on a day, at least, when an image of a flower, designed to show peace and solace, captured, inadvertently, the sense of a day part in focus, part not. That is - the overnight shock of the Vegas shooting was overlayed by our campus being under lock-down, after the rumor of an active shooter - with helicopters buzzing overhead, with police sirens and megaphones, with classes disrupted as a result. And around then the reasons for not coming to today's graduate class started to arrive by email - leaving an empty seat as a protest against the country's gun laws; feeling scared and nauseated; feeling unwell ... I fail to see how an empty seat protest in a grad class on form, formalism and style is going to effect a great deal of political change, unless one uses the occasion as one on which to launch a discussion with the whole class. But then there was the email from another student explaining that any discussion might produce a trigger response from them, so ... so, this was all negotiated by me, but not in the way that I'd have proceeded if there wasn't the trigger problem (an unfortunate word, anyway, given the circumstances). There's stuff that years of teaching prepares you for, and stuff that you just have to hope that years of living does ...
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