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Now, the three kids are hand in hand, looking up at the adults. They guide him to his siblings, take their hands, and join them. The older kid spots his brother on the other side of the street and yells, that's my brother! Here's my brother, the one in blue! That's my brother! He can't get to him. They're looking around for their mom and their brother. They've just come out from under the rubble, and they're covered in dust and blood. That's all he could do for her.Ī video from Gaza shows two kids, siblings, holding hands in the street right after an Israeli airstrike. Her dad told her and her sister, stay silent.Īnd he kept telling her that for 10 hours. Children facing that fact, not as part of a slow understanding of adult fallibility as they age and develop, but as a sudden reckoning- a 3-and-1/2-year-old in Israel whose parents rushed her into a safe room and kept telling her to stay quiet, because Hamas was shooting right outside. We are all witnessing children who are directly facing the fact that the adults around them cannot protect them. I've been thinking, watching the news from Gaza and Israel this week, and the week before that, and the weeks before those, about how many children are experiencing the most terrifying version of this- the most brutal version of adults not having a handle on things. And Adele watched her professor, someone who probably didn't grow up having lockdown drills like she had.Īdults who fail to protect children- there's the abstract fear that adults can't protect you, and there's watching it happen right in front of you. A 20-year-old college student named Adele Morris told us that two weeks after a gunman shot and killed a teacher at her school, the University of North Carolina, they had another lockdown- someone armed on campus. And in those stories, what stood out to people was the way adults fumbled. We heard several stories about experiencing real school shootings and lockdowns. But the kind of experience we heard the most was like Madison had- the realization that adults might not be looking out for you, might not protect you. People talked about moments when they saw adults lie, make mistakes, be reckless, cry in front of them.Ī woman who brought her friends from college back to the farm where she grew up to meet her parents and her dad started acting really distant. In preparing today's episode, we asked a bunch of people when they had this kind of realization that adults are flawed. She got into that special high school program. This whole mess didn't derail Madison the way she feared. And in those decision-making efforts, I have always done my best to treat others with kindness, with dignity, and to follow the district guidelines.' She also wrote, quote, 'All I can say is that every day administrators are faced with making harder and harder decisions. But in an email, she said her decision to leave was voluntary. She didn't respond to request to be interviewed for this story. Deister went on administrative leave and eventually resigned. Shortly after I wrote about Madison's story for the Dallas Morning News, the district launched an investigation into the way she was punished. After about three weeks of being away, Madison was cleared to go back to school.

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When educators outside the school looked at the situation, they saw Madison the way she saw herself- as a kid who never meant to cause a disruption, a kid who maybe just needed a refresher on how to best go about reporting suspicious activity. And she told me, at first, she didn't let herself consider that a punishment this severe had anything to do with the fact that Madison, like her, is Black. But 73 days? Lisa was also racking her brain for an explanation. So maybe Madison's middle school felt like they had to take a tough stance on kids who were involved in any way in a threat that doesn't materialize. And threats that turn out to be fake- those still scare kids and parents. Some are hoaxes, but a hoax can still disrupt school. It is true that schools across the US are dealing with a big increase in shooting threats. I couldn't make sense of why Madison's middle school was throwing the book at her. Making a, quote, 'terroristic threat' would get you 30 days. In another big Texas district, fighting another student could get you up to 45 days in DAEP on your third offense. When Lisa first told me about her daughter's punishment, I think I gasped a half-dozen times. And so for waiting all day, then texting her friends about 30 minutes before telling her mom, they were giving Madison 73 school days in DAEP- kicking her out of her middle school.

This american life