Thinking Ahead to a 5K in Memory of Victoria Soto. Next Month, I Run For Teachers and Heroism. #NoMoreViolence

I have been writing a piece in my head since 1998, when Jan Arnow adopted me to work with the No More Violence curriculum at the J. Graham Brown School. For years, we traveled with our students to ask other students to deconstruct violence in their lives and to delve deep in the socio-cultural-historical layers that lead to violence acts.

When Sandy Hook faced tragedy on December 14, 2012, 13.1 one miles north of my home, I had the No More Violence curriculum in the front of my mind. How? Why? To what expense?

Looking for answers, I began to do research in English Education and Literacy to see how other communities responded. It was natural for me to turn to the National Writing Project for answers and to see what sites in Oklahoma, New Orleans, and near Paducah, Kentucky, did when natural and man-made tragedies occurred in their regions. I also collected research where scholars and teachers wrote about coping with horrendous acts in American schools.

My personal response was to contact Trina Paulus and to work with her on doing a butterfly release of Hope for the Flowers in southern Connecticut. My colleagues, Emily Smith and Paula Gill-Lopez began asking their English Education and Psychology students to collaborate curriculum together for areas that address distressed schools. Other colleagues, Carol Ann Davis and Elizabeth Boquet set out to begin the Newtown Poetry Project. All of us looked for ways to help our neighbors to cope and heal through dialogue, writing, and reading.

Next month, I am running a 5K, a fundraiser for the Vicki Soto Scholarship - a graduate of Stratford High School and a hero during the horrible day in the classroom three years ago. I decided I needed to run the race, albeit it ten minutes slower than when I first began running 5Ks as a teacher, because although my pace has lessened, violence in schools has not. I am using this experience to begin a longer race of writing a piece that outlines how my colleagues and I responded, but also to think critically about sifting through violence with youth in our American schools. I would hate to see another tragedy, but history is showing us that such violence occurs regularly. I am sure there are other educators like me who would benefit from having a piece to use with their students and colleagues. That is my goal - one that I put on the radar for my sabbatical. In my office is a stack of publications to help me and I've ordered Jan Arnow's latest book, In The Line of Fire.

Last night, a colleague called me and asked for help after her mother-in-law passed away. I quickly hit the stove, went to the grocery, and arrived to her house to help her clean for tomorrow's post-service celebration in her home. The call sparked a humanitarian drive within me and served as a reminder that above everything else, we should be living to help one another out.

That's why I'm running on November 7th. I need to feel a sense of community and to belong to something that is right. In my emails Thursday and Friday, I was alerted to the NRA's attack on curriculum co-written by the National Writing Project, claiming it to be biased and anti-guns. I've looked at the curriculum and it merely lists facts and asks students to take a stand on these facts, a writing task that most of us are expected to require from students. Our job is to keep them informed and to offer them a location to express their thoughts in genres that others can read.

I'm not anti-gun. I'd be a hypocrite if I said I was. I am, however, anti-crime and anti-stupidity. In this way, I am anti-violence. Knowing that I write to know what I know, I'm setting out this weekend to begin a piece that is 15 years overdue. I know I'm taking this evening off, but Sunday it begins.

My legs may be slower, but my mind and fingers are not.