17 Minutes

On March 14th, students all over the country walked out of classes for 17 minutes to protest gun violence and honor the seventeen victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School shooting in Parkland, FL. Both of our kids participated.

The demonstration at SWS was fairly muted, as one would expect of an elementary school. Nora and her classmates (those that elected to participate) gathered around the adjoining field and sang songs about peace. But at Stuart-Hobson, some of Owen's classmates organized a "field trip" so that the art, theater and music classes could march to the Capitol and participate in the larger protest. The leaders sold homemade pins and donated the funds to Sandy Hook Promise. They even contacted the media and were interviewed in the Washington Post.

Owen was in first grade when Sandy Hook happened, and so the bulk of his education has involved lock-down drills (although SWS doesn't actually have locks for all their classroom doors so they mostly have "pray nothing bad happens" drills). It's really affected him, and I think marching to the Capitol with his friends and seeing all the other students arguing for action, made him feel like maybe school doesn't have to be like this.

In fact he was so moved by it, that at Meeting on Sunday, Owen stood up and spoke about the march. He told about his favorite chant, "No Hate; No Fear. Guns are not welcome here!" and how he thought we needed to restrict guns to just our military and that even the police only need something strong enough to "knock you unconscious so they can take you to prison" (he and Nora are still working out the details on that proposal).

I'll be honest, I've always felt a bit helpless with gun violence in general and school violence in particular. But it's hard to stand idly by when your 11 year old and others like him are leading the charge. So hopefully, this time we can all work together and make the world a safer, better place.



(To see all the pictures, click here.)