Parents have been spurred to discuss proper gun safety with their children after the Feb. 14, shooting in Florida claimed the lives of 17 people.
Tanai Benard, an educator from Texas approached her fifth-grade son, Dez, to find out what he knew about school shooting drills.
His first response surprised her after he told her his classmates had already practiced school shooting drills. He even went into specific details about how they made the classroom safe during a shooting.
“Yes, we practiced it,” Dez told Benard. “The teacher is supposed to shut and lock the door, put the black paper over the window on the door. Then myself and three other boys are supposed to push the table against the door.”
Benard first could not believe why her son, one of only two black children in his class, was being put in such danger. But before jumping to conclusions she asked Dez why he was put in such a situation.
“I internally went from 0 to 100 real quick,” she wrote. “Why did you get picked to stand in front of everyone else if a shooter came in your school?”
His answer shocked her.
“I didn’t get picked. I volunteered to push the table and protect my friends.”
When the concerned mother pressed him about why he volunteered, his response was even more heartbreaking.
“If it came down to it, I would rather be the one that died protecting my friends then have an entire class die and I be the only one that lived,” Dez said.
The mother said the discussion “took everything out of me, not to breakdown.”
“I still have a lump in my throat,” she wrote.
