美国国家公共电台 NPR--A small, growing group of survivors advises school leaders after mass shootings

A small, growing group of survivors¹ advises school leaders after mass shootings

Transcript²

Over the past couple of decades, April has been a rough month for Frank DeAngelis' cars. He's been in six accidents.

"It's not that I was texting or not paying attention, but my concentration level was not there," he tells NPR's Morning Edition.

That's because in April 1999, DeAngelis was the principal at Columbine High School when two of his students killed 12 others and a teacher in a mass shooting.

Over the years since, he and other school leaders who've survived these types of attacks have formed a growing support group, offering advice and a sounding board after each subsequent tragedy — most recently leaving a message for the principal of Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 fourth-graders and two teachers were killed in May.

In the aftermath of these attacks, he says, survivors have sometimes bristled³ at the sympathy offered to them.

"You know what I'm feeling? Did you encounter a gunman? Were you locked in a room for three hours with the fire alarm going off?" he says.

The purpose of his group, named the Principal Recovery Network, is to provide the perspectives of those who really have been there.

In August they'll publish a guide on how to recover from mass shootings, covering a range of topics: How to handle the media, re-entering the building, how to deal with graduation, why events marking a year since an attack should avoid words like "anniversary."

Shepherding a traumatized student body and staff while processing your own trauma⁴ is complicated, he says, and some problems can be difficult to anticipate.

"We couldn't even go back in our own school because of all the damage that was done, so we went to a sister school, Chatfield High School," he says. "But I remember the first day back over at Chatfield, the parents decided⁵ to welcome the kids back by putting an archway of blue and silver balloons, our school colors.

"A great idea, until the balloons started popping and kids started diving."

He had an easy time identifying with that impulse: "When I had to return to Columbine and the building was being reconstructed ... needless to say there was a lot of loud noise, and every time I heard that loud noise it took me back to the gunman firing shots at me, and I would run out of the school."

He says it took a counselor⁶ asking him to share his good memories about each of the victims to begin his process of healing, and to help him stay on as the school's principal for another 15 years. Each year on the anniversary, he still calls each family to laugh and remember.

It's all part of a recovery process that's long — he told NPR in an interview marking his retirement⁷ in 2014 that survivors of the attack were still reaching out to access mental health help even a decade later — and never really complete.

"It's something that you live with for the rest of your life," he says.

1 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 bristled   

adj. 直立的，多刺毛的 动词bristle的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• They bristled at his denigrating description of their activities. 听到他在污蔑他们的活动，他们都怒发冲冠。
• All of us bristled at the lawyer's speech insulting our forefathers. 听到那个律师在讲演中污蔑我们的祖先，大家都气得怒发冲冠。

4 trauma   

n.外伤，精神创伤

参考例句：

• Counselling is helping him work through this trauma.心理辅导正帮助他面对痛苦。
• The phobia may have its root in a childhood trauma.恐惧症可能源于童年时期的创伤。

5 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

6 counselor   

n.顾问，法律顾问

参考例句：

• The counselor gave us some disinterested advice.顾问给了我们一些无私的忠告。
• Chinese commercial counselor's office in foreign countries.中国驻国外商务参赞处。

7 retirement   

n.退休，退职

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• I have to put everything away for my retirement.我必须把一切都积蓄起来以便退休后用。