Experienced teachers always say, “expect the unexpected”, but who could ever expect to be teaching while there is a shootout outside the classroom. Mexican kindergarten teacher Martha Rivera Alanis, shows us what a fabulous teacher can achieve in the worst of circumstances. As a shootout takes place outside her window she calmly reassures her young students before engaging them in a sing-a-long.
In the video, the frightened but determined voice of a schoolteacher is heard as she attempts to maintain calm among a group of kindergartners lying on the floor before her, asking them to join her in a singalong as gunfire shatters the air outside.
The teacher refers to the children as “my love,” “precious” and “little ones” during the stirring clip filmed last week in the city of Monterrey, in northern Mexico. It’s gone viral, igniting once more a public debate over the government’s campaign against drug gangs and earning accolades for maestra Martha Rivera Alanis, reports the Associated Press.
The Nuevo Leon state government honored Rivera for “outstanding civic courage” in a ceremony today.
The 33-year-old mother of two said she was frightened, but that her “only thought was to take their minds off that noise.” The song she chose during the ordeal is a Spanish-language version of a tune popularized by the children’s TV program “Barney and Friends,” and makes reference to chocolate droplets falling from the sky.
Rivera filmed the video during a gunfight Friday in which five people were killed at a taxi stand in La Estanzuela, a district in south Monterrey. According to a local news site, Regioblogs, the teacher posted the video to her Facebook account and then was asked permission to have it reproduced on YouTube and linked to the site. So far the original clip has garnered more than 714,000 views.
“We do drills constantly, because the area where we are is a high-risk zone,” Rivera said, according to reports. The children, she added, “behaved in the way we had practiced.”
I hope to never be in the situation Martha Rivera Alanis was in, but should I ever find myself in a delicate or dangerous predicament I can now draw on the example of this fine, selfless, courageous and dedicated teacher. What a wonderful role we can play in our students’ lives. What a positive and calming influence we can have on them.
Thank you Martha Rivera Alanis for showing us how it’s done!
Tags: Drugs, Education, Gangs, Kindergarten, Martha Rivera Alanis, Mexico, Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Shootout, Teacher, Teaching, YouTube
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