Sunday, December 16, 2012

Thoughts on Newtown, CT

The last lockdown drill we had at school was announced earlier in the week on a memo.  As usual, I read "lockdown" but never confirmed the date in my lesson plans or reminders.  The drill, like so many others, never registered much recognition.  This past week we had a fire drill during a time when my students were in Music class.  I was working on my week's lesson plans.  All I wanted to do was close the door and continue working.  Let the invisible flames of disobedience consume me.

A Level 1 is free allows free movement within the building but with doors locked.  Typically these are designated for emergencies outside of school, perhaps even outside of our vicinity.  The drill is practiced, life resumes.  A level 2 is to lock doors, cover the windows and does not allow for free movement.  Perhaps a shooting or some disturbance in the area has caused the lockdown.  Once we had a shooter who ran through the playground.  Another threw a gun under a modular trailer.  Typically some fight spills into the streets after the high school kids are dismissed, cops are called and we continue to teach.  This drill was a Level 3.

Level 3 lockdowns are more serious in nature.  Lights off, doors locked, kids in a huddle--quiet.  Teaching fourth and fifth graders the last several years, the kids typically rush to their favorite spot in a cubby, they laugh and snicker until the high-heeled footsteps of the principal enters the room, threatens to take away their recess as I give them the I-told-you-so look.  It's the same with most drills.  Tornado drills are something else.  All the kids worry about is bending over showing their undies and they make farting noises until we yell at them.  On the day I disregarded the memo, my principal unlocks my door, steps in with safety and security (the district "heavies") and gives me a polite reprimand about being a level 3.  At the time I was still teaching and the kids were working.

I doubt in the upcoming weeks I will take a lockdown drill less seriously after the events this weekend at Sandy Hook ES.

Two weeks ago, a member of our Life Group, who is also a teacher, said his high school was conducting a mock-lockdown in which students were actually going to enter rooms.  Sadly, these are the kinds of things schools do now, perhaps not always, but once a month is enough.  How do you reenact the events of Columbine?  Why would anyone want to?

Amid the outpouring of grief around America, I've been consumed with my own thoughts on the matter this weekend.  Upon first glance, the day reminded me of my first year teaching.  The same year 9/11 occurred.  The lasting memory of that school day was walking through the halls (on another lockdown) and seeing kids watching cartoons--oblivious to the events--just innocently ignorant.

When my wife told me of the events over the room phone, I didn't tell my fifth graders.  I did not even look up info on the computer.  Perhaps my desensitization caused an otherwise "again?" response but nothing more.  Telling the kids was out of the question.  Most of them have a naive understanding of the world around them.  Arguments have ensued in class ranging from topics as diverse as Halloween=devil worship, goth=devil worship, Osama bin Laden was hired by the government to terrorize us with death planes,  and so on.  We've almost finished reading The Giver, a beautiful young adult novel about a controlling society.  The discussion this past week was euthanasia.  I tried finding an appropriate video to argue both sides of the issue.  Is it suicide?  Murder?  We read together in chapter 19 the moment the main character's father injects a baby with a lethal dose to "release" it, thereby extinguishing a young life and keeping the balance of the community in tact.  Chilling.

The terror of the chapter subsided (one of my girls who had read ahead asked to leave the room.  She officially hates the novel.)  and we continued the day.  Now a new terror, a real terror, entered their lives when they set foot into their houses on Friday.

My room is literally the last room on the left of a Y-wing designed building.  I keep thinking that if something horrific were to befall our school, I'm exiting with my kids stage left and running to the junior high.  Get them to safety.  I think I would storm the shooter like the Sandy Hook principal.  Who knows?  For years I was frightened of my own shadow.  Now I feel more defiant.  No one knows for sure.  Who would want that decision?

Stories like teacher Victoria Soto who was gunned down just after telling the shooter her kids were in the gym, inspire the type of heroism within me.  There were many other heroes that day too--and devils.

Facebook has been rife with memorials and opinions.  The best ones have nothing to do with guns and everything to do with trying to understand the motives.  We can blame more than guns (more on that in a moment).  Video games, divorce, the lack of prayer in schools, violent movies and now even autism.
People have blamed God.  I'm not going to defend God here.  He has a Bible for that and He doesn't need my limited understanding to defend the events of the world--the evil or the appraised.

And I wont defend guns either.  Some of my friends have used the incident for their own political rants.  God Bless America one reads, then lists the amount of deaths attributed to guns in America compared to other countries.  Another post tells how arming a teacher would have eliminated the threat almost immediately.  I know teachers that barely read emails (or memos), burn their popcorn in the microwave and can't operate a Smartboard.  Arming them is the issue?  Oh yes, cause that's what a teacher needs to have strapped around their belts during parent-teacher conferences.  Perhaps the gun would come in handy to begin wind sprints.

I respect people with legal guns.  I have many friends with handguns and rifles for hunting.  None of them are posting insensitive posts about the right to bear arms or impeaching Obama.  I've begun to think that less guns, like less abortions or less prisoners dying from lethal injections and less wars, would be a great idea.  Why are there semi-automatic clips even available?  Even the shooter in question Friday had access to 5 guns.  5?  I don't think I've even seen 5 guns that weren't attached to a cop's belt in m life.  Even with gun laws, gun control, how are you going to get the remaining guns off the streets when we can't even eliminate drugs.

The most gut-wrenching of all was looking into the eyes of my own son during another one of his tantrums.  While he hasn't been diagnosed with nothing more than ADHD, if he continues to curse when he is angry or kick the walls in his room when he is punished, how long will it be before he's labeled something else?  Is it more counseling?  Perhaps it's nothing more than a "boy" thing.  Then I read this article--I Am Adam Lanza's Mom.     I'm not the only parent with a son who snaps.  While his words and actions aren't as extreme, how many times can these events happen before we all take a look at our kids and wonder how we're raising them, and what we allow them to have access to.

My son's major flareups lately have been related to electronics--his iPod.  A seemingly innocent device used for music and games.  But for him, he can lose hours playing games.  Not violent ones, but disconnected nonetheless.  How disconnected was this kid who killed children?

There's other gut-checks to come.  The next one is Monday when my kids come in with their questions and misconceptions.  All I want to do is hug them and tell them it will be okay.  But it's not okay.  Not this time.