “prove” he was a man by showing his anatomy. In response, Trump called in to TMZ Live and said of his penis: “I think Gloria would be very impressed.“

2012: Huffington Post editor and co-founder Arianna Huffington is a regular target of Trump’s. But instead of attacking her liberal views, he tends to criticise her looks and make jokes about her divorce.

2013, The Wendy Williams Show, when asked what he has in common with his daughter Ivanka: "Well, I was going to say sex, but I can’t relate that to her.”

2013, Former Playboy playmate Brande Roderick was a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice in the US. During a tense boardroom battle, she knelt in front of Trump to ask him whether she could be the next project manager. After a six-second silence (an eternity on TV), during which Trump presumably willed some blood to return to his head, he said: “It must be a pretty picture. You dropping to your knee.“

2013: When he blamed sexual assault on cohabitation

2015, Des Moines Register, about his u-turn on his stance on abortion: “In thinking about it over the years, I’ve had instances, and one instance in particular, a friend had a child who they were going to abort, and now they have it, and the child is incredible. And the man, he changed his views also because of that.” He’s also said he’d be willing to shut down the US government to defund non-profit reproductive health organisation Planned Parenthood.

2015, Twitter: he said Hillary couldn’t ‘satisfy’ her husband and therefore couldn’t satisfy America.

2015, Twitter: he called Megyn Kelly a 'bimbo’ after the first Republican debate because she gave him a tough time. Later in an interview with CNN he said: "You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.”

2015, New York Times: “Heidi Klum. Sadly, she’s no longer a 10.”

2015, Rolling Stone Magazine, about Carly Fiorina: “Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next next President? I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not supposed to say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?”

2015, during an election debate, Trump singled out his female Republican rival, conveniently ignoring the fact his male rivals were also talking over one another: “Why does she keep interrupting everybody?”

2016, MSNBC, referring to women who would defy the abortion ban: “There has to be some form of punishment.” Trump reversed his position two hours later, with a statement saying that he would punish doctors who performed abortions but not the women themselves.

2016, at one of his rallies he accused Hillary Clinton of being an enabler of her husband’s affairs: “Bill Clinton was the worst in history and I have to listen to her talking about it? Just remember this: She was an unbelievably nasty, mean enabler. And what she did to a lot of those women is disgraceful. So put that in her bonnet and let’s see what happens.“

2016, when Megyn Kelly confronted him about calling her a bimbo and suggesting she was menstruating after she took him to task over sexist comments: "Did I say that? Excuse me. But over your life, Megyn, you’ve been called a lot worse, wouldn’t you say?”

2016, when Trump interrupted Hillary Clinton 25 times during the first 26 minutes of their first TV debate before saying: “She doesn’t have the look. She doesn’t have the stamina.”

2016, Fox News, after the first debate: “I was going to hit her with her husband’s women and I decided I shouldn’t do it because her daughter was in the room.“

2016, Howard Stern, about 12-year-old Paris Hilton: “Now, somebody who a lot of people don’t give credit to but in actuality is really beautiful is Paris Hilton. I’ve known Paris Hilton from the time she’s 12, her parents are friends of mine, and the first time I saw her she walked into the room and I said, ‘Who the hell is that?’” Stern asked: “Did you wanna bang her?” To which Trump responded” “Well, at 12, I wasn’t interested. I’ve never been into that … but she was beautiful.” He went on to admit he’d watched her sex tape.

2016, Access Hollywood: “I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married.“ "I did try and fuck her, she was married.” “Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.” “Grab them by the pussy, you can do anything.”

2016, old Entertainment Tonight footage, when he leered at a 10 year old girl: “I am going to be dating her in 10 years. Can you believe it?”