r/Professors • u/MagosBattlebear • 1d ago
First week fear...
Tommorow is my first day for teaching my first ENG 101class. And, like all my time here during week one I wonder if I might die there in a mass shooting.
It didn't used to be like this.
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u/leastdumbidiot 1d ago edited 1d ago
More likely you'll be killed driving there if you commute by car. On the teaching, it takes a while to get the hang of it, but your first semester you're learning how everything works. My first department chair told me, if you know by the end of the semester how to teach the class, that's a success. Then it gets better. A real joy once you see people start to "get it." In the meantime be open and adaptable.
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u/MagosBattlebear 1d ago
I'm not worried about the instructing. My uni has a tight, hands-on support team. One is teaching in the room next to me at the same time. If I freak out, I can run, and they can combine classes.
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u/CriticalBrick4 Prof, History, R1 (USA) 1d ago
It's terrible that we think about this. Terrible that we need to. I wish you ease this week!
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u/MoistenedGranola 1d ago
I could also die in a car wreck on the commute to campus, crushed by a vending machine if I want a nice little soda, or of an aneurysm at any time randomly.
It sucks to add anything to that list, nonetheless something so preventable and needlessly violent. I worried about this the most the semester I returned to teaching in person after COVID, when tensions were high and divided about being in a classroom. This also happened to be at a new uni, as I was starting my PhD program there.
Nowadays, I think about it from time to time, but much less. I think it helps to remember that it's out of my control. The only thing I can do about it is to foster a welcoming, safe classroom for my students who someone—including me—would hopefully check in on long before they get to the point of actually doing anything about it.
The consequences of that happening are terrible and high, but the chances are very low, even in the "greatest country on Earth" where we can't get people to stop fucking shooting each other for no reason. If your worry feels disproportionate to that, I encourage you to talk to someone about it, even if it's someone who's been teaching in the department for a long time and can give you there perspective as someone who's been fine so far. Or a therapist. No judgement. I do recommend out of personal experience that this not be someone who researches anything related to mass shootings, though.
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u/MagosBattlebear 1d ago
Vending machines on campus are always breaking down, and people try to shake them. Peeps have died doing that. Not at my uni, but, you know, told tales around a coffee pot in the office.
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u/melissaphobia 1d ago
It’s unfortunate that Americans have to worry so much about this. But I think the math still checks out that like driving is way more dangerous than teaching in terms of deaths per hours of occurrence. Iirc, you’re more likely to get struck by lightning in any given year than get caught in a school shooting. I’m not saying it’s not a tragedy that it happens, but that is really unlikely to happen in the grand scheme of things.
Fear isn’t rational, but it approaching it rationally can help. I get a bit nervous when flying, but I keep saying to myself “I survived the cab ride to the airport and that was the dangerous part of the trip” and it helps calm me a bit.
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u/bassoonplayer4 10h ago edited 10h ago
That was not a fear I had - I just retired from a school that was in downtown part of a city named as the rape capital and murder capitol when I went there in the 80s. The area has not gotten better but I don't fear the students/populace like that. I think it is a pretty low on the scale of probable. I mean you can be shot just driving down the highway in the midwestern hellish city I live in. A well known local celebrity guy recently died driving on the highway because a tire bounced off a truck and went through his windshield. In other words - life is dangerous and it worked better for me to be concerned about probable problems rather than low level ones.
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u/ThePhyz Professor, Physics, CC (USA) 5h ago
For a while I had recurring nightmares about this. I finally had a therapist who suggested EMDR for that, and although the technique did not help me with other things it really did help with this particular thing. Also you EMDR does not have to be visual - there is also a device that is tactile instead (this is what ended up working in my case).
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u/zorandzam 1d ago edited 1d ago
Is that your only fear? Is this your first term teaching anything? Have you gotten any preparedness training if something like that happened? Not to minimize your worry, but there are so, so many things that could go wrong that are more realistic. It is a valid fear if you're in the US, but as frightened as I am of that happening, I have been teaching college as a faculty member for 19 years and then spent 2 years as a TA before that, and it's a fear that springs up when there is a shooting, sure, but it does tend to subside. Statistically, it is unlikely.
ETA: I'm not sure why I'm being downvoted for saying things others have said, too. I'm not trying to minimize your fears per se but to contextualize them. Most of us will thankfully never be involved in a mass shooting.
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u/MagosBattlebear 1d ago
I got trying, tools, and a great support struct. That is a tangible fear I can control.
The other..is not.
Fear is not rational.
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u/zorandzam 1d ago
I understand. I think perhaps it's something to discuss with a therapist if it is paralyzing you inn some way, however, or hindering your ability to get through your classes.
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u/MagosBattlebear 1d ago
Since that university, about an hour from me, was attacked, it’s there in me.
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u/PhenomenalOG 1d ago
I'm assuming you are teaching in the US. Lucky for you, you are able to purchase a firearm and defend yourself in the event of a shooting. With your firearm carefully concealed in your briefcase, rather than ruminating about the possibility of being shot, you can daydream about being the hero who saves the day. Enjoy!
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u/iTeachCSCI Ass'o Professor, Computer Science, R1 1d ago
Lucky for you, you are able to purchase a firearm and defend yourself in the event of a shooting.
Even in many red states, civilian firearms are prohibited on school grounds. Furthermore, the amount of training necessary to be effective with one is non-trivial.
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u/zorandzam 1d ago
Not to mention that at a lot of shooter preparedness training, even police officers will warn you that if they come responding to a shooting, they are taking down the person they observe with a gun, so even if you are the "good guy" with a gun, it can be VERY dangerous for you. I remember one training where the officer said that if you manage to get a firearm away from a perp, you need to immediately get it out of your hands and away from everyone. Suggestions included putting it under an overturned trash can or even just kicking it into another room or across the room. But it should NOT be in your hands, because the person with the gun is getting taken down.
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u/MagosBattlebear 1d ago
We don't have any. They do it for themselves (cops and so on) but we have never had a drill at my uni in my three years there. Not even a computer based training, or even a video.
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u/MagosBattlebear 1d ago
Not allowed on campus. Plus, I don’t want one —I guess that doesn’t make me a true UScian.
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u/the_Stick Assoc Prof, Biomedical Sciences 1d ago
Tell yourself that's an unfounded fear; you're far more likely to be shot in a mass shooting on campus at the end of the school year!