This week’s blog is different. It is
written by our 7th grade students (with no editing from me.)
Friends School’s vision is to “make the world better by challenging minds,
nurturing spirits and honoring individuality.” Part of our mission reads: “Our students gain a deep understanding
of themselves and are inspired to act with compassion and integrity.”
When I read our students’
words, I did not hesitate to share them with you, our greater community. I did not read this as a political statement,
nor did I worry that these views may not align with everyone in our
community. I read these words and saw 13
and 14 year olds carrying out our vision and mission. They are making the world
better and they were inspired to act…
Introduction by Charlotte C.
“We Call
BS!” Seventeen kids were killed in the Parkland mass shooting. The seventh grade class has been
studying gun control and the recent school shootings in Florida. We are doing a
lot of work on activism of gun control. We started by watching a speech that
Emma Gonzalez wrote and performed. She is a high schooler at the school in
Parkland, Florida where the shooting occurred. After being inspired by the
amazing speech we went on to write letters to Jared Polis, a Democratic
Colorado Representative. He got our letters and offered to contact us via
Skype. We had a great informative call with him on March 8th.
Emma Gonzalez Speech by
Anastasia H.
“It’s time for victims to be the change we
need to see.” This quote is by Emma Gonzalez, a very powerful senior at
Stoneman Douglas High School. On February 17th, three days after the Florida
shooting, teen Emma Gonzalez gave a twelve-minute speech about gun control
called “We Call BS.” Since we, the 7th graders are focusing on activism in almost
all subjects, we watched Emma’s speech two days after she spoke. We’ve
brainstormed and thought about all sorts of activism. Kevin Nugent, the middle
school homeroom and science teacher in fact said, “We have had a lot of
shootings, and everyone stood back and tolerated it. This could be the breaking
point.” We have all felt this, and this is the main reason we are studying
activism, and participating in it too. See Emma
Gonzalez's speech here.
Letter Writing by Avery L.
The next
step, we realized, was writing letters. We were all so motivated by Emma
Gonzalez’s speech, we decided to write letters to Colorado Representative Jared
Polis, making our voices heard. During homeroom one day, we had a huge brainstorm
about what we would say in our letters, and Kevin wrote all of our ideas on the
whiteboard. We then worked on our letters individually and shared them with
each other when we were finished.
In our letters, we mentioned gun
control and the Second Amendment, saying that we thought the Second Amendment
wasn’t being interpreted correctly or the way it was originally written to be
interpreted. We talked about getting rid of all guns, then more realistically,
only assault rifles. We all agreed this would help solve the problem of the
mass shootings. We think that assault rifles belong in war. We also talked
about Emma Gonzalez’s speech and how we were motivated by her power and
captivation of the crowd. We agreed that what she was saying was and is really
important, and that it shouldn’t be ignored.
Another topic that came up in our
letters was asking Jared Polis what his opinion was on arming teachers. We read
an article in Humanities with Diane Bramble about a teacher protecting his
students with a gun. The article introduced the idea of arming teachers, and we
discussed this amongst ourselves. We all agreed that this idea wasn’t the best
way to handle the mass shootings, which originally gave us the idea of asking
Jared Polis his ideas on this topic. He, like us, didn’t support that idea.
These topics were our main points in
our letters, and we felt a lot less helpless writing them. We can’t wait to see
some change, but change doesn’t happen easily. We will keep fighting and
writing for what we know to be true. If you feel helpless, as we did before we
started writing, there are so many ways for you to make a difference, too. Tori
S. has listed multiple ways for you to help- so read on!
Phone Call with Rep. Jared
Polis (Part 1) by Audrey A.
On Thursday, March 8th.
We, the seventh grade class, had a Skype call with Representative Jared Polis.
During the phone call we got to ask him questions about gun control. Some of
the questions we included in the call were, “What is the next step for making
this stop?” “Can we get other schools involved in helping?” “Do you think the
second amendment is currently being perceived as our founding fathers intended?
How do you think it should be perceived?” Jared Polis answered our questions
shortly but detailed. After the call we talked about what our next step would
be. We decided that we would write to Cory Gardner using the same letters we
sent to Jared Polis.
Phone Call with Rep. Jared Polis (Part 2) by Ali T.
The 7th grade asked questions to Mr. Polis on a Skype call. We asked him questions
related to gun control. Some of the questions that they asked were, “What is
stopping the banning of assault rifles?” and “How do you feel about teachers
being armed in schools?” These are only some of the questions that the 7th
grade came up with to ask him. Jared Polis responded in short but very detailed
answers. Jared Polis’s answers were not what they totally expected because they
went into this thinking that he was against gun control when writing the
letters and before the call, but the 7th grade then found out near the first
question that he is with it and he wants to help. The questions did end up
working anyway.
National School Walkout by
Allison H.
On March 14th, our middle school
participated in a nationwide walkout. The walkout was in honor of the victims
of the recent Florida high school shooting. We stayed outside of the school for
seventeen minutes to pay tribute to the seventeen people who died in the
shooting. This project is student-led and students were the only ones outside
(teachers observed nearby). We have done a lot of brainstorming about posters
and other things we could do or say while outside. We feel this was a very
important thing to participate in because we wanted to make our voices heard
about what has been happening with the mass shootings in our country recently.
We have been talking about gun control a lot lately and we are very excited
that we got to participate in this walkout with many other schools in honor of
the victims of the recent shooting.
What Everyone Can Do to Help
by Tori S.
At this part of this blog you are probably
wondering. How can I help? How can I be an activist? How can I make my voice
heard? Well, we also felt helpless when we first started learning about
mass shootings and gun control, but then we had an idea--How about we write
letters.
I will talk about what sources I used.
I first found this source about mass shootings and when I first read it, I was
shocked about how many there are in the United States. It broke my heart to see
how many people were affected by one shooting and how their community reacted
and it motivated me even more. This source said there were 346 mass shootings.
This is the link if you want to check the website. Mass Shootings in the U.S. in
2017.
How can you help in your our community?
Like us, you can write letters to your own local representative. Here is a link https://leg.colorado.gov/find-my-legislator. You can donate money or your time to organizations helping the
cause. Here is another link that has more information about the organizations
and you can also join organizations to help. How to
Take Action on Gun Control. I hope you
join us to make the world a better place.
Statistics by Jaden S.
There are more guns in the USA than
every other country! There have been a total of 146 school shootings from 2000
to 2018. Seven children and teens (age 19 or
under) are killed with guns in the U.S. on an average day. On a average year there are nearly 13,000 gun homicides a year
in the U.S.! How can we help to fix the overwhelming gun violence in America?
Conclusion by Allison H.
In conclusion, our middle school is doing a
lot to make our voices heard. We are trying to do everything we can to be the
change we want to see. Some next steps for us are writing letters to Cory
Gardner, participating in in the National School Walkout, and we may even write
to the National Rifle Association. We hope you all will try to stand up for
what you believe as well.