By Alexa Nogueira | Observer Contributor
On the one month anniversary of the Parkland, Florida school shooting, multiple students chose to take part in the national protest that is #WalkOut. The national walk out took place on March 14 at 10 a.m. and lasted for seventeen minutes, to honor the seventeen people who were killed on Valentine’s day.
Jodie Katsetos, a sixth grade teacher at Arcadia Middle School in Oak Hall, Virginia, heard about the proposed walkout and offered an alternative message, #WalkUp, which has since gone viral.
#WalkUp encourages kids to walk up to their peers who are usually alone and offer them company, or walk up to an adult and thank them. In Katsetos’ post, she encourages students to #WalkUp instead of #WalkOut.
“I am adamant about it staying positive on both movements, #WalkUp and #WalkOut,” Katsetos stated. “I’m not pushing either. I made those suggestions as alternatives to walking out and just an everyday reminder to include others and be considerate, which is something that I talk about with students each day.”
However, there’s something a bit contradictory about titling a poster “#Walk Up Not Out” and then going on to say that one isn’t pushing for either movement.
#WalkOut was a protest organized by the survivors of the Parkland shooting to advocate for gun control and to show congressmen that if they will not make change, America’s youth will. It is a dedication to the lives lost in a horrific school shooting, and a promise to make change so that no other community will have to endure what Parkland has. It is a positive message.
#WalkUp tiptoes around the topic of gun control and seeks to put a band aid over a bullet hole. Kindness is not a hashtag, nor an event that takes place in once a year. Kindness is a choice that must be made every day, and it should not be treated as a counter movement which blames survivors for what happened because they weren’t nice enough to the man who shot them when they had the chance.
We need to teach American children to be kind and empathetic every day, not just when it’s convenient for them, like on the month anniversary of a school shooting. Additionally, American adults have a responsibility of intervening in bullying situations and playing an active role in the mental and emotional health of students. Of course, we also need gun control.
#WalkUp should not be an alternative to #WalkOut. Students everywhere, from elementary school to college, can do both.
Although #WalkOut has passed, there is still time to go to March For Our Lives, another event organized by the survivors of the Parkland shooting, which takes place this Saturday. So, #WalkUp to the quiet kid, lonely kid, or anybody else, and invite them to march with you, because kindness is not an alternative to gun control.
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