Rolle Out

I wanted to start out on a positive note with some thoughts on the fourteenth century, but it seems so insignificant and distant in wake of the tragedy at Bramalea Secondary School. A teacher is dead as a result of a shot in the head, of the fatal bullet kind. While I am grateful that it wasn't a student who perpetrated this crime, it is still a heinous and revulsive thing for a human being to take another individual's life. This transgression is vile squalor in light of the victim being a teacher, too. Until I graduated from high school, I never truly appreciated the importance of teachers, in general. But now that I am responsible for my education, I see things in a new light. In addition, I think the death of an English teacher, Mrs Avery, from my high school had major repercussions for me. In high school I felt her to be the only teacher to believe in me, even in spite of my glaring lack of bookish knowledge. She sowed the seeds of esteem in me. When I heard about the shooting at B.S.S. I immediately thought of Mrs. Avery. I thought it terrible that this violence should occur, but also that I had not honoured a visit to Mrs. Avery's grave. The shame, and personal disgrace might seem a bit melodramatic - but the last time I saw Mrs. Avery was on a visit to our school, when Viv and I dropped in on her class to pay out respects. It was shortly before her death. I remember the gleam in her eyes, though, when I started talking about all the books that I was reading and writing assignments for university. The fruits of my passion for books, which she had sparked in me, I showed off to her--talking about reading 19th c. Russian literature, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and other things I could never have understood or appreciated in high school. Mostly, it felt good to go back and make a teacher proud of his or her vocation, to show that their efforts were not in vain or fruitless. I suppose it is what inspires teachers to be teachers, this hope that a select few will be inspired and bear mental fruits. There's something Christian about it all - I guess Mrs. Avery was the first Christ that I knew who was willing to lay her life down to grant me a second chance at life. She was a blessing in the flesh. So I dedicate this first post in memorium of Mrs. Avery and the murdered B.S.S. teacher, to the martyrs of our education system.