America loves us some bad teachers (and no, I’m not talking about the Cameron Diaz). When the story of 10th grade math teacher Carly McKinney and her naughty Tweets came out last week, the Internet was aghast. A teacher was smoking marijuana (which is legal for private use in Colorado, where McKinney lives and teaches), drinking alcoholic beverages, and taking pictures of herself doing strange acrobatics called “twerking,” topless! Did Carly McKinney make some poor decisions? Yes. Did she deserve to be placed on administrative leave? Definitely. But the media blitz surrounding McKinney and her racy social media profile is emblematic of a larger phenomenon: what the New Yorker calls the “casual demonization of teachers in America.”

On Friday, as the coverage of the horrifying events at Sandy Hook Elementary School unfolded, we wrote about the teachers who risked their lives to protect their students. As more information has emerged, many initial media reports had to be corrected (including ours), but one thing that hasn’t changed are the stories of heroism and selflessness on the part of school staff.

The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut this morning, which is being called “the worst school shooting in recent U.S. history,” is horrific, disturbing and upsetting in equal measure. Students who were in the school when the violence occurred were later interviewed by reporters and recounted the actions of many of their teachers once they learned that a shooter was in the building.

Kelley Blakslee is a fifth grade teacher living in Phoenix, Arizona.