I strongly urge you to read Rehearsing for death: A pre-K teacher on the trouble with lockdown drills, an opinion piece in today's Washington Post. The author, Launa Hall, teaches in an elementary school in Arlington VA, where I live. The kind of drill she describes is something all of us as teachers now have to undergo, in her case with tiny kids. Consider:
When you’re guiding 4- and 5-year-olds through a drill, your choice of words can mean everything. “Activity,” not “game,” because we laugh during games, and I can’t risk introducing laughter. I don’t say “police,” because some little kids find police officers scary, and I can’t risk introducing tears. Instead, even though our principal isn’t there this day, I want them to picture his kind but purposeful face when they hear the police officers and administrators hustling down the hallway, testing the doorknob of each room. I don’t say “quiet,” because I can’t risk them shushing one another while they are crammed together, practically sitting in each other’s laps. And because it’s not quiet that’s required for this drill, but rather complete silence. As silent as children who aren’t there at all.
But there is so much more. Please continue below the fold.
This paragraph got me thinking:
And even though I know better, even though I could reason my way around this drill, I fall headfirst into the scenario that this whole theatrical production has invited me to play out. Okay, this is it. So, who am I? Am I the one who dies valiantly tackling the shooter? Am I the quick-thinking teacher who saves several hidden children, telling the shooter they’re in the auditorium, before I am shot? Am I the teacher who sprawls into a body shield with all my best intentions but succeeds only in dying along with my charges? My inner voice, as clear as an actual voice in that silence, reminds me: You’re a mom. Hide. You have children of your own. I turn back to the closet.
A few years ago we had a live situation in the high school in which I then taught, about which I wrote several times, first in
"Teachers, check your roll books. I repeat, Teachers, check your roll books.", later in
Because we are teachers.
We have no choice but to think about it.
I now teach freshman and seniors, and some of my seniors are physically quite imposing, including a starting lineman on the football team.
Still, my attitude has not changed.
I am now a Quaker.
I will not use violence to defend myself.
But I am prepared to kill to defend the children in my care.
I hope it never comes to that, but I will not hesitate, even if I die in the attempt.
First my students must be physically safe. Then they must be emotionally safe (no bullying) and intellectually safe (so they can take risks and learn from their mistakes). Only then can I expect them to learn the content of the courses I teach.
After exploring the various states of mind through which she went in her most recent drill, Hall offers the following paragraphs in conclusion:
Which of those states of mind makes more sense? I teach in a country awash in weaponry. Maybe that moment I stood alone in my classroom was when I was closest to the truth. In 13 minutes, according to my gruesome and involuntary mental calculus, a single gunman with his effortlessly obtained XM15-E2S rifle and 26 rounds in each of two additional magazines could potentially kill 78 of us. Even considering the time it takes to calmly reload.
Instead of controlling guns and inconveniencing those who would use them, we are rounding up and silencing a generation of schoolchildren, and terrifying those who care for them. We are giving away precious time to teach and learn while we cower in fear.
It’s time to stop rehearsing our deaths and start screaming.
Read that last line again, please:
It’s time to stop rehearsing our deaths and start screaming.
We need to scream at those politicians too gutless to take on the weapons industry and its front the NRA and pass meaningful gun and ammunition control now.
We need to recognize that even the current right-wing Supreme Court with NRA Life-Member Antonin Scalia has made clear that some forms of gun control are clearly constitutional.
We need to stop continuing to sacrifice the lives of children to the cult of guns - not just in schools, but in accidental shootings at home with weapons that are unsecured.
Or is it that we value guns more than we value children? If so, what does that say of us as a society?
It’s time to stop rehearsing our deaths and start screaming.
Indeed.