Survivor Stories: Hope Nuzback
Welcome to the Teachers Unified podcast. I'm Sarah Lerner. This episode features Hope Newsback, a gun violence survivor who created the first chapter of future teachers unified to end gun violence at Penn State. She talks about her experience with gun violence, the work she's done with Future Teachers Unified, and things teachers can do to make change. So I would like to welcome Hope Neusbach, who is a recent graduate from Penn State University, a founder of Future Teachers Unified to End Gun Violence, and a future teacher.
Speaker 1:So thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Before we get into all of the work you've done creating and with Future Teachers Unify, which is super dope, by the way, I wanna find out what your experience with or connection to gun violence is.
Speaker 2:On 12/03/2021, I survived a shooting, and that was probably the way I've been most directly impacted. Later that month was next door to a shooting, which also affected me even though I wasn't as directly impacted. Aside from those experiences, even in my pre service teaching experiences, I've had several students who have been impacted by gun violence already.
Speaker 1:How have you kind of dealt with all of that and, like, cared for your yourself and your mental health?
Speaker 2:Therapy is something that has helped me a lot, but I think the way navigating that looks for me changes from moment to moment. There are some days where I can or some moments where I can kind of face what I'm feeling head on and journal about my experience and talk to others about my experience. And then there are some days where I need to give myself a little more space from that to feel okay, I guess you could say. But I think one thing that has helped me pretty consistently has been advocacy because it allows me to kind of take what happened and then create something positive from it, which feels very healing and meaningful to me.
Speaker 1:I don't want to pry, and I don't wanna make you talk about things that you're not comfortable talking about. But the the gun violence that you survived, was that at school? Was that, like, in a community?
Speaker 2:So I was actually out of town. I was struggling with an eating disorder at the time, so I was in treatment away from my family and out of state and all that. And at that time, I had just stepped down to, like, a partial hospitalization program. So I was able to live in an apartment, but I had to walk back and forth to the treatment center every day. And when I was walking home that day, there was a shooting.
Speaker 1:Wow. I'm sorry that you had to go through that. And I, you know, I appreciate you being brave and talking about it. And, also, unrelated to that situation, you know, getting the help you need for your eating disorder. I have had friends and students who struggled with that over the years, and that that takes a lot of guts in and of itself.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Okay. So you are in the education program at Penn State. How does Future Teachers Unify come to be?
Speaker 2:So Penn State also has a minor called social justice and education. And so I added that minor on. And during my coursework early on in the minor, I was doing a project on gun violence, and it was a group project. And for that project, we had to reach out to a stakeholder in the topic. And so my mom had taught me about teachers unify because my mom's a teacher.
Speaker 2:And so we reached out, and we met with Abby Clements, and things kinda just went from there.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. How many of you are there, like, in the chapter?
Speaker 2:So last year, had four officers, including myself. But being that it was a new organization for Penn State, and it's a school where there's, like, hundreds of clubs, I would say we had about 30, which I was really happy with for our first year.
Speaker 1:Would you say that those who were actively involved or even just involved, like, on the periphery, are they gun violence survivors, or are they just looking to be advocates for change?
Speaker 2:From my understanding, it was kind of a mix, which was really cool because we got different perspectives.
Speaker 1:Through your experience, through Future Teachers Unify, how have you as a collective worked to bring this issue of gun violence into the conversation at Penn State?
Speaker 2:I think we've done that through different events and and workshops and also how we've organized the program. So each month, we try to do a workshop related to one part of our mission statement and then also give out a resource related to that workshop. And then in addition to that, we've tried to hold discussion groups and promote a self care event each month. So I think through those resources, we've tried to make it more accessible and bring it into the events that were already happening, but also create our own.
Speaker 1:Did you partner with, like, neighboring schools and teachers in the community outside of the university?
Speaker 2:Most of what we ended up doing used mostly resources on campus. So we've reached out to other organizations on campus or other professors or other teachers. But I I would definitely would have liked to reach out to other campuses. Just didn't happen that way, I guess, last year.
Speaker 1:That's okay. I just didn't know, like, the scope of what you all were able to accomplish because I know it's a new branch of teachers unify. As someone who didn't go to college to be a teacher, I majored in English, and I really thought I was gonna go live in New York City and be Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City, and that clearly didn't happen. Having not experienced gun violence while I was in college or really up until the shooting at my school, having an organization like this definitely would have been something that I would have gotten involved with in college. So I'm glad that you have a mix of people who both are and aren't, you know, majoring in education because that speaks volumes to how large of an issue this actually is.
Speaker 1:Kinda piggybacking on that, how do you and your friends process this pervasiveness of gun violence? I know that's a big question.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's such a good question because I think it's something that I don't really have an answer to, and I don't know if really anyone does because it's so hard to kind of wrap your head around because of how complex the issue is. I think the amount of preparation that went into, like, each month of programming taught me a lot about the issue, and it kind of helped me understand why it persists in our country. And that sort of gave me almost like a guide of how I can make a difference, and that helped me.
Speaker 1:It always strikes me that you and all of your peers across the country, including my own children, you are all a generation who only know life with gun violence and school shootings. Like, clearly, violence has been an issue for generations, but, you know, you were all born after Columbine. And lockdown drills, active shooter drills, this is what you all know. And while I don't think this is what you all chat about when you're at the bar or, you know, getting coffee, I imagine at some level though, it is a conversation that is had. And clearly, you are in a unique position.
Speaker 1:I am in a unique position, but these are conversations that I have with my children. My son is starting college in August. My daughter is going to be a sophomore. I worry for them and their safety as a parent, but as a gun violence survivor and a school shooting survivor, I I think about their safety at a deeper, different level. I don't know that these are conversations that they have with their friends, but, I mean, clearly, this is something that impacts all of you.
Speaker 1:As someone who is still quite young and is getting into education, how do you see educators and young people collaborating on this issue of gun violence?
Speaker 2:Well, I think, like you said, it it's something that affects everybody, whether they've been directly or indirectly impacted. I hesitate to say benefit, but I
Speaker 1:think you
Speaker 2:know what I mean. The benefit of that is that everyone has a voice in this and a perspective that's important to consider when figuring out how to make change and also maintain safety and set up both proactive and reactive solutions in our school community.
Speaker 1:It's always hard when you are talking about anything related to gun violence and you look for, like, the bright side or a positive that has come out of it because it always sounds so ridiculous to say because how can anything positive come out of something so terrible? But it does, and it can because the tragedy is the catalyst for the change. You mentioned using voices and that, you know, we have a voice in all of this. What can all of us do in education to use our voices in times of tragedy, like a school shooting or any type of community gun violence?
Speaker 2:I think it's important to remember because I get so overwhelmed when it comes to, like, a question like that, especially when there's a student in front of me that has experienced gun violence and they're talking to me about it. And I get so nervous because I don't wanna say some like, I don't wanna say something upsetting. You know? And I wanna be a source of support for them. So I think for me, it's, like, important to remember that there's no one right answer of how you can offer support.
Speaker 2:But something that has helped me is that in future teachers unify, since part of our mission statement is about reactive solutions, a lot of the resources that we found were from, like, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. They have, like, guides and resources about how to offer support in the aftermath of a tragedy, which I found really helpful because, obviously, like, they were written by professionals and, people who know a lot more about that than I do. So I think accessing those resources have been really helpful for me.
Speaker 1:There were so many resources made available after the shooting at my school, but I think when there's, like, mass gun violence or a mass shooting of any kind, while it's well intentioned, I kinda feel like they, the big they, just, like, throw a million resources at the problem and kinda see what sticks. But sometimes the resources aren't what you need as an individual or what the larger community needs. And I think, you know, again, from my perspective, I think it's important while these are well intentioned to speak up and say, you know, this is great. Thanks. But we really need this, this, or this.
Speaker 1:Or, you know, having a million clinicians on our school campus is great, but perhaps we need people who are trauma trained, or perhaps we need to not hold these mass individual therapy sessions in the school's media center where there's no privacy. So I I think something like that, regardless of where and how and when and why the the gun violence happens, I think part of what people can do is to just speak up and not in an ungrateful, these resources are terrible way, but, you know, this is really what we need. And the nice thing about the resources that you have found and being a part of this shitty gun violence survivors club is you kind of can see what has worked for others because when you're right in it, and I'm sure you know this from your experience, you don't know what you need, and you don't know what will be helpful and what won't. So you kinda do and try everything until you find what actually works. And having the resources and the network of survivors who've come before is is incredibly helpful.
Speaker 1:Like, I know you mentioned that your mom connected you with Abby. Well, Abby was a huge resource for me. And in looking at her experience, while hers was an elementary school and mine was a high school, our general experience and, like, the after time was really identical. I leaned on her a lot initially. I mean, I still do.
Speaker 1:I was texting her before we started recording, but I leaned on her a lot initially just to kind of see what the weeks and months and, like, first years would look like because I had never experienced anything like this before as most people don't. Our connection and then link with Sari Beth is how Teachers Unify came to be. I like that among all of the resources that you looked into for your chapter, Future Teachers Unify, you found things that were tailored to and specific for younger people and students because that will benefit you not only for yourself, but, unfortunately, in helping you work with students who, depending on where you teach, very well may experience gun violence of some sort in their daily lives, which is very, very heavy and breaks my heart for those kids and those educators who have to do that on a daily basis. When you were in elementary, middle, high school, did you do lockdown drills and, like, active shooter drills?
Speaker 2:Yes. They happened really often. I think it just kind of felt normal as, like, weird as that is to say. It shouldn't really feel normal. But, I mean, they've even kind of changed almost throughout.
Speaker 2:Well, like, yes, we had lockdown drills. They it it was weird because our teachers would be like, this is what we're supposed to do during the lockdown drill, and we're gonna practice this now. But if this was an actual situation, here's what we're gonna do. It almost made it feel like a matter of when, not if, which now that I've been directly affected by gun violence and have experienced that, it's almost, like, hard to wrap my head around because my whole life I've been expecting it to happen, so, like, I'm not even surprised that it happened. And I and I still feel like I'm in the mindset of, like, when is it going to happen?
Speaker 2:Like but lockdown drills were sometimes frightening because they were not really a drill, but they were called a drill. And then there were other moments where, like, the fire alarm would go off, and we would all just sit there and wait. Because instead of just leaving for a fire drill, our teacher had to get cleared to say that it was actually a fire drill and not something else. So sorry. I feel like that didn't really answer your question.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:That makes perfect sense because the day that the shooting happened at my school, we had a fire drill in the morning. And then because of the shooting itself, the fire alarm went off in that building, which set it off everywhere, and we all left. That's how this happened. Since then, I don't move unless I am told to evacuate. Like, the fire alarm goes off.
Speaker 1:The kids look at me, and I'm like, don't even think about it. Unless it's an actual fire drill or a real fire, which I don't think schools have actually had fire since, like, nineteen fifty something. You know, unless it's a real fire or a drill, like, don't even think about moving. And I can only speak for myself, and, you know, I know what we do at my school. When we have these lockdown drills, which we have monthly, which is, you know, not at all triggering, and I I hope my sarcasm is coming across, I tell the kids, like, this is exactly what we are going to do.
Speaker 1:And on the first day of school, when I give my syllabus and my whole shtick, I tell them I was there, and you are going to listen to everything I tell you to do and just do it without question because I need to keep you safe, and I need to go home to my family. And that's it. And I am barely five feet tall, and I teach seniors, and these big, bulky, you know, six foot plus kids just do what I tell them to do because that's the way it is. You have experienced these drills as a student. Knowing that you are going into the profession and you will be the adult in the classroom.
Speaker 1:There has been this ongoing suggestion, definitely since the shooting at my school, I'm sure it was before, about arming teachers and that that will be helpful in a shooting situation. What do you think about this concept of arming teachers?
Speaker 2:The research that I've read on it and, obviously, like, I haven't read all of the research in the world, but I haven't found any research that suggested that it's a good idea for so many reasons, which I personally agree with because if I'm in charge of I mean, I'm an elementary major, so I like, I student taught in second grade, and I'm thinking about having a class of twenty two second graders and then also trying to keep them safe in a shooter situation and then handle a weapon myself, like, that's gonna be much more dangerous than what it would have been if I was just focused on keeping them safe, in my opinion. I feel like that argument of arming teachers is suggested for a reason that doesn't benefit student safety or teachers.
Speaker 1:You put that so much more eloquently than I would have said because I think the whole idea of arming teachers is dumb. And that has been my response from the jump. How do you think or how would you like to see teachers more involved in this issue of arming teachers? Like, what can we do, we as educators, when this issue is brought up almost constantly? Like, when the news cycle shows another shooting and there are people who believe that arming teachers is the right way to do it, what can we as a profession do to kind of combat that noise?
Speaker 2:This question came to mind for me during my time in my social justice minor because there were courses where this question came up and there were mixed answers from people in my class. And so I thought about ways to kind of address this and inform people. So we made a panel discussion, which we had in November, and we had four amazing panelists. We had Abby Clements, Azaria Cunningham, who's also an educator, chief Dan Swazarney, who is a chief of Glee's, and Krista Piginelli, and she's a counselor in a school that also had a shooting. And we asked a lot of those questions.
Speaker 2:We asked questions like, do guns make us safer? What do you think about teachers being armed? What can teachers do? Who can impact this movement? And just a lot of questions that I think gave people more information about gun violence.
Speaker 2:And also, in addition to that, we were sharing resources on research that addresses those questions and also gives more advocacy resources. So, like, things they can do. Like, they can have these conversations like we were doing at that moment with each other that brings in multiple perspectives. And then also, you can vote or you can write your, you know, lawmakers or things like that. So I think there's lots of things we can do.
Speaker 2:It's just, I guess, finding what works for you and taking advantage of the resources around you.
Speaker 1:The fact that we are in an election year and without getting super political, If the simplest thing is to contact your lawmakers and let them know how ridiculous you believe this issue is, if that's how you feel, then do that. Like, you don't have to take on the whole world. Mhmm. Do what fits for you. And if everybody does that, then we, as educators, would make enough noise to let people know that this is not a helpful solution.
Speaker 1:Adding more guns to a school campus is not the way to go. And research supporting it or not, I don't think any of us I could be wrong, but I don't think any of us want to go to school, go to work armed. And I have said this for over six years now. I did not go to college to become a police officer, and I did not go to college to become a security guard or a bouncer. I went to college well, I didn't go to college to become a teacher either, but twenty two years later, I'm a teacher, and carrying a weapon, owning a weapon has never been on my teacher bingo card.
Speaker 1:And with the eight to ten years I have left until I can retire, it is still not on that bingo card. So as a recent graduate and future second grade teacher, what is now the future of future teachers unify at Penn State?
Speaker 2:That's something we're still trying to figure out, if I'm being honest. Just because it was such a new organization, we're kind of deciding where we wanna go from there and still analyzing how the last year went. But I hope it continues because whether or not it's similar or different than the past year, I think it'll continue the conversation and continue this space where you can learn and process and talk about gun violence in school and how teachers can make a difference.
Speaker 1:So if someone listening is in college or the parents of someone in college or works at a college, how would you suggest they start a chapter if they want to, which I hope every university eventually has a chapter? Where should they start? What should they do?
Speaker 2:Well, I think at Penn State, it really just started with a conversation between me and my peers of what we've experienced and how that makes us feel, and then it kind of evolved into what can we do about it with our career. And it just went from there. So I think it it's really just finding a group of people who share that passion and that want to create something more positive from it.
Speaker 1:I hope that this chapter, like I said, is the first of many, but I'm sorry that you all have this collective pain. But, you know, you've turned pain into purpose. Even if nothing else comes from it, you have provided yourself with a slew of resources that you will be able to hopefully never use, but you'll be able to use in your career, and these are things that you may not have researched or found otherwise. Hopefully, working with the organization and and all of that and through those resources, you have found a path through your own healing. Because I know, for me, sharing my story, talking about what we experienced, keeping my school in the conversation, working with teachers unify, even hosting the podcast, all of that has continued to help me over six years later.
Speaker 1:And while there are people who experience gun violence at any level who don't wanna talk about it and kinda shove it all the way down inside, I have found it to be incredibly helpful and cathartic, and I've kind of to quote my own children, like, I've kinda made it my whole personality to talk about these things. But it's important, And it's a part of who I am, and I can't separate myself from it. I'm glad that you have found a way to turn your experience and your pain into a purpose, and it gives me hope as someone who's on the downward slope of the education profession to see young educators come in who have a passion not only for education, but for kids and keeping kids safe and making sure that they feel seen and validated in their classroom. Thank you for listening. Don't forget to follow teachers unified to end gun violence on Instagram and threads at teachers unify, and follow the podcast on both platforms at teachers unify p c.