Two years ago, I had the distinct honor of facilitating a conversation with Lorena Sanabria, a student who was present during the 2017 Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school shooting in Parkland, Fla., at a national education conference. As we sat together on stage, Lorena, who was 17 years old at the time but wise far beyond her years, shared that one of the hardest things after the tragedy was the pressure to go “back to normal.” Within weeks of a shooting that killed 17 people, well-meaning teachers and parents were encouraging Lorena and her peers to reclaim their old lives. But, as she shared, “We were trying to tell them that normal will never be ‘normal’ again.”
