A note from NCGE President Gary Gress: Within the past two months, America has witnessed Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma and disastrous fires in California. Clean up, repair, and some sense of normalcy will take months and years as thousands recover. Many of our family, friends, and acquaintances were, and are impacted directly and indirectly as all of us are. The calamities of any disaster require a process of repair for people too. In the following article, Ron Hagelman addresses America’s responders, the “second responders”. I want to thank Ron for being so gracious in volunteering to write this timely and insightful guest column. -Gary
TEACHERS: AMERICA'S SECOND RESPONDERS by Ron Hagelman
When the line forms to witness on behalf of our country’s First Responders, I would like to be near the front. The law officers, firefighters, emergency medical personnel, engineers and community leaders who arrive first when disaster strikes deserve our respect, appreciation, and support. I am consistently humbled and inspired by the risks they take and the sacrifices they and their families make on our collective behalf. However, I also believe that as the shock and awe of a disaster fades, we easily forget that there is an equal army of teachers, counselors, church leaders, parents, and community leaders who, as the dust settles and the ground dries, march onto evolving disasterscapes with a commitment to helping their communities heal, recover, and thrive once again. I write today on their behalf, especially the public school teachers and the staff members who are tending to the many communities damaged, physically and psychologically, by the recent spate of natural and social disasters. I write to say thank you and to enumerate what I believe is the hidden work of our nation’s Second Responders.
There is a vein of research imbedded in hazards studies relating to the temporal aspects of disasters. Disasters, of nearly all types, tend to follow a somewhat predictable sequence of events starting with emergency response and stretching toward the elusive idea of a “return to normal.” Most news coverage, social media posts, and public discourse on disasters fades precipitously following the initial event and the immediate relief efforts. During recovery and reconstruction, our short attention-spans drift to the next actual disaster or the next disastrous tweet. For some, it is almost an instinctual drive to try to put things back together as quickly as possible. For others, it is an absolute necessity that they return to their homes, jobs, and schools quickly. However, when we do return to our usual routines, we do so having experienced a terrible shock and, for some, unthinkable losses. Support comes from friends, family members, churches, charitable organizations, employers, workplace colleagues, and government staff. But, for many school-aged children and their parents, a return to the safe and familiar routine of the school day is one of the greatest services we provide in post-disaster settings.
Schools are familiar and, with rare exception, safe places. Parents benefit by knowing that while they are battling the lingering effects of the disaster, their children are in a safe place cared for by trained professionals who know their child. In turn, children benefit from being in a familiar place with friends, engaged in familiar activities, and supervised by familiar people in charge of their day. The therapeutic values of this return to the known and the predicable are only achievable if teachers and support staff, who may be victims of the disaster themselves, put on a happy face and lead their diminutive followers through the day’s lessons and activities as if business were usual in their community. Teachers are often the first to see the effects of post-traumatic stress on their students. Teachers are often the first person of authority to really try to explain the trends and forces that led to the disaster. School counselors are often the first to see changes in behavior or needs that are derivative of the child’s experiences in the disaster. School kitchen staff may be among the first to serve students a balanced, hot meal in the immediate days and weeks after a disaster. And administrators find themselves involved in helping students’ families to access services and support well beyond their normal range of duties. Food, shelter, comfort, support, a loving hug…Second Responders do it all, and they do it for weeks and months after the news cameras have left town.
In our rush to return to normal, we often off-load the responsibility of comforting and counseling our youngest citizens to teachers, staff, counselors, and administrators who were already under siege from legislatures, school boards and concerned parents before the disaster added to their responsibilities. Time and time again and across communities of all shapes and sizes, teachers and school staff step up. They address the immediate and lingering challenges of their students, and they serve their communities. Teachers and school staff take the handoff from our First Responders and provide the warmth, clarity, leadership, and strength that is so important to young people when their worlds are damaged and disrupted in ways that they never imagined possible. Teachers are our nation’s uncelebrated Second Responders, and for anyone who would like to join me in thanking them, the line forms here…
About the Author: Ronald R. Hagelman, III is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas 78666. E-mail: rhagelman@txstate.edu. Dr. Hagelman's research interests include environmental hazards, disaster recovery and reconstruction, and the management of urban environments in a changing climate.
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