As an education major, I have the utmost honor each semester of being welcomed into classrooms by teachers to get field experience, and in each experience, I learn something new. Today I learned something, and what I learned shocked and scared me.
Today, in the class I am interning in, I went through an active shooter drill with a group of twenty-something 5 and 6-year-olds.
Now I want to preface that this is not a political argument or recount. This is purely what I have experienced and the thoughts that I experienced through this experience.
My mentor teacher let me know when I walked into class this morning that this drill would happen and that she was going to let the class know so that the students wouldn't be taken by surprise and weren't scared during the drill. When the announcement that the drill had begun, we gathered the students onto the carpet, hid them from plain view, made sure the doors were locked and turned the lights out. We had the kids be silent, and when administrators came around and banged on the doors and windows, the children knew it was coming and knew to be silent. Did this forewarning make the students any less scared? Yes, but they were still very frightened. I can't even imagine the fear they would feel if such a horrible existence were to ever occur in real life.
As the drill was taking place, many emotions and thoughts crossed through my mind. My first thought was a question of how sad is it that this is necessary? My next emotion was anger. How dare someone ever think about harming these innocent children? These children have barely reached the age of reading, and we are having to teach them how to safely escape from an active shooter? Absolutely unacceptable that this has become a norm in our society. My next feeling was sadness. I just wanted to crawl into a ball and cry because it hit me that this may be a reality that I could potentially face in my own classroom someday, and that breaks my heart. I pray that I never have to be faced with the situation in protecting my students from that kind of evil.
We are in a world where an active shooter on a school campus is a far too common occurrence, and that pains me. We need to do better for our kids. As a future teacher, I will, unfortunately, have to go through these drills for the near future. Until we make these shootings cease to exist, I will have to worry about the safety of my students and worry that I am prepared to take action in the event that this ever occurs. I want to one day see a cease and desist to these drills, but until that day comes, you better believe I will do everything in my power to prepare my students and do everything in my power to protect them. I have the blessing of being able to have an impact on their lives, and I will do everything in my power to protect them from as much as I can.
