Processing the Normality of a Lockdown Drill
In April it will be 21 years since Columbine. That day in 1999 I learned, while running on the treadmill at the gym, that my chosen profession was not a safe one. After running longer than I normally did, unable to tear my eyes from the television above me, I raced home, where I sat transfixed, watching the aftermath. The confusion, the horror, the grief -- all of it passed from the television to me, a first-year teacher living 1700 miles away and working in a school not all that unlike Columbine High School.
Life changed in schools almost immediately after Columbine. As a child, I learned to walk quickly outside during monthly fire drills and, after a severe tornado hit our rural Pennsylvania community, to hide under my desk, away from windows, during a tornado drill. In middle school, I followed the crowd along the hallway wall --- turn right, go to the bathroom, cross the hall, turn left, and follow the lockers to exit at the main door --- confused when a teacher altered the prescribed path. Later, I learned that a student had set off a pipe bomb in the bathroom. We returned to class with the all clear. The student eventually returned to school.
Life was different then.
As a teacher, I learned fire drill protocol as part of our mandatory training. I always knew when a fire drill was going to happen - it was posted in the office where I signed in every morning. Fire drills were a time to chat with colleagues, corral teens into imperfect lines as they mingled with friends. There was nothing special about the drills in my school.
And then, the principal announced that in light of the recent school shooting, we would be implementing a Code C alert and doing occasional practice in addition to our regular fire drills. Code C meant an active threat, and it required us to take cover in our classrooms. Each year, the drill protocol intensified. We had to lock our doors. We had to close blinds. We had to take attendance at all drills (even fire drills) and submit sheets to the area lead. (We didn't have cell phones then, so everything was done by paper. )
When I moved to a new classroom that was created from a renovated garage, I stared at the full wall of open windows with a door leading out the back, near the track and football field. It was secluded. An intruder could easily access this side of the campus without being detected. There were no blinds on the windows, like there had been in my second floor classroom in the main building. I circled around, noting that there were large tables, a series of cabinets, and a short hallway to the interior door, which by that time according to protocol, remained locked at all times.
"Where are we going to hide?" I thought. My mental calculations told me I could reasonably hide less than half of my students where someone wouldn't have a clear shot to them. I was exposed. My classroom was not a safe space. These were the thoughts of a teacher in the early 2000s.
I wasn't a parent then.
In 2012 my children were in kindergarten. I wrote then about the impossible grief I felt when I learned of Sandy Hook. As a parent, I felt this tragedy differently than when I was a teacher, yet the aftermath was eerily similar. Protocols at my children's school changed almost immediately. Security increased. Lockdown drills intensified. My 5-year-olds hid in the bathroom of their classroom as a routine.
Today I entered the middle school of my own children, not as a parent, but as a teacher. I was visiting a student teacher from my education program, and as I walked into the classroom, she told me, "There's going to be a lockdown drill during 7th period."
I know I paused. I don't know if she noticed my wobble as I flashed back, first to 1999 and then to 2012. I quickly recovered, and said, "Great! I haven't actually experienced one in a long time." I knew this was normal and that my novice teachers need to understand it as part of the job. Her cooperating teacher and I went on to talk about protocols, Columbine, and how it's sad we have to teach with our doors locked. We lamented the layout of their room - with two doors and large windows, and I was transported back to A4, where I had nowhere to hide my students.
Then the children entered the room, I settled in to observe my student teacher, and I was so lost in the lesson that I was surprised by the announcement 25 minutes later of "This is a lockdown." The children turned to the teacher, who answered their looks with a nod and "the front of the room." The lead teacher closed the blinds. Someone turned off the lights. Everyone went quickly to the front and sat. I sat with them, noticing the open window the lead teacher had commented on earlier. The boys next to me fidgeted, and some very quiet chatter, barely perceptible, surrounded me.
I wondered how long we needed to sit there, in the dark, quiet and huddled together.
I looked down at my hand, realizing I had subconsciously grabbed my phone, in case of a real emergency.
I flinched as the door handle rattled during the lockdown check, and the boys to my left jumped. The tingle of fear rang in my spine. I reminded myself that this was normal. It happened once a month for my children - for these students and these teachers.
This was only a drill, yet the air filled with "what ifs."
Five LONG minutes later we all returned to our desks, and the students returned to their projects. My student teacher returned to her work in the classroom, and I returned to my observation. It was all quite normal.
It was then that I observed one student knocking on the door of the classroom. I realized she had been caught in the bathroom during the drill. She seemed a bit unsteady as she entered the room, embarrassed perhaps? Her group members immediately bombarded her with questions, and for several minutes, they processed what her experience in the bathroom had been. They turned from questions of "what was it like" to "what would you have done if..."
These students clearly know that "what ifs" are possibilities in their world. They needed to internalize the details of her experience in case they ever needed to know.
While I was huddled in the dark during the drill, listening to the students around me, I was thinking about my children, somewhere in the building, huddled with their classmates and teacher. I'm sad that this is their world. I wish they only had to hide from tornadoes, under desks that would not possibly protect them, and not from other humans, who intended them harm. I wish that the experience I felt today - as a teacher and a mother - was not normal.
Life changed in schools almost immediately after Columbine. As a child, I learned to walk quickly outside during monthly fire drills and, after a severe tornado hit our rural Pennsylvania community, to hide under my desk, away from windows, during a tornado drill. In middle school, I followed the crowd along the hallway wall --- turn right, go to the bathroom, cross the hall, turn left, and follow the lockers to exit at the main door --- confused when a teacher altered the prescribed path. Later, I learned that a student had set off a pipe bomb in the bathroom. We returned to class with the all clear. The student eventually returned to school.
Life was different then.
As a teacher, I learned fire drill protocol as part of our mandatory training. I always knew when a fire drill was going to happen - it was posted in the office where I signed in every morning. Fire drills were a time to chat with colleagues, corral teens into imperfect lines as they mingled with friends. There was nothing special about the drills in my school.
And then, the principal announced that in light of the recent school shooting, we would be implementing a Code C alert and doing occasional practice in addition to our regular fire drills. Code C meant an active threat, and it required us to take cover in our classrooms. Each year, the drill protocol intensified. We had to lock our doors. We had to close blinds. We had to take attendance at all drills (even fire drills) and submit sheets to the area lead. (We didn't have cell phones then, so everything was done by paper. )
When I moved to a new classroom that was created from a renovated garage, I stared at the full wall of open windows with a door leading out the back, near the track and football field. It was secluded. An intruder could easily access this side of the campus without being detected. There were no blinds on the windows, like there had been in my second floor classroom in the main building. I circled around, noting that there were large tables, a series of cabinets, and a short hallway to the interior door, which by that time according to protocol, remained locked at all times.
"Where are we going to hide?" I thought. My mental calculations told me I could reasonably hide less than half of my students where someone wouldn't have a clear shot to them. I was exposed. My classroom was not a safe space. These were the thoughts of a teacher in the early 2000s.
I wasn't a parent then.
In 2012 my children were in kindergarten. I wrote then about the impossible grief I felt when I learned of Sandy Hook. As a parent, I felt this tragedy differently than when I was a teacher, yet the aftermath was eerily similar. Protocols at my children's school changed almost immediately. Security increased. Lockdown drills intensified. My 5-year-olds hid in the bathroom of their classroom as a routine.
Today I entered the middle school of my own children, not as a parent, but as a teacher. I was visiting a student teacher from my education program, and as I walked into the classroom, she told me, "There's going to be a lockdown drill during 7th period."
I know I paused. I don't know if she noticed my wobble as I flashed back, first to 1999 and then to 2012. I quickly recovered, and said, "Great! I haven't actually experienced one in a long time." I knew this was normal and that my novice teachers need to understand it as part of the job. Her cooperating teacher and I went on to talk about protocols, Columbine, and how it's sad we have to teach with our doors locked. We lamented the layout of their room - with two doors and large windows, and I was transported back to A4, where I had nowhere to hide my students.
Then the children entered the room, I settled in to observe my student teacher, and I was so lost in the lesson that I was surprised by the announcement 25 minutes later of "This is a lockdown." The children turned to the teacher, who answered their looks with a nod and "the front of the room." The lead teacher closed the blinds. Someone turned off the lights. Everyone went quickly to the front and sat. I sat with them, noticing the open window the lead teacher had commented on earlier. The boys next to me fidgeted, and some very quiet chatter, barely perceptible, surrounded me.
I wondered how long we needed to sit there, in the dark, quiet and huddled together.
I looked down at my hand, realizing I had subconsciously grabbed my phone, in case of a real emergency.
I flinched as the door handle rattled during the lockdown check, and the boys to my left jumped. The tingle of fear rang in my spine. I reminded myself that this was normal. It happened once a month for my children - for these students and these teachers.
This was only a drill, yet the air filled with "what ifs."
Five LONG minutes later we all returned to our desks, and the students returned to their projects. My student teacher returned to her work in the classroom, and I returned to my observation. It was all quite normal.
It was then that I observed one student knocking on the door of the classroom. I realized she had been caught in the bathroom during the drill. She seemed a bit unsteady as she entered the room, embarrassed perhaps? Her group members immediately bombarded her with questions, and for several minutes, they processed what her experience in the bathroom had been. They turned from questions of "what was it like" to "what would you have done if..."
These students clearly know that "what ifs" are possibilities in their world. They needed to internalize the details of her experience in case they ever needed to know.
While I was huddled in the dark during the drill, listening to the students around me, I was thinking about my children, somewhere in the building, huddled with their classmates and teacher. I'm sad that this is their world. I wish they only had to hide from tornadoes, under desks that would not possibly protect them, and not from other humans, who intended them harm. I wish that the experience I felt today - as a teacher and a mother - was not normal.
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