Four years ago, Lenora and Frank helped me paint the walls and doors in my classroom. There was toxic rubber in the caulking around the windows and doors, as well as dust constantly crumbling from the cinderblocks. It triggered migraines in susceptible students and regular headaches to others. When we finished painting the room (I'd been given the okay by my former Principal and bought the paint myself), I had the kids sign the wall with their handprints and first initial. When LHS had a total remodel (complete with removal of the 9" asbestos tiles and toxic caulking) the walls were painted over. I snapped this picture that last day I was in my classroom, before moving to the modular classrooms for half a school year.
Today we had half day of Mid-Terms and half a Professional Development day. The focus for the PD was going over a draft of our Lockdown Procedures and reading an article from a national school safety and protection magazine emphasizing the best practices, as an educator, for the planning and implementing of a lockdown. It's a sad state of affairs, that such a periodical exists, and that this is how we are spending hours of our time. Each wing met in one classroom in that wing. The classroom D-wing teachers met in was mine.
The only real lockdown I've experienced, in my nearly 12 years of teaching, was just before Christmas. We've had many drills over the years, but the was the real McCoy. We were never in any real danger, as it was all a case of a freshman student mistaking shop students returning, late for lunch block, from an off-sight, outside (in freezing weather) job for intruders. They three boys came in through the back doors of the cafeteria still wearing their ski masks and safety goggles. The freshman called his mother, who in turn called the police. But before you could say Jack Robinson, we had city and state police running down the halls with loaded M16's.
And may I reiterate, it was Lunch Block. There are 4 seatings for lunch over the period and close to 2,000 students and staff are being fed. So roughly 500 people were in a room surrounded by glass floor-to-ceiling windows, with little to no communication being received via the PA and the first understanding of the situation is students and staff seeing the armed and running police running down a corridor that runs parallel the the longest glassed wall. So, as you might expect, panic ensued, yet the kids stayed in the Cafe, a human fish bowl.
Those of us in our rooms, cleared the halls, locked our doors, closed the blinds, and moved out of sight-lines of the window and doors to the best of our abilities.
The messy business was that the call had come from "outside" the school, so it took a while for the inside staff/administration to catch up. And, there was an announcement that all was clear, and then it was reverted to a lockdown.
My students were at lunch. I was alone, locked in my room, up against the wall sitting on the floor.
And yes, I'll admit it; I was playing Candy Crush.
When the students arrived back to class, they were visibly upset by the whole ordeal. We had long talks about what exactly, happened (which I myself wouldn't be informed, in a coherent fashion, for 24 hours) and how it was handled and we could handle it better.
So in a way today was addressing that need. We need to address protocols that work and educate the staff/police/community how to respond. Some districts take kid's/staff/s cellphones, others do not, and so on.
The only other time there had been a semi-real threat of violence on the LHS campus happened during my 2nd or 3rd year. A boy made a hit-list. He'd come into possession of a gun. His best friend was afraid that his father was going to kill his mother, as the domestic violence under that roof had escalated, and he gave it to my student to remove it from the grasp of his father. My student, had been bullied for being bright, handsome and a vocational student (the academic and tech sides of the school used to have an us vs them attitude). On top of that triple threat or deficit, he was motherless.
He'd been very shy in my class, as I said, he was bright and didn't feel comfortable displaying that vocally. He chose to show me it in his writing and questions after class. I gave the kids the opportunity to do two choice reads that year. One fiction, one nonfiction and the only requirements were that the books be over 250 pages and grade level appropriate. He waited for all the other kids to leave before coming up to and behind my desk. He pulled a Karate Manual out of his back pack and asked me if he could have that be his nonfiction book. It was easily 300 pages and I reminded him that he'd have to present the book to the class. He was going for his black belt and that was why he was asking. I asked if he'd be comfortable demonstrating the progression from beginner to black belt as a part of his presentation, knowing how they tried to tease him into talking in class. He said he'd be comfortable with that and even welcome it.
So on one hand when the Detectives and officers asked why I thought he'd made a hit list and why I wasn't on it, it was easy and hard to answer.
This motherless, bright, sensitive boy was given a gun and he made the mistake of writing down the names of the students and teaches he'd like to hurt. The gun never left his bedroom and I was never quite sure who the list was discovered in the first place.
Basically I listened, heard and saw him. It was that simple. There was a mutual respect and trust. If a student hears a teacher be sarcastic, is constantly bullied at lunch for being good looking, yet shy with no close friends, except the one who is afraid his father is going to kill his mother, and has a distant dad and no mother at home then one can imagine he might write a list. Not that he would ever have committed the crimes, but as a fantasy escape, much like guys used to go the ring or hit a boxing bag.
So I was startled, but yet again, not surprised to hear 2 of the 12-13 teachers propose that perhaps teachers, who are trained and licensed should start carrying guns. Yes that really happened today in my classroom. They were NOT joking and wanted it added to the list of scribed notes to be submitted to the administration.
The only time I've ever learned to fire a real gun, not a bb gun, but a pistol was when I was living on the boat. During the 1980's, in southern Atlantic and Caribbean waters, pirates were a real threat. So I learned to shoot a gun in the intercostal waterway between the mouth of the Chesapeake and Beaufort, NC. I'd grown up shooting bb guns at beer cans, and so I learned the basic shooting into the swamps of waterway. But I hoped to never encounter a real pirate, although I'd heard enough from sailors traveling north about live-aboards who'd been killed by pirates to make one run with their boat.
After I left the boat and the land of pirates, I've never touched a live ammunition gun. Hopefully it won't be the next license that all educators have to earn to teach in public schools. I'd much rather bring in buckets of paint, brushes and rollers than boxes of bullets, guns and holsters to my classroom.
So good night from the frontline of first world education (in a nation where more than half our students, according to today's report, are living under the poverty line, and we wonder why mental health issues and violence are on the rise). Good Night.
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