{"id":355793,"date":"2018-04-08T13:28:00","date_gmt":"2018-04-08T12:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/dont-let-school-lockdown-drills-become-the-new-normal\/"},"modified":"2018-04-08T13:28:00","modified_gmt":"2018-04-08T12:28:00","slug":"dont-let-school-lockdown-drills-become-the-new-normal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/dont-let-school-lockdown-drills-become-the-new-normal\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Let School Lockdown Drills Become the New Normal"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n

I got an interesting phone call the other day from my daughter\u2019s elementary school.<\/p>\n

The counselor warned me that my little one\u2019s class would conduct a\u00a0lockdown drill<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 the first the kids had ever experienced.<\/p>\n

With everything in the news about\u00a0school shootings and the gun debate<\/a>, the superintendent and principals thought they should prepare for the worst, even though\u00a0they doubted anything like that would actually happen here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The counselor just wanted me to be aware what was happening and to prepare my daughter for it so she wouldn\u2019t be scared.<\/p>\n

I thanked her for the call, and went in the other room to speak to my 9-year-old sweetie.<\/p>\n

She was hunkered on the floor drawing pictures of her toys.<\/p>\n

Mario and Luigi were chasing a purple Yoshi. Captain America was playing soccer with Wonder Woman. That kind of thing.<\/p>\n

I opened my mouth \u2014 and my throat closed up.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t do it. I didn\u2019t\u00a0want<\/em>\u00a0to do it.<\/p>\n

What would I say? \u2014-Hey, Honeybunches. You\u2019re going to have a lockdown drill at school tomorrow. Your class is going to prepare in case a gunman breaks in and tries to murder you.<\/em><\/p>\n

She was staring at me now, Mario\u2019s hat half colored in.<\/p>\n

So I put on my teacher\u2019s cap and explained everything that would happen, but not why.<\/p>\n

She was completely unfazed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s all? Can I go back to coloring now?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

I nodded.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t want to make a big deal of it, but I wondered how she\u2019d react. This was a girl who in kindergarten had cried at the violence of a fire alarm.<\/p>\n

So the next day came and went \u2013 no mention from her about what had happened at school.<\/p>\n

She wasn\u2019t traumatized. She was her usual self \u2013 frustrated at her homework, bargaining for a snack, writing an autobiography of her soccer career that would start next fall when she signs up.<\/p>\n

I waited a week and then asked her about what had happened.<\/p>\n

In the most matter of fact voice, she told me how her third grade class had stood away from the door, clustered in one corner of the room holding books.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy books?\u201d I asked, thinking that maybe the drill had gone on too long so they had something to read.<\/p>\n

She said they were to throw at a bad guy if he sneaked into the room.<\/p>\n

I imagined a gunman in my daughter\u2019s classroom trying to spray the children with bullets only to be met by a hail of tossed books \u2013 Dr. Seuss vs. Smith & Wesson.<\/p>\n

Then\u00a0I envisioned her teacher pulling out a revolver and returning fire<\/a>\u00a0through the swarm of terrified elementary school bodies darting back and forth.<\/p>\n

The shock must have shown on my face.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t worry, Daddy,\u201d she said. \u201cNo one broke in.\u201d<\/p>\n

As usual, children do better with this stuff than adults.<\/p>\n

But the reason why is exceedingly troubling.<\/p>\n

They are still forming their concept of normality.<\/p>\n

When I went to school, we never had lockdown drills. We had monthly fire drills and the occasional severe weather drill. But we never prepared for crazed murderers and terrorists. That just wasn\u2019t in our routine or even\u00a0our conception of what a school should do.<\/a><\/p>\n

Yet it is now routine for my daughter. It is typical for most children these days.<\/p>\n

As a teacher in a neighboring district, I had to preside over\u00a0my own first lockdown drill\u00a0<\/a>with my 7th\u00a0graders a few weeks earlier.<\/p>\n

We clustered in a corner on the floor \u2013 the door locked, the lights off.<\/p>\n

My class of rambunctious teens who rarely seem able to do anything without a constant stream of words was nearly silent.<\/p>\n

The worst part was how I felt trying to downplay what we were doing.<\/p>\n

Nothing to see here, kids. Just an ordinary day pretending to hide in a corner so a killer would pass us by.<\/em><\/p>\n

And now after the drill, I keep my classroom door locked at all times.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a huge inconvenience having to stop what you\u2019re doing and physically open the door anytime someone wants to come in. But it\u2019s what we have to do to bolster our sense of security.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s our new normal.<\/p>\n

And I don\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n

It just seems to me like\u00a0another way my generation has failed our children<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve always known our gun laws are insane. We knew there should be\u00a0SOME\u00a0<\/span>sensible regulations on who can buy a gun and where and why<\/a>. We knew there was\u00a0no good reason to allow civilians to own automatic weapons.<\/a><\/p>\n

But we did nothing.<\/p>\n

Okay, a few of us spoke up now and again. It did no good.\u00a0Our lawmakers just waited out our outrage and kept pocketing the money from the NRA\u00a0<\/a>and the gun lobby.<\/p>\n

And now we\u2019ve accepted that school shootings are just another part of getting an education.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just something else to prepare for \u2013 like a grease fire in the cafeteria or a flooded gymnasium.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sorry, but this is not normal.<\/p>\n

I refuse to let this be just another possible disaster we feel compelled to add to our list of Might Happens.<\/p>\n

Thankfully,\u00a0protestors are still out there demanding action from our politicians<\/a>. Thankfully,\u00a0demonstrations and town halls are still in the works\u00a0<\/a>like the April 20th National School Walkout.<\/p>\n

But our leaders still think they can wait us out. And these lockdown drills feel too much like an admission that they\u2019re right.<\/p>\n

What sense of urgency do we have if we\u2019ve already incorporated shootings into the calendar?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll accept that these drills are necessary. But I won\u2019t accept them as permanent.<\/p>\n

These are temporary measures at best.<\/p>\n

However, that\u2019s something that must be made explicit. Lockdown drills cannot become a tradition, common, conventional.<\/p>\n

It shouldn\u2019t be \u2013 \u201cTime for the occasional lockdown drill.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

It should be \u2013 \u201cLook what our cowardly politicians are forcing us to do because they haven\u2019t enough spine to stand up to the NRA!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

We mustn\u2019t lose our sense of outrage over this cultural shift. Because if we do, the necessary political change will not come.<\/p>\n

We need sensible gun regulations \u2013 not another B.S. duck and cover exercise to engender a false sense of security and pop our civic resolve.<\/p>\n


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