This is why we can't have nice things

Yesterday we had a lockdown and an evacuation drill.  A two for one.  Before school, Matt was buzzing around the faculty room getting the breakfast ready that he was treating us all to for Teacher Appreciation Week (he's given us breakfast every day which is so kind!).  I said, "I have a question about the drill."

He said, "It's a drill."

I said, "But which kind exactly, the kind where we hide?  And then we evacuate?"

He said, "Yeah.  No big deal."

I said, "You say it's no big deal, but it is stressful."

That effectively stopped him in his tracks.  He is sort of a Tasmanian devil when he has a task in front of him, but if you're insistent, you can get his attention.

I explained how I don't really know where to have my students hide.  He said I should keep my blinds closed all the time for safety.

I died a little inside.  I know that, but I also hate being in a room with the blinds closed all the time.  If something actually happened and my students were at more risk because I like sunshine, I would never forgive myself.

So I kept my blinds closed all day.  

I explained to my students about the drills we were going to have.  They were a little bit excited but also nervous.  I gave them all the specifics and said they should take their coats when we go outside because it is cold.  I explained that we'd have the lights off and the door locked and I told them where to hide.  I had my interpreter whiz kid explain it to the one who doesn't speak English.

I have a student who daily puts her name followed by The Great on every assignment.  Sometimes she'll sign The Excited or The Awesome after her name.  I always give it a smiley face.  

Yesterday this is what she wrote on her paper.

I said, "Are you scared?"  She nodded.

I told her it was going to be OK. 

(We're practicing something where we are completely vulnerable to a gunman, but it's going to be...OK?  Sometimes I don't know what else to say.) 

When it was time for the drill and the announcement was made, they gasped and scurried to one of the two spots we'd designated.  I turned off the lights and made sure the door was locked.  I whispered that as long as they couldn't see out of the little crack in the window that the blinds don't cover, they were fine.

My student who had written on her paper that she was scared, pulled a pencil out of her pocket.  "For protection," she said.

When Matt rattled the door to make sure it was locked, they all jumped.

I huddled there with them.  I looked into their faces in the dim light and knew that if it really happened, I would take a bullet for any of them.  I would spread my body over them like a human shield.  I would do what I could.

I hate that we live in a society where teachers have to think that.

My students were worried they had left their computers on their desks.  "Won't the shooter know we're in here if there are computers out?"

I didn't say it, but the shooter would know we were in there.

A girl whispered, "What if this really happened and I was in the bathroom?"

I whispered, "You could knock on any classroom and yell your name and they would let you in."

A boy whispered, "No, at a high school the shooter said he was a student and then they let him in."

I whispered, "This is different.  The teachers would know it was a kid.  They'd let you in."

A few of the girls concurred that their voices are different than grown men, who they are assuming a shooter would be.

After a little while one of them whispered, "What if the shooter was right there by me when I was trying to get in the door?"

I whispered, "They wouldn't be."  (I mean what else am I going to say?)

I hate that we live in a society where teachers have to have conversations like that.