This Is Not A Drill

This week we are having an earthquake drill at our school. Each time, before we have one of these rehearsals for calamity, we remind kids that we need to take it seriously because if there really was an emergency they should be ready. Ready for the Apocalypse, or something like it. Once upon a time, we had an earthquake drill and a group of fourth grade girls took their time giggling about how silly it all was, crawling under desks and staying quiet. It was a big joke. Until about an hour later when a little tremor rolled through for real, and those same girls were in tears, clambering to safety. Or something like it.
Which brings me to active shooter drills. In elementary school, we call them "lockdown." And even though most of what we do is for practice, over the past few years there have been a couple instances where all that practice made perfect. Or something like it.
Recently, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association and the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund had a drill of their own, in the form of a white paper on the Impact of School Safety Drills for Active Shooters. In their version of being prepared, they suggest that maybe we should avoid giving our kids post-traumatic stress as we prepare them for the Apocalypse. Or something like that.
The alternative would be a world in which the National Rifle Association doesn't hold the key to gun safety, when their answer to school shootings is to bring in more guns into the equation. Armed guards. Armed teachers. Good guys with guns. In this model, it becomes necessary to teach our kids to cower in a corner until the bad guys with guns are sent away. Put away. Shot and killed. Right now, we are asking children as young as five years old not to panic when we ask them to come to one side of the room, staying away from the windows and doors, sitting quietly on the rug. As if their lives depended on it. Because in the National Rifle Association's vision of the world, it does.
The alternative is a world where we have a few more hours each year to teach kids to read because we don't need to train them what to do when guns come to their school. A world where we can give them hope and not PTSD.