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Teaching Terror

Posted by garym on June 8, 2007 - 5:05pm

Is there lead in the water-supply over at the Ministry of Education, or are they all just plain daft? Lock-down drills? My mind reels at the endearing brainlessness of this exercise, and while I was already in a fit of giggles over it still thinking this was an Amabel-Sauble thing of innocence, or even a Bluewater District thing, I learn from a colleague that no, it's not, it is an across the province tarantella with not one among them brave enough to tell the Ministry that their ignorance is dangling.

My kids took it in fair stride, I guess, who can tell the inner fears of young children when told their perfectly secure world is festering with bloody violence; they were freaked out a little. A GUNMAN IN OUR SCHOOL?? Yes. That's the drill: The bad bad badman Terrorists have invaded kiddies, and you and I are all about to have our bellies slit chin to stern by some ideologically charged madman who is HERE ... NOW ... looking for you, looking for me, hunting for our blood boys and girls! Now class, hands up, who knows ... what shall we do?

Hey, I know, let's all hide under our desks!

I feel so young: it's like it is 1961 all over again! Methinks our Honorable Minister of Education has totally flipped a wig! I mean, ok, returning to the plane of this Reality, let us count, actuarially speaking, the total number of times, since Confederation, when a terrorist has stormed into a Canadian school to shoot our children: ZERO. Ok, how about that frightful Columbine movie, eh boys and girls? scary scary stuff. How many times has THAT happened in the Great White North? ZERO. Anyone notice a pattern?

Now, you may wait just a minute there garym, and I know my 9-year-old spontaneously did and he didn't come by the knowledge innocently: he said, "What about at that University in Montreal?" -- well, gee son, let's see ... first off, that gunman was a student, an adult student, so he would have been allowed into his school anyway, and, well, let's count up the number of classrooms across the country, times the number of years since public education in Canada, times the number of days in those years and divide that into the number of times we've had a shooter.

Plus, my lad, that was at a university, not a public school, and it was an open venue downtown in our second largest city.

Now, if this had been a drill against invasions by angry racoons or frightened bears blowing up construction sites to preserve their homeland livelihood, hey, THAT is a scenario that makes sense.

But terrorist shooters? Here? It's like that scene in the movie Gallipoli where the two young bucks off to fight in that madness-inspired suicide campaign are sitting in the middle of the great Australian outback with an old swagman, telling him why it was so important they not miss their transport ship in Sydney and imperative he help them because if he didn't, if they didn't stop the gerries in Gallipoli, then next you know, the gerries would be here. The old man looks around, out at the endless flat horizon of desolation and desert, and he says, "Here?"

Back at the schoolboard, if they want to terrify the parents, then I say go right ahead, they'll probably love it considering what passes for top-draws at the boxoffice. But if you want to go around terrifying little children with boogeyman stories, hey, maybe you have some issues you need to resolve before you go to work on Monday?

As for my colleague, he had some advance warning on this. He's keeping his kids home that day.

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As usual!

Submitted by skyhawk on June 10, 2007 - 9:07am.

As usual "Terror is a state of fear and overwhelming sense of imminent danger and is usually characterized by a lack of knowing". This is taken from the dictionary. Is it really that bad in our schools?
As usual, the new proposed lock-down drills are a knee jerk reaction by the Ministry of Education to show the public that they are taking at least some action towards curbing gun violence in he schools in the GTA. Are they?
As usual, these liberal thinkers want to be seen as being politically correct; don't target the hoodlums and young scumbags, but try instead to scare children and teach students how to be passive and avoid any type of confrontation, in case of another similar incident. Are the children leaning anything?
As usual, nobody tried to involve parents nor students before implementing a new safety policy. Please visit: www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/policy/vfreeng.html
As usual the recent shooting in a Toronto school is the fault of teachers and everybody else, except the murders. What else is new?
As usual, parents are quick to blame others for the tragedy and forget that they should always be responsile for their children's behavior where they learn, play and socialize. Would this not go along way toward solving some of the problems?
As usual, taxpayers are asked to fund a system which needs some serious fixing, articularly when it comes to teaching discipline and personal responsibility to students. Apparently there are no real consequences for not playing by the rules, or are there?
As usual, the liberal thinkers believe it's gentler for all concerned parties to introduce the students to the possibility of school terror and violence by way of lock-down drills, instead of taking whatever firm and perhaps unpopular actions are needed to fix the real underlying problem. Can this be productive?
As usual, the legal system prevents the general public from knowing anything about these young killers, sorry,alleged young killers. Should their names and pictures not be published in the media?
As usual, the powers to be are playing politics with a sad, isolated incident at a Toronto school. Is there no other way?
As usual, it remains to be seen whether the initives outlined in the Toronto Star, Editorial section of June 9th "Giving kids a safe haven" will achieve the desired results. Wouldn't it be nice if it works?
As usual, garym your concerns and comments are right on the money.

Here we go again

Submitted by garym on December 14, 2007 - 7:43pm.

Because once just isn't enough, and what better time than at Christmas!

we decided to yank our kids from the school today, in protest of the Lock Down Drill being foisted on our kids in the name of anti-terrorism. We're going to take them shopping instead, as it seems that for all the commercialism and materialism that may deck the mall, that world is still nonetheless in the seasonal message of goodwill and hope that maybe, just maybe there is the slimmest chance that some child-in-arms Prince of Peace may someday make all such terrors of young hearts a thing of the past. Let's have a drill to lock-down into that concept, eh?
[ TeledyN: Lock Down Your Heart ]

The way we figure it, they can't complain. If Jehovah Witnesses can boycott Christmas, surely we can boycott their festive politicking paranoia, no? Seems only fair. May added that if they didn't want us to react, why warn us in advance? Afterall, they don't telegraph their punches on the firedrills ...

garym: ict evangelist - musician - whatever

for goodness sake dont tell the BWDSB I am commenting

Submitted by wayne tanner on December 15, 2007 - 2:42am.

OOOps I guess it is too late for that now :)

Regarding lock downs I guess I have to be the resident expert as I have overseen, implemented more lockdowns than anyone on the system and suggested tweaking of the protocols.
On four occasions I implemented a lockdown due to the direction of the OPP, to mention one source, regarding a parent or such on the way to the school who we believed may be an issue. The rule of thumb is if the cops aren't there yet then the custodian goes out and determines if the rounds are real or not:) ( just a humourism, not policy ok)
At my Lovey's request I went to the SCC meeting regarding LACKdowns as the daycare is involved and to determine what issues could be addressed in sealing a biulding to keep an intruder out. I watched a wonderful powerpoint, produced I think by the high school A/V club of how to do a lockdown.
Remeber folks I am the lockdown guru, and when I asked a few question I was told this is how it suppose to run. Now I asked ( and I hope Osama isn't viewing this sight) how you could do a lockdown when 2/3 of the doors are always unlocked, I was directed to the information provided by the BWDSB in the powerpoint. *&#!%$&^%$%
Unless you have a heads up of someone on the way"lockdowns" are irrelavent.
I had better not say anymore as , well you know I will just be quiet. But I will sometime tell you about how on 7 occasions I had to kick out "tourists" who wandered in to play in the gym cuz they got kicked out of thier campground and had no where to go, or the people going through from the playyard door cuz junior had to go pee, or the high school kid coming through cuz one of the grade 8's owed him money and he was determined to collect. I actually kicked his ass when he had the nerve to swing first, but again keep that between us
Also since Columbine where they pulled the fire alarm to get people into the perfect shooting zone they are not suppose to have unannounced drills....
goodnight
wt

good points Wayne ...

Submitted by bub on December 15, 2007 - 3:05am.

.On your take of the lockdowns, but what Gary was referring to was the nonsense scare mentality to scare the living daylights out of little kids.You are right about people wandering in, and a simple cheap fix is using mag locks with door indicator LED's and buzzer alarm set up in the office, with signs directing any visitor to enter through the main door and report to the office(I think Gary used to spend a lot of time as a kid in the office..hehe)The door can be unlocked remotely during recess or other times, and of course a crash bar inside would let anyone OUT in a fire emergency.If they want even more security a simple webcam through a linux system is cheap enough to install.
But drills for terrorist attacks or other scenarios to me is ludicrous, advising and training the teachers on emergency procedures, yes, but training the kids to *hide under desks*? silly...they will do what the teachers instruct them to do if an emergency arises.I know what to do when a tire blows out while travelling 100 kph on a highway, but I do not need to practice it over and over to make sure my skills work
but..as an aside..umm..if i really have to go while driving past the school..and I kinda snuck in........
;)

**********************************************************
"How does one "Seem to think"? Either you did or you didn't! "
-ZenGary

Teaching Teacup Tempest Terror

Submitted by garym on December 15, 2007 - 12:13pm.

Ah, ok Wayne, then, um, dare I ask the obvious?

  • How much danger, exactly, was represented by that one parent? or were they perchance only bent on access to their own? I'm not saying the school shouldn't protect children from insane custody battles, only that I doubt hiding under desks or standing on toilet seats was the answer nearly as much as intercepting the rogue with the likes of a Deanna Troi bent on calming them.
  • How much danger and cost is involved in tourists playing basketball? Outside of the cleanup from their muddy boots, that is, but I mean seriously, realistically how dangerous is that? Or is this just stark naked xenophobia? A senior friend of mine, himself listed in Canada's book of Who's Who, once lamented how guilty he felt just watching children play in a playground, as such pleasures of old-age are considered today suspect, sick and forbidden. yeah, we can lock them out the evil sadistic bastard tourists, barb-wire the schoolyard and plant guards in towers. or we could live up to the name "Amabel-Sauble Community School" ...
  • Ditto for allowing a young child to go pee. How freakin' dangerous is that?
  • And even the crazed terresterone-charged teen, was he armed? Was he a danger to anyone else other than his mark and is there even the slightest indication he wouldn't have simply waited until his mark stepped off the school property anyway? My first real child-hood fight was over $0.75 that I had but refused to give to the local camp bully. He waited until he could get me alone away from the councellors, he hit me once, I broke two of his ribs. Freaked me out. I never fought again.

We have become a civilization afraid of its own shadow! Have we so pissed off every last other person on the planet that we must now cease to be any other than what we used to call the wacko survivalists holed up in Colorado? If preschoolers needing to pee are a threat, then what's to be done about snow-bird-borne deadly virii, or space junk ... or the wrath of Jesus should He find out we're devoting his memory to the terrorizing of school-children ;)

If you search through the google results, you see most everyone just accepting LockDown, lay-down and take it because that's the way the world works, so the teachers, the principals the parents, they just shrug and go on, "it's just another emergency procedure" says the Board, no biggie. Lay down and take it. Two minutes hate is good for National Unity.

Do they still teach Orwell in school? What do they say about it? Do they point out that the original manuscript title was Nineteen Forty-Eight, the year after the planned publication date? Do they talk about the post-war British dystopian world wherein George was writng? Ever wonder just why is it there are so many post-war then-youthful Brits living here in once-peaceloving Canada? Ever wonder what Lord of the Flies was really about?

Perhaps what is really needed is a new policy of cascading alarms and total shut-down procedures evoked whenever the Ministry of Education gets an 'idea'! Seal 'em all up in their offices, pipe in nitrous oxide, give 'em a good long nap. Maybe pipe in some Christmas music while we got their attention.

garym: ict evangelist - musician - whatever

clarification

Submitted by wayne tanner on December 15, 2007 - 10:19pm.

I guess the pont I was trying to make was unless you have advanced notice, locking down a school exercises a process in futility. by the time this process gets going , well lets say its pointless.
people can wander in at will and I guess unless you have bar codes stamp on everyones forehead and you get scanned when you enter any door there is no way to keep anyone from just wandering in.
This process in futility is just a way of saying we tried but if something happens their responce would be we couldn't deal with all the variables that could occur.
Fire drills are simple. A system is in place to detect or alert of the presence of fire. So you get out. This situation is complicated so... do something and since we couldn't figure it out, They will fall back on the "we tried" atitude. This is afar more cereberally relaxed responce, and we shouldn't expect any thing more