Welcome to the Classroom Narratives Healing and Education podcast, the space where education
meets resilience. I'm Joey Weisler, and in each episode, we dive deep into the personal stories
of educators, students, leaders, and frontline advocates who are navigating the complexities
of modern education. Whether you're just starting your teaching journey, or are a seasoned
professional looking for inspiration, we'll explore how to foster meaningful change, prevent burnout,
and build trauma-informed communities in our schools. Now, let's take a seat at the front
of the classroom and get started. Welcome back everyone to a very powerful episode here on our
podcast. Today I have the privilege to be joined with Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School English
teacher and yearbook advisor, Sarah Lerner. I asked Sarah to join me so she can speak about
"Parkland Speaks". And "Parkland Speaks" is an anthology which Sarah edited within the year of the Parkland
tragedy, and it succeeds in portraying the raw emotions of those within the school community
through narrative, poetry, photography, and even political speeches. And in the immediate aftermath
of Parkland, I remember feeling voiceless in the sense of I wanted to participate in the activism,
especially through writing, but I didn't quite know how or when and for who. And when I came across
"Parkland Speaks", I felt a connection to the contributors ranging from students to faculty
and knew that I could honor their works by presenting the text to my first semester freshman
enrolled in my college humanities course. And many of the students who are taking my college course
are already navigating the complex emotions during their first semester of college. And when they
read this text, they may not have had the same encounters of violence that the "Parkland Speaks"
contributors are responding to, but there is still a connection that happens in seeing my students
empathize with those community members who are in this anthology articulating the hardest moments
in their lives. So Sarah, I wanted to begin by thanking you for this text as it lives greatly
within my classes, and I'm anxious to talk about the impact this work has had on others as well.
So thank you for being here and welcome, Sarah. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited.
Such a pleasure. So Sarah, tell us a little bit about "Parkland Speaks". What is this text? What has
it accomplished for the contributors and the community? And how did you conceive this text?
When was the moment when you came together with a group of people and said, 'let's make this happen'?
I, well, first I want to thank you for using this in your class and for hyping it up so much. I knew
that the book would have a profound effect on anyone who picked it up, because if you have a
pulse and a heartbeat, this should move you in some way. So I want to thank you for that.
As far as how this all started, in March of 2018, I was contacted by the senior editor at the time
of Random House Publishing, which is a division of Penguin Publishing. And she reached out and
asked if I would be interested in collaborating on a project where I would collect student
work. And this was more of an anthology piece. So she was looking for artwork, photography,
poetry, prose, speeches, really anything in that kind of creative writing space.
And she asked if I had students I thought would be interested, which of course I did. And once I had
all the specifics from her, I approached the students. So I started with my yearbook and
journalism students first and my seniors from English. And then I opened it up to Stacey Lippel's
creative writing students, Melissa Falkowski, the newspaper advisor, her students, both in newspaper
and her advanced creative writing classes. And it turned out to total about 43 contributors,
including two pieces from myself and two pieces from two different educators at school. And it's
a very, very heavy read. I do not recommend reading it straight through in one sitting.
I have never sat down to read it straight through in one sitting. And I edited every single piece
and read them over and over and over again. So the work contained within "Parkland Speaks"
is the story of what happened to us from different perspectives and different modes and medium,
medium, because we have artwork, we have photography, we have firsthand accounts from students
who were in that building. We have Stacey Lippel's congressional testimony. We have
part of the 'We Call BS' speech that Emma Gonzales made. We have so many different things, which I
think is what makes the book unique. On top of that, there was nothing like this that existed
prior to Parkland Speaks. Like there was no other book from Columbine or Sandy Hook or any of the
schools that came before us, we as a MSD school and community could turn to, to read those stories
and hear those narratives, which is something that I'm so proud of. And I hope that the book
has helped people not just to see what we went through and what we experienced, but to help them
through their own trauma and to help them have a better understanding about what happens when there
is a mass casualty. And honestly, if you took out Parkland and you put any other city in the title,
it all rings true. One of my very, very best friends is Abby Clements, who is a survivor teacher
from Sandy Hook. I am incredibly close with Amy Stevens, who is a survivor teacher from Oxford
High School in Oxford, Michigan, and people in between our three tragedies. It's really just
insert city here and all of our stories are the same. I wanted to echo that. I've also been reading
with my class on the composition of activism. They read a text called "Parkland" by David Cullen.
And what Cullen says is that we had this, as he phrases it, this perfect storm of events that
happened here in Parkland, because at Columbine, we didn't have the capacity to mobilize through
social media and means of that nature back in 1999. With Sandy Hook, the students themselves
were too young. The parents did incredible efforts. But Parkland, as he says, is the first time we
actually hear from who he coins to be the targets themselves and hearing their stories. And I also
echo that I just recently reread creative writing instructor Stacey Lippel's congressional testimony
called 'Nothing Bad Ever Happens in Parkland', very recently from my own classes and from my dissertation.
And what Stacey does is that she uses the repetition of that line, 'nothing bad ever
happens in Parkland...nothing bad ever happens in Parkland'. And in between that repetition,
she is showing how she saw carnage in front of her face with her next door teacher neighbor,
with her own students, and to herself when she was also grazed. But she says, 'nothing bad ever
happens in Parkland'. When she heard a sound, she said, it could have been fireworks, it could have
been desks falling. That's reality. To say it was gunshots is unreal, because nothing bad ever happens
in Parkland. That stuck with me. And I wanted to ask Sarah, when we think about the different
narratives that are within "Parkland Speaks", what are some of the ones that still stick with you
so poignantly? Definitely Stacey's congressional testimony. There was a piece that Kat Tibbetts
wrote with his like inmate number. And it's a long string of numbers and letters, and I can't
remember what they are. But that piece stuck with me, because at the end of it, she repeats like,
'you don't exist, you don't exist, you don't exist'. I mean, there's just so many, like we have
photographs that Kyra Parrow took, and she was a senior that year, she was on my yearbook staff.
There's so many pieces in this book, it's hard to isolate what really stands out the most.
I just think it was so incredibly brave. And anytime I've talked about the book in TV
interviews, or even we did an episode of it on the podcast that I host, and anytime I've talked
about the book, I always say how honored and in awe I was and am of these contributors, that they
trusted me with something so raw, and so personal and so intimate of theirs, and trusted me to do
right by them and edit it in a way that didn't change the meaning behind what they experienced,
and that Random House trusted me to put this together to honor our experience.
And I think what Sarah also emphasizes is that the purpose of her anthology is to share hope.
And when I share this with my first year freshman students in college, they look at these stories.
One that also comes to mind because we talked about it a week ago is called 'Life's Test'.
And 'Life's Test' is when these students say, our test was the final, hinting back to that event.
There's also one called 'The Words', where the student cannot find the actual words to speak
through the event, but in writing it out, there's some element of closure that comes alongside that.
There's another really powerful piece juxtaposed from the same author called 'Rainbow' and 'Black
Bullets', where 'Rainbow' was written an hour before this tragedy happened in the class period before,
where this person is looking for the best shade of love for Valentine's Day.
And her whole perspective on what love indicated to her changes with her follow-up piece shortly
after, called 'Black Bullets'. As someone who has been both personally and professionally involved
with trauma recovery after Parkland, what is a message that you would want to send based upon
our dialogue tonight to other teachers, students, and policymakers about the importance of having
trauma-informed education in our classrooms and as a whole? I think it's incredibly important to have
a strong support system, whether it be for your students, whether it be their parents, their
friends, a significant other, extended family. If you're married, if you have children who are
old enough to engage in these conversations with you, it's just so, so important to have
that support system. Outside of that, I have always been an advocate of therapy and taking care of
your mental health. I think it's important for schools and school districts, school systems,
to have people in place who are trauma-informed. You can't counsel people who have been through
a traumatic event if you are not trauma-informed to counsel people. And I think that outside of
all of that, self-care, and I know people hate that phrase and it can be so cheesy,
but self-care is important and taking time to do things that center you and ground you,
whether that's yoga, meditation, something a little more aesthetic like getting your nails done or,
you know, going for a massage, like those things, if it makes you happy and it makes you feel good,
do it. I think for policymakers and whether they are elected officials or school board members or
anyone who is above my pay grade, it's really important to not only talk to survivors of a
of a tragedy, but listen to them. Ask them what they need and listen. And if they don't know what
they need, because half the time, more than half the time, almost seven years later, I still don't
always know what I need. But if I don't know, ask me again. Not in like five minutes, but, you know,
circle back and check in because when people in positions of power just make these blanket
decisions and have these knee-jerk reactions, as well intentioned as they may be, it's not a one
size fits all. Trauma and healing aren't linear. And what worked at Columbine wouldn't necessarily
work all those years later at my school at Stoneman Douglas. What worked for us may not have
worked at Oxford High School a few years after us. And when you need someone to be trauma informed,
you can't look at all tragedies and PTSD and anxiety the same. So anyone in a position of power
who's listening or otherwise really needs to sit with those who were directly impacted and allow
them to help write your policies, guide you as you are making these decisions. Because unless you've
been through something like this, you don't know what it's like and you don't know what the people
need, but the people in it don't know what they need. So it's kind of the blind leading the blind,
but one side has to be able to see well enough to guide. I echo Sarah that much like 'Parkland
Speaks', the purpose of the 'Classroom Narratives Healing In Education' podcast that we're all
a part of tonight, and Sarah, I'm so glad that you're here, is to again mobilize conversation that
amplifies light and hope to the audiences that we want to reach. So 'Parkland Speaks' and this podcast
have that exact same goal. And in doing so, Sarah and I would probably both agree that the most
important thing that our work can do for anyone who is in the system, especially for those in power,
is to just start talking, start having those conversations. Don't be afraid to, or rather,
as Brene Brown would say, have the courage to be vulnerable. And by being vulnerable, that gives you
a space to listen and make things better for the people around you. And before we wrap up, I wanted
to ask Sarah, there's any organizations, I know you have your own, the "Teachers Unified to End Gun
Violence". Are there any organizations that we can talk about real quick for our audiences to follow
up with? Yeah, I would love to talk to you about Teachers Unified to End Gun Violence. It was
co-founded very shortly after the shooting at Oxford High School, co-founded by me and Abby
Clements, who I mentioned earlier, and Sari Beth Rosenberg, who is a teacher in New York City. And
while Sari thankfully is not a gun violence or school shooting survivor, both Abby and I are.
And from this little group chat where we were just fed up with everything and so incensed after the
Oxford High School shooting, it has grown into a network of over 15,000 advocates and activists,
and we have ambassadors. It's really just something to give that teacher voice, because
in all of the conversations about gun violence and school shootings, there was never a teacher voice,
regardless of whether it's a school shooting or community gun violence, domestic violence, any kind
of anything, the kids are bringing this baggage in with them. And we as the teachers are going
through the trauma in a tangential way with these kids, because we listen to the stories, we wipe
their tears, we give them hugs. They sit with us at lunch when they don't feel comfortable sitting
in the cafeteria. We are with them oftentimes more hours a day than their own parents. And no one
looked for that teacher voice. And with all of the other outstanding gun violence organizations,
there was nothing for teachers. And I'm so incredibly proud of the work that we've done
and the podcast that I mentioned earlier that I host is the Teachers Unified podcast. And
it's fun tonight being on this end of the mic. I'm usually, I'm the one asking the questions,
but I enjoy it because I get to talk about something about which I'm passionate and use
my journalism skills. And it incorporates all of the things that mean a lot to me.
And I get to work alongside Abby and Sari, who are just two outstanding women. We're out here
doing all the heavy lifting. So it's nice to have such a network of both current and former
educators and allies who see the value in what we're doing and support us.
I believe that Sarah presents a very important point that educators need to step back in to
acknowledge that we are the ones doing a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to being on the
front lines of students' emotions in our classrooms. And it makes me question who's checking in on us.
And I wanted to take a moment as we come to our conclusion here to really acknowledge and celebrate
the work that Sarah has done in enabling teachers to get the check-ins that they deserve. Because
remember, the more we support one another, the more we will be able to succeed in humanizing
education. Thank you for joining us on the Classroom Narratives Healing and Education podcast.
If today's episode inspired you or made you think differently, I'd love to hear from you.
Drop a comment or review wherever you listen to podcasts and stay connected with us on the
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our scars into stars in education, one conversation at a time.