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Crisis at the Capitol

Author:
Andrew Burford
January 19, 2021

On Jan 6, the nation's Capitol was breached and vandalized, but even though the Capitol is almost 3000 miles away the effects of it were felt all the way to Keizer.


Mr. David Holcomb who is one of McNary's track coaches and AP world history teachers said “Celts, in light of recent events at the US Capitol, I would like to take a moment to apologize to you on behalf of all of us adults. We ask you and expect you to speak or act respectfully and kindly as students at McNary. Yet, far too often it is us, the adults, who are behaving, speaking, or posting disrespectful or destructive things in public or online. As adults we need to do better because you are watching; we cannot ask of you something we are not willing to do ourselves. If you want the world to be better like I do, then join me in committing to be better. It starts with each of us.”


Mr Ryan Kirch McNary's AP economics and TCS1 (twentieth centuries studies) teacher. Said: "Like everyone else, I was shocked to watch the events took place last week at the nation's Capitol. With today's access to technology, it was quite incredible to experience it in real time. There are very few times in a lifetime do you experience events that are a first for our nation. This was certainly one of them.”


"I've encouraged our students to pay attention to the news as much as possible. We are truly experiencing something that their children will be reading about in history books 20-30 years from now."


Mr Erik Jesperson Principal of McNary in an email said: “In the past I have shared with staff members some lessons that I have learned through my training on the outward mindset. One of the key elements of the training was that we as humans often fall into a trap where we see others as objects instead of as people. We demonize those we disagree with and we create narratives in our mind that perpetuate those beliefs. This phenomenon isn’t just about politics and everyone that has a pulse is susceptible to it. We do it with people that we see on TV and with people that reside in our homes or attend the classes we teach. The key is to recognize when we do it and then work to get out of that negative spiral of thinking.”


Amy Gillette student at McNary said what happened on Jan 6 is a tragedy. What I wish people could understand is that it wasn’t a protest. It was an attack. It was an attack on our democracy and we need to understand that. Those people do not represent America, but those are the people the world sees as Americans. Let’s work toward a positive future!”