It’s my 26th year as a middle school English teacher, and I’m accustomed to certain routines and student reactions. I know that every year instruction will pause intermittently for the very necessary battery of drills to prepare us for the possible fire, tornado, and now lockdown/active shooter emergencies. We go to the recess area outside for a fire, the girls restroom for a tornado, and we huddle in a corner barracaded by overturned desks if there is an active shooter in the building.
The lockdown drill always takes a lot longer than the 15 minutes allotted. Something about barricading ourselves in the “safest” corner of the room triggers a barrage of questions and suggestions from any group of 6th and 7th graders. Always and every time! While in our huddled positions behind the desks, one industrious child might notice the file cabinet he/she is pressed against and say, “Hey Mrs. Laaksonen, what if we emptied this bottom drawer and filled it with heavy canned goods? I could open it and pass out the cans for us to throw at the intruder if he/she enters the room.”
Another child notices the floor fan next to me after I finish locking the door and suggests this strategy straight from an action blockbuster, “Mrs. Laaksonen. what if you stand right there behind the entrance, out of sight, and clothesline the intruder with the stand of the fan when we give you our signal?” Much discussion follows about possible signals.
And yet another child spots the emergency window sticker on the the right side of the ledge and notices, for the first time, that this window has no screen. His/her hand shoots in the air and he/she starts talking before being officially called on, “Mrs Laaksonen!!! What if we all go out that window and run for the barn across the field? I take horseback riding lessons over there and the family would help us!” Just for the record, this is my favorite “what if” scenario and I have thought seriously about its merit as our unofficial alternate disaster plan.
One might wonder why I allow the drill to spin seemingly out of control with all this discussion, all the pondering of “what if.” I’ll tell you there is something magical about the moment when the kids start brainstorming possible solutions. I’ve reflected on why I find these discussions so dynamic. I mean, we are preparing for a horrific circumstance here. Why am I invigorated by this? And that is just it! When the kids are faced with a terrible tragic possibility, they jump at the chance to find a way to survive, to help others, to turn it into a triumph. Their heroic thinking is intoxicating and empowers all of us.
And it reminds me that the struggles, the metaphoric active shooters in life, push me to be better, smarter than I would be hiding in the “safest corner” of the room.
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