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Teachers Fake Gunman Attack
Anti_Climax writes "Staff members of an elementary school staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables.
It'll be interesting to see what happens to these teachers after the charges brought against students in recent months."
...this is undeniably domestic terrorism.
Assume everyone is aware of this unfortunate story from a couple weeks ago. My suggestion is that these teachers and the principle do a little time of their own. In fact their sentence should probably be much harsher than the one given to the Chicago teenager. I think most parents would agree that we do halfway expect the teachers and administrators of that school to act more or less like responsible adults.
Deja Moo: The distinct feeling that you've heard this bull before.
While I read this article and think "Well, that was fucking stupid." I have to wonder if there needs to be a school-sanctioned version of this concept in place.
I grew up in US/USSR Cold War times and spent a few schoolday hours a year huddled in the fallout shelter basement during drills. We also had tornado, flood and fire drills. What fun.
Seems to me that as shootings get more prevalent it might be a good idea to have drills to limit deaths from mass panic.
Is it just me or are the current crop of teachers and school admins the dumbest sacks of shit ever to hold children's lives in their hands? Remember, these are the geniuses who are raising 'value-free' children. This should not end well.
When an adult does it, it's "poor judgment;" when a student does it, it's "a potential threat that must be dealt with seriously."
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
Yep the teachers were total jobs, OK.
Kids got to learn the hard way about themselves. - almost always a good thing.
No-one got hurt, no I don't care if someone got stressed for 5 minutes. Getting stressed is an unfortunate part of life, get over it and learn to deal with it. If you don't push the human brain to go beyond it's comfort zone, it may never get out of being a whining spoiled brat that most of us are. This is probably the biggest favor some of these kids will ever have done to them.
Tomorrow most will forget.
Yep the teachers were total jobs.
Arrange for some convincing actors armed with high-quality toy weapons to threaten the idiot teachers who did this, in some time and place where they aren't expecting it. See how "educational" they find it.
You know, some decades ago... before Columbine, before the year 2000 incident when what's his name shot coworkers at Edgewater Technology, and I believe before incidents in post offices made the phrase "going postal" part of the language... on one Halloween I thought it would be funny to wear a Halloween mask at work. It was a corpse-like mask that fit over my head. Apart from the mask, I was wearing my ordinary work clothes. I sort of scrooged down behind my computer monitor. I waited for a couple of coworkers to walk buy, then slowly stood up, saying nothing.
Let me tell you, I was completely taken aback by the intensity of the moment of terror that evoked in my coworkers. The unspoken thought was that people don't wear masks unless they're robbing a bank, or something. I immediately took of the mask, apologized profusely, never did it again. I wasn't fired, lectured, or disciplined, but those coworkers were cool toward me for some time. I realized I'd made a serious goof.
They were adults. It was Halloween. I did not have any weapons. I didn't jump out. I didn't say anything: not "Boo!", not "stick 'em up," or anything suggesing violence.
And for a fraction of a second--my colleagues were in fear for their lives. Only a fraction of a second, but that's the effect of doing something like that.
I can't begin to imagine the effects of a staged mock attack by adults on eleven-year-old-kids lasting for five minutes. That's not a short period of time to be in fear for one's life.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
did they train them what to do first or were they just thrown into panic with no guidence?
did they coordinate with local law inforcement and emergency services so they knew it was only a drill and participate in the drill?
if something like this was done right it could be a good thing, this shows none the signs of having been done right.
wonder what would have happened if someone had been seriously injured or killed in the panic?
If you think the current crop is bad, wait until you get the kids that came from the current crop being the next one. The current thinking is that self esteem is more important than realistic self evaluation of one's capabilities. That leads to people doing things like this instead of realizing that they are not experts in how to deal with dangerous situations. The local police aren't necessarily experts either, but chances are that they would be happy to help the school and certainly are more likely to have a better thought out training plan.
Had the students been taught to fight back. Since they were not told it was a drill, it could have been quite a sight with 60 little ninjas armed with pens, rulers and flying calculators. Not a pretty sight to say the least...
>Well, at least they have started their education in not trusting authority, and learning that those in authority will lie to you.
...
>This is one of the lessons that most people don't get, until much later in life.
I wonder what if one of the students had brought a gun that day? Maybe shot the hooded teacher who rattled the door?
hmph
1 in 4 Maine children in struggle with hunger.
My (catholic) high school had a set of procedures for this sort of thing. A former principal of the school was a priest named Father Schmidt, who had passed away about a decade prior. So, when they paged "Father Schmidt" to the office, it was a signal that there were hostages being taken somewhere in the building. We were to close and lock doors, kill lights, open windows, and huddle against an internal wall - presumably, so that we could be seen and counted from outside the building.
I remember one year, where they announced on Monday Morning that they would run the drill at some point on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. They paged, we hid, then police officers cleared each room and told us what a wonderful job we had done. That was that.
A planned drill is fine, these procedures should be rehearsed. But, what if one of these kids tried to be a hero? Someone really could have gotten hurt. These teachers need to be sacked, at the very lease.
Never underestimate the potential of Human stupidity. -Heinlein
From the article it didn't seem like a drill. From the article it seemed like they were away at camp, my district called it outdoor school, and this was the "scary story" that they told. When I was a kid the story was very unbelievable by adult standards, but just believable enough by a child's standards to be moderately ( to sometimes very ) scary. It seems the reason they said it wasn't a drill was because they were putting on this ruse. If this is indeed the case, then this was very poor judgement. However, if it was like my outdoor school then the scary story was enacted by the high school aged counselors who were there helping to take care of the kids. Once again, poor judgement, but then it would be by the counselors and the teachers would have had to be more aware of the story that was spread. I just question everything in these stories because the truth is always colored by our own filters and the filters of the person telling the story.
Fucking morons teach YOU!
wonder what if one of the students had brought a gun that day? Maybe shot the hooded teacher who rattled the door?
It would have served the fucking moron right. If you rob a liquor store with a toy gun, it's still armed robbery. If you threaten someone with a toy gun it's still assault with a deadly weapon. If you point a toy gun at a cop, he'll shoot you, and the shooting is legally justified.
Why weren't these people charged with a crime?
-mcgrew
No, the next "crop" of teachers is NOT being taught that self-esteem is more important. Every single piece of literature or textbook that I've read and all of the ed teachers I've had have all said that self-esteem does not neccessarily correlate well with improved ability. Improved ability correlates with higher self-esteem, however. In developmental psychology, the realistic self-evaluation is indeed touted as a more adult quality than simplistic "high self-esteem." Why don't you actually look at the coursework you're commenting about instead of making unfounded claims based on a 10 year old view of education?
SRSLY.
In grade 7, my teacher staged a crazy gunman attack in the classroom - mind you this was nearly 20 years ago now...
First thing in the morning, he's starting up a lesson, and some guy barges into the room ranting about how he'd been cut off in traffic, and how angry he was. After a few shouted exchanges, he pulled a cap gun out of hit pocket and "shot" my teacher - though he got excited and "shot" himself in the foot instead. Then he ran out of the room.
I think the point of the lesson was to teach us how to be good eyewitnesses or something. I don't remember if my teacher had a fake blood pack or not - could be that my memory has embellished it.
We weren't cowering under our desks, but the accuracy of our eyewitness accounts was shockingly bad even seconds after the event.
Mr. Selvig was a great teacher.
If you have a permit then I'm not sure that a sign at a business trumps your legal right to carry in that location. I have a cousin & uncle - both in OH & both with CCW permits - I'll have to ask them about it. Seems to me though that the owner of a convenience store's wishes do not outweigh a state-issued permit - business owners aren't generally allowed to draft legislation without buying off congressmen first...you can't just stick a sign out somewhere that says blue cars aren't allowed to use your parking lot or whatever and expect it to be legally binding. Any lawyers out there who know anything about this?
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
Groucho Marx
Late 50's, early 60's, I think, my father was just starting out as a high school teacher. He taught psycology. His friend, who later became the Principal of the local middle school, helped him with a little "test" he planned - and it did involve a fake blood pack.
Actually, it was real blood. Pig's blood. Anyway....
It was test day, and on the test was a strange question, way down towards the end - "#36 What has just been released into your body?" Plan was to do something shocking and then ask them to answer question #36; correct answer is "adrenaline" of course.
So the students are quietly taking their test, my father sitting at his desk, when in walks his friend dressed as a mafia character; brim hat, dark glasses, pin stripes... He says, "You Smith?" as tho he doesn't know him, and then pulls out a (fake) gun, says, "Nobody give my kid an F and gets away with it," unloads some caps for the bang bang sound, my dad slaps his chest bursting the blood bag and falls dramatically behind his desk.
When retelling this story, my dad says that he was so nervous that he'd make a fool of himself, that his students were nearly adults (only seniors are allowed to take the psychology elective), and as he twitched a little behind his desk he thought he'd blown it because he didn't hear anything. No guffaws, no shrieking... nothing. So he jumps up expecting to tell them to answer question #36, but stops short when he sees the carnage in front of him.
Blood had splattered on three students in the front row. One girl, who caught a great deal of it, was in catatonic shock so med techs and an ambulance had to be called in. Big, bad football players had pissed their pants. Several had thrown up or passed out. Everyone, I mean *everyone* was seriously damaged. They did not complete the test, nor the rest of the school day.
He almost lost his job, but since he was new the administration chalked it up to being green and inexperienced. From then on he just uses a couple of firecrackers to get his kids to experience shock adrenaline and learn about that particular facet of psychology known as "fight or flight" - which is very different than "trauma" by any definition.
So it unnerves you that a teacher might be ready and willing to kill someone threatening your child's life, but you still think they should offer resistance? So then when you reach the point where non deadly resistance isn't helping (say your gunman has already shot one teacher who tried to block his path) will you simply give up, having reached the brink and willing to go no further? Or would you employ deadly force to protect your life and the lives of others? If so, are you unnerved by your decision to be willing to kill?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984