On Tuesday, UConn Alum and former Sandy Hook first-grade teacher, hero, survivor, and author of Choosing Hope: Moving Forward from Life’s Darkest, Katilin Roig-DeBellis, addressed NEAG’s Introduction to Teaching class. She left future educators inspired and motivated.
Roig-DeBellis graduated from the NEAG School of Education in 2006 with a master’s degree in Elementary Education. She began her talk describing her early desire to become an educator. Upon graduation, Roig-DeBellis could not have been more excited to start her career as a first-grade teacher. She discussed the times of bliss she had as an educator for seven years.
In 2012, Roig-DeBellis was newly engaged and immersed in a career she loved when her sense of peace and happiness came to a “screeching halt” on December 14, 2012. Although she did not go into detail about the horrific events that occurred during the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that day, her book outlined her heroic actions. After hearing gunshots in her first grade classroom, Roig-DeBellis hustled fifteen frightened first-graders into a tiny bathroom where she comforted them, prayed for survival, and waited until they were all brought to safety. While six staff members and 20 children lost their lives that day, Roig-DeBellis was deemed a hero for saving all fifteen of her students’ lives.
Roig-DeBellis struggled to answer “why” after the tragedy and grappled with the reason for such evil. When she returned to work weeks later, she was blown away with the outpouring of gifts, support, and donations sent to her school. She recognized the importance of capitalizing on this opportunity to teach her students a valuable lesson on compassion, empathy, and paying kindness forward.
Roig-DeBellis states that her healing began as she took action and regained control of her life. She refused to live in fear and refused to let this nightmare ruin her dream of happiness, inspiration, and teaching. This is when she kick-started Classes 4 Classes, a non-profit organization that teaches kindness in K-8 schools through a chain of gift giving. As the website’s mission statement reads, “These gifts are crowd-funded by visitors and donors to our site. The gift is given to the teacher and the students in the receiving classroom only once the project goal is reached, and the receiving classroom has started their own project to “pay it 4ward” to another classroom.” Classes 4 Classes has expanded to 10 states and is continuing to grow.
Although she is no longer a first grade teacher, Roig-DeBellis is currently looking forward to teaching at the collegiate level this January, in addition to holding book talks across the United States, and expanding Classes 4 Classes. For the remainder of her speech, she answered student questions and emphasized the importance of teaching future students empathy and kindness in addition to an academic curriculum.
Roig-DeBellis is a hero, a proud UConn alum, and says that, “Life is all about choice, the choice is each of ours alone to make.” In 2013, she was honored as one of Glamour’s Women of the Year and L’Oreal Paris Woman of Worth. Her story is not so much about the evil she encountered on December 14, but more about her decision to choose hope. Roig-DeBellis clarifies that she “will never move on, but will continue to move forward.”
To learn more about Kaitlin Roig-DeBellis’ incredible story, pick up a copy of her book, Choosing Hope: Moving Forward from Life’s Darkest Hours.