I was sitting in the doctors office today with Paulina waiting and waiting. She was looking around the room and then asked me a question. She was dead serious. She wanted to know which corner we should go to if we were under lockdown. Lockdown?
Ok so we live in a very small town. People all know each other. There has never been an incident. Nevertheless in addition to the fire and tornado drills, the schools are now required to do "lockdown drills". The children learn to lock themselves in the room and hide in a corner that can't be seen from the window on the door. The gates from the playground are locked. All doors are locked. To get in someone has to buzz you in. To volunteer you have to have ID.
When I was a kid I had never heard of a lockdown, when I got older I only heard about it in connection with prison.
Everytime they have any of those drills she gets scared and has nightmares. It's a sad, sad commentary on this world that the schools have to be prisons, and that our kids have to be afraid.
3 comments:
I absolutely agree with you. Sadly, I think a lot of this happens because we now have to know everything about everything and the media is running the show. Everyone is scared it will happen to them/they'll get sued/etc. There's a lot of "me too" stuff now and once things are aired, it gives others ideas. It's the price we pay for "progress". i long for simpler days when your kids could play outside all day long and you didn't have to worry about them
When I was growing up in Southern California, we lived in a rather bad area. Our high school had tall fences and barbed wire, a security guard with a RIFLE,and officers in the hallways while we changed classes. One didn't DARE go to the bathroom during the daytime for fear of what would happen if you entered the bathroom. That was my experience with schools growing up. I moved as an adult about 25 miles away, and the schools looked like beautiful campuses all landscaped and everything. I couldn't believe it! Things are most likely safer here than where I grew up, and WHEN I grew up (lots of racial tension)
but I still hate it that fear is placed in our children's hearts when they just need to be kids.
When I was a child we did "bomb drills". I was terrified by those and had bad dreams as well.
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