By Lindsay Adams
It’s an exceptionally cruel thing to schedule an active shooter drill during the “self-care” day of spirit week. Now, I’m sure there’s many amongst you who might say “you have to be prepared, an active shooter could happen at anytime!” Yeah, no kidding…but a drill?
A drill is scheduled. Administration must email out the date to parents. Teachers must have time to prepare. Students must be notified. And, as the warning bell chimes and I flip the lights off in my room, it doesn’t escape my notice that my students are all wearing pajamas and robes and eye masks. Mundane, ordinary, cute pieces of clothing meant to be soothing. But there they are, hunkered down under their desks, practicing for the possibility of death.
Yes. It is exceptionally cruel to schedule an active shooter drill during self care day.
“Or,” I think to myself, “Is it ironic? I’m not sure. Do I actually know the meaning of ironic or –“
“Ms. Adams, what if I was outside and a shooter was on campus?”
The question takes me out of my thoughts and snaps me back to reality. It’s a question I’ve gotten before. One that I get during every active shooter drill. I’ve probably gotten the same question from the same child. My answer remains the same. “Run. Hide. Fight.”
“Will you let me back in?”
“If I can.”
“What if you can’t?”
“Run, hide, fight.”
Another student chimes in. “What if someone shoots through the windows?”
I take a breath. That’s a question I haven’t heard from a student before, though I’ve thought about over a dozen times. And, honestly, I’m not sure how to answer it. So, I tell them that. “We’d have to see if the shooter tries to come in. If we can run, we will. If we can hide, we will. If I need to fight, I will.”
The kids snicker at this, because I’m five foot nothing and looking every year of my 40’s. “What? I’m short but I’m scrappy.”
More snickering. Middle schoolers are mean.
“Would we tip the tables?”
Another question I wasn’t ready to field. My 8th graders are all stuck in the muddy in-between of childhood and the becoming of young adults. Their faces have started to lose the baby fat, their bodies lengthening like ripened fruit on a vine. But though they have started to grow up, it’s the whimsy in their “self-care” items that shows how young they still are. Hello Kitty. Star Wars. Princess themed eye masks.
“Yes, we would probably tip the tables to make a sort of barricade around the room.”
“Could we –” The question’s cut-off because at that moment the door handle jiggles. Admin, walking around to make sure all the doors are locked. Which, mine is. It always is. The only moment when my door is unlocked is the moment I get to school, unlock it, let myself in, then twist the key back to the locked position. The handle falls silent, and footsteps retreat. The student resumes their question.
“Could we escape, if we had to?” It comes out a bit more hushed than the student intends, and 32 pairs of wide eyes blink in my direction. Well, 31 pairs of eyes and one pair of cartoon cat eyes from the student who’s pulled an eye mask over their face.
“I hope so. I think we could get out the back window if we had to.”
A bell chimes, marking the end of the drill. My body un-clenches, and all the kids peel themselves off the floor. They’re a little off kilter from the drill and louder than normal. Bravado fills the room. They have just escaped fake death, after all, a little celebration is warranted. We go back to our simulation, re-enacting the Election of 1800. We act like it’s a normal day. Like any of these days are normal days.
But my mind keeps spinning round and round with possibilities. Round and round with emotion. Active shooter drills always leave me filled with frustration and anxiety. But there’s more this time. Something simmers beneath the surface of my skin. It’s a feeling that I can’t quite touch, one that I can’t quite explain. Imagine, I suppose, a giant black ball spinning and spinning in the middle of your chest, but with red, blue, and green sparks popping from it in erratic intervals. That’s what my emotions feel like.
And even though I can’t quite explain what it is I’m feeling, I can pin that torrent of emotion to a few things. First, our drill happened in the wake of weeks of violence in Minneapolis. Second, while the death of Alex Pretti is exceptionally unfair and was unwarranted, there’s something that feels so frustrating about it. Like, the people who love the 2nd Amendment only love it for themselves, not anyone else. And, who cares if kids, or teachers, or moms, or protesters die? Who cares if your gun is legal? If you don’t believe what they believe, you don’t have the right to your life.
And that’s the kicker. It’s gotten to the point in American history where your right to life is dictated by who’s side you’re on. Maybe this is hyperbole, but I don’t think it is. Obviously, if we cared about our future, we would have made gun reform a major topic after Sandy Hook in 2012. We didn’t. Our nation doesn’t care about children. It doesn’t care about what we’re doing to them.
Teachers know this. Teachers have been on the front line for some time. To my knowledge (and of course correct me if I’m wrong), but teaching is the only non-law enforcement profession in which you go through active shooter drills. And, if we’re not, we are the only profession in which we have to train children to “run, hide, fight.” More than that, we are the only non-law enforcement profession that is expected to die for others. A hero’s death is an expectation if you’re a teacher. But, one without a professional development plan.
And yet, teachers exist in this strange liminal space. In the course of ten minutes, I can train students how to be quiet in the event they are being hunted, then talk about the strengths of the Bill of Rights. I can answer their questions about what to do if we have to barricade the room, then tell them that John Adams set a precedent by leaving the White House peacefully after the Election of 1800. A tradition that was followed by every president until the Insurrection on January 6, 2021.
This is what it’s like in an American classroom. This is abnormal. And you should know, and you should be shocked, and you should be appalled. Because if our classrooms aren’t safe, and our protests aren’t safe, and our rights aren’t safe…then we, as citizens, are not safe.
The ultimate end of all revolutionary social changes is to establish the sanctity of human life, the dignity of man, the right of every human being to liberty and well-being.”
— Emma Goldman
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