Everyday Heroes: Martha Rivera Alanis

Rivera’s heroics landed her in the spotlight Monday when she was honored by the local government for her “outstanding civic courage.” A school teacher in Mexico has been honoured after she put aside her own fears to calm her young students during a shootout. Rivera’s heroics landed her in the spotlight Monday when she was honored by the local government for her “outstanding civic courage.”

Martha Rivera was teaching her kindergarten class in Mexico when a drug shoot-out began outside her school. She immediately told her 15 kids to place get down on the floor and repeatedly told them that everything was going to be fine. While gunshots rang out, Rivera led her students in a Spanish-language version of a song from the TV show "Barney and Friends." They sang about chocolate raindrops, until the shootout finally ended. Rivera recorded part of the encounter with her cellphone and the story has now spread to millions around the globe.

After the incident, she wrote on her Twitter page, “It was very bad, my little ones in the kindergarten were very scared, and I was too! ENOUGH OF THIS!”

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