Hitting the Button on Depression

To most teachers the phrase “hit the button” has a very specific meaning, referring to the button in every classroom used to call the office if assistance is required. Teachers routinely manage all kinds of issues that arise from having roughly 120 young people — each with unique academic, social and emotional concerns — rotate through their classrooms daily, but sometimes circumstances warrant a call for support. Hitting the button is an option reserved for the most serious situations. It might be a student becoming very ill in class, or a student hitting a classmate or even, say, a student threatening to kill the teacher because the teacher told her to open her literature book. (Okay, she didn’t actually threaten to kill me herself; she merely said she would be happy to see me dead. Um, a bit disturbing.)