Schoolchildren as Endangered Species
“Whatever you do,” one of the middle school teachers warned me, “don’t ask the kids to be quiet or to write. They just can’t. They’re too stressed out to ever be still.”
I was teaching kids natural history at Asa Mercer Middle School as part of the Seattle Arts and Lectures Writers-in-the-School program. I was there to talk about orca whales and read stories from my Northwest essay book, Singing to the Sound.
One hundred middle school children lined up in front of metal detectors with their Star Wars and Barbie backpacks. Then I glanced up at the surveillance cameras and yellow signs with “NO WEAPONS” and a symbol of a gun crossed out.
A sea of young faces — every color — was restless as I stood before them. It did not seem like the usual agitation and excitement of school assembly. It was, as the teacher warned me, visible stress.
This was several years after the horrific Columbine high school mass shooting that shocked the world. But before the onslaught of mass shooters targeting schools, killing students — from elementary school children in Newtown, Connecticut and Uvalde, Texas to this most recent Tennessee shooting of three schoolchildren and three adults at a private Christian elementary school.
In the crowded school library, I turned up the volume of a CD, “Playing Music with Animals,” recorded by my friend, the naturalist and musician Jim Nollman. Eerie, otherworldly, mesmerizing, soothing animal songs. I also showed joyful videos of orcas full-body breaching in the waves. The kids calmed down somewhat.
“Close your eyes,” I suggested. Not one eye closed. Giggles, glances, nervous.
“All of you,” I asked again. A few of the girls in the front row squeezed their eyes tightly shut, peeking often.
A surge of resistance came across the other faces. Then I recognized, it was not disobedience. It was vigilance. These children were frightened, too scared of one another and perhaps even themselves — to ever let down their guard. Closing their eyes might mean they got hurt. Here were children at risk whose attendance at school was an act of courage. Anything could happen. This was a dangerous territory where a grudge or stranger’s mania might be settled with a gun.
I was here to talk about an endangered species, and I found my heart breaking for my own. “You know what it is, don’t you, kids . . . to be an endangered species?”
“Yeah,” a boy shot back.
“But like animals,” I said, “you also know how to listen and survive — together.”
I was here to talk about endangered species, and found my heart breaking for my own.
At last, all the eyes closed — a moment of quiet that was as close as we could come to calm. They listened, rocking back and forth like little waves in one small, multi-colored ocean. “Will you tell me your story?” I asked. “Or you can write a letter to welcome the new orca calf just born.”
Instantly, heads bent over their notebooks, as the children wrote in their jumbo-lined notebooks. They scribbled and squinted, writing as if they did not see the surveillance cameras or “NO WEAPONS” signs. They wrote as if they were safe in their own school. They wrote as if they were part of a larger pod. They wrote as if their lives depended upon it.
Dear Whale, I know you have a tough road in front of you, or you might not even survive, and it’s mostly our fault. I hope you will live long enough to sing to us. Sincerely, A. Tram
In the wake of yet another mass shooting of schoolchildren in Tennessee, this kid’s letter is both haunting and a truth as stark as the statistics: There have been more mass shootings (129) than days so far this year. Guns are now the leading cause of death among children and adolescents in the U.S., outpacing car accidents. Since that first 1999 Columbine shooting, 560 schoolchildren, educators, and school staff have been killed or injured in this country’s mass shootings. Between 2009 and 2022, there have been 1,710 people shot and killed in mass shootings.
Like another endangered species, our schoolkids have a tough road in front of them — some of the children we send off to school may not come home. It’s mostly our fault. Some kids will not live long enough to sing their songs or ever tell their stories.
“In the U.S., kids are more likely to die from gun violence than in other wealthy countries,” says NPR. “The U.S. accounts for the vast majority of firearm deaths among children . . . almost 97% of firearm deaths among children 4 years old or younger, and 92% of firearm deaths for those between the ages of 5 and 14.”
Since 1999, 311,000 children have been exposed to gun violence. These stats can blur into a kind of numb helplessness as we reckon with the 400 million guns already owned by Americans. This most damning statistic shows: Americans love our guns more than our children.
It is not books or history or science that is the biggest threat to our schoolchildren—it is guns.
The visceral and tragic link between endangered species and our endangered children that I first felt in Asa Mercer Middle School is so much more terrifying today. Along with these sobering realities of how endangered our own, and other animal generations are, is the rigorous hope that we can keep educating, empathizing, and connecting to one another and the animals who share our world.
Just as essential as learning survival skills from other species, as saving other animals and our children, is envisioning a healed world for them. It will take all our imagination and insights and inventions to reckon with our own violent nature and counterbalance it with our compassionate humanity. It is not books or history or science that is the biggest threat to our schoolchildren, it is guns.
Despair is easy; hope is hard. So, it is now to these, our beloved next generations, I turn when we adults fail to see our way — and their future. Children, show us the way. Remind us of our responsibilities to you and the other endangered species. Rise up, grow up, all the school children who risk their lives every day by returning to their small, but sturdy desks. Be brave and survive our own species.
Rise and break through. Breach!
Brenda Peterson is the author of over 20 books of natural history, memoir, and fiction, including the recent kid’s book, Wild Orca, and the illustrated book, Crane Maiden. Her memoir, I Want to Be Left Behind, was chosen as a “Best Non-Ficdtion Book of the Year,” by the Christian Science Monitor; and her novel, Duck and Cover, was a New York Times, “Best Book of the Year.” Her new novel, Stiletto, a mystery, is due out June 1st.
