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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHave you ever wondered what goes on in those school shooter trainings...
Link to tweet
Have you ever wondered what goes on in those school shooter trainings your childs teacher is required to undergo?
as it turns out, I took extensive ethnographic field notes of the one I did.
Want to know some of what's in them?
The start of the day:
Our principal made a big show of welcoming the officers to the building, laughing & greeted them by their names like they were old friends.
We had never seen them before. And the officers never introduced themselves to the group, never told us their names
The whole thing turned out to be facilitated by an LLC run by former law enforcement who perceived a business opportunity in the private sector.
From the sterling client roster they rattled off at the beginning of the session, theres $$$ to be made
Reinforcing this perception: we were forced to sign waivers absolving the company of any responsibility for any & all harm we might experience during the scenarios.
A fellow teacher looks uncomfortable: I didnt expect wed be at any risk, he says quietly.
He still signs
The day was dedicated to normalizing.
The officer told us, Citizen preparation for danger is nothing new. Weve been doing these for years: fire drills, earthquakes, tornadoes.
She paused in a practiced way & said, As teachers, you guys are really the first responders
The intro talk had almost no sociological data, no research from psychology, no real information at all.
Instead, each powerpoint slide was riddled with acronyms:
4E: Educate, Engage, Escape, Evade.
RP: Rally Point
RUP: ReUnification Point
One slide had a toolbox with 4 golden Es in the lid & the text: Not a single solution approach. Flexible. Use what you believe works. Tools for your toolbox
The slides werent just cheesy they were designed to cut off critical thinking. Substantive Qs were "unprofessional"
They showed us a surreal video of shootings, all set to an instrumental version of Say Something Im Giving Up On You.
Gradually building synth chords:
🎶Im sorry that I couldnt get to you"🎶
🎶Youre the one I love and Im saying goodbye🎶
Faces of victims fade out
We get divided into groups. My group goes into a classroom and is told to wait, that there will be a scenario of some kind starting soon.
A colleague whispers to me, Were just sitting here waiting to get shot at.
She looks ashen, wants to start prepping the classroom now
We hear them shoot blanks in the hallway. The gun sounds like a really bad prop for a school play.
People spring into action, trying to push tables against the door.
But nobody shut the door first, & its left open
A brief debrief in which the officer repeatedly emphasizes there are no wrong answers, it's just completely up to us, the important thing is to do something.
As she leaves, she adds, "You did good!
A teacher says quietly, It didnt feel like it.
Then comes the engage scenario where an intruder gets into the room with a gun.
My colleagues throw blue tennis balls at him, dancing around the classroom like theyre doing a basketball drill.
"Keep your feet moving, keep moving around the room!" we were coached
In the debrief for that one I realized: my colleagues think theyre being taught how to survive.
They dont know this technique is intended to slow down our deaths, to give law enforcement more time to respond
Its between scenarios that convos happen.
All I know is, if they come in the kitchen then we can throw knives, says a cook.
A teacher points at a bottle of bleach in the corner of the science lab, says we could use that chemical to burn them.
(Against an assault rifle?!?)
Another scenario. The officers start having this conversation that feels fake to me. Sure enough, suddenly one pulls out a gun, points it.
Teachers throw tennis balls at him & then time is called.
We just wanted to show you how fast someone can pull a gun on you they explain
So, so much gets normalized.
Were in a room, waiting for a scenario to start when we hear more gunshots.
They sound more faraway than usual.
(Note: there is now a usual.)
Is that us? I think its the classroom downstairs.
We dont react
There was a CYA first aid bit at the end. No training on what to do, just you got a card with your victim & had to say verbally what you might do.
There was a lot of vague talk about amputating legs. How any of tht was supposed to prevent someone frm bleeding out, I don't know
The end: the principal sweeps into the room, leads an ovation. Trills off some platitudes about how its just SO good that now were knowing what the options are
And - despite her own lack of participation or even observation - she gushes abt how reassuring she found the day
So look, thats really what the training was about IMHO: appearances.
Because thats pretty much what we have when we refuse to enact meaningful gun control legislation.
Its a theatre-prop gun when were talking about automatic rifles.
Maybe its different at other schools, I dont know.
Maybe theres a way to do it better. (There surely has to be.)
But we shouldnt accept the easy normalization of this idea that a school shooting is somehow the same as a fire, earthquake, or tornado.
And we shouldnt lose sight of the fact that the only reason schools are doing it at all is because were so desperate to try to make some difference, any difference.
We subject children to the lesser trauma of drills, hoping it will prevent the greater trauma of death.
But honestly?
These school shooter trainings seem like what youd get if you translated thoughts and prayers into a ritual sacrifice for teachers & students to enact periodically throughout the year.
No matter how much this is normalized, its not normal.
And the sad resignation that so many seem to adopt as the mature response? Doesnt seem fitting if we're supposed to be the adults in the room
/fin
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1096048357041233920.html
as it turns out, I took extensive ethnographic field notes of the one I did.
Want to know some of what's in them?
The start of the day:
Our principal made a big show of welcoming the officers to the building, laughing & greeted them by their names like they were old friends.
We had never seen them before. And the officers never introduced themselves to the group, never told us their names
The whole thing turned out to be facilitated by an LLC run by former law enforcement who perceived a business opportunity in the private sector.
From the sterling client roster they rattled off at the beginning of the session, theres $$$ to be made
Reinforcing this perception: we were forced to sign waivers absolving the company of any responsibility for any & all harm we might experience during the scenarios.
A fellow teacher looks uncomfortable: I didnt expect wed be at any risk, he says quietly.
He still signs
The day was dedicated to normalizing.
The officer told us, Citizen preparation for danger is nothing new. Weve been doing these for years: fire drills, earthquakes, tornadoes.
She paused in a practiced way & said, As teachers, you guys are really the first responders
The intro talk had almost no sociological data, no research from psychology, no real information at all.
Instead, each powerpoint slide was riddled with acronyms:
4E: Educate, Engage, Escape, Evade.
RP: Rally Point
RUP: ReUnification Point
One slide had a toolbox with 4 golden Es in the lid & the text: Not a single solution approach. Flexible. Use what you believe works. Tools for your toolbox
The slides werent just cheesy they were designed to cut off critical thinking. Substantive Qs were "unprofessional"
They showed us a surreal video of shootings, all set to an instrumental version of Say Something Im Giving Up On You.
Gradually building synth chords:
🎶Im sorry that I couldnt get to you"🎶
🎶Youre the one I love and Im saying goodbye🎶
Faces of victims fade out
We get divided into groups. My group goes into a classroom and is told to wait, that there will be a scenario of some kind starting soon.
A colleague whispers to me, Were just sitting here waiting to get shot at.
She looks ashen, wants to start prepping the classroom now
We hear them shoot blanks in the hallway. The gun sounds like a really bad prop for a school play.
People spring into action, trying to push tables against the door.
But nobody shut the door first, & its left open
A brief debrief in which the officer repeatedly emphasizes there are no wrong answers, it's just completely up to us, the important thing is to do something.
As she leaves, she adds, "You did good!
A teacher says quietly, It didnt feel like it.
Then comes the engage scenario where an intruder gets into the room with a gun.
My colleagues throw blue tennis balls at him, dancing around the classroom like theyre doing a basketball drill.
"Keep your feet moving, keep moving around the room!" we were coached
In the debrief for that one I realized: my colleagues think theyre being taught how to survive.
They dont know this technique is intended to slow down our deaths, to give law enforcement more time to respond
Its between scenarios that convos happen.
All I know is, if they come in the kitchen then we can throw knives, says a cook.
A teacher points at a bottle of bleach in the corner of the science lab, says we could use that chemical to burn them.
(Against an assault rifle?!?)
Another scenario. The officers start having this conversation that feels fake to me. Sure enough, suddenly one pulls out a gun, points it.
Teachers throw tennis balls at him & then time is called.
We just wanted to show you how fast someone can pull a gun on you they explain
So, so much gets normalized.
Were in a room, waiting for a scenario to start when we hear more gunshots.
They sound more faraway than usual.
(Note: there is now a usual.)
Is that us? I think its the classroom downstairs.
We dont react
There was a CYA first aid bit at the end. No training on what to do, just you got a card with your victim & had to say verbally what you might do.
There was a lot of vague talk about amputating legs. How any of tht was supposed to prevent someone frm bleeding out, I don't know
The end: the principal sweeps into the room, leads an ovation. Trills off some platitudes about how its just SO good that now were knowing what the options are
And - despite her own lack of participation or even observation - she gushes abt how reassuring she found the day
So look, thats really what the training was about IMHO: appearances.
Because thats pretty much what we have when we refuse to enact meaningful gun control legislation.
Its a theatre-prop gun when were talking about automatic rifles.
Maybe its different at other schools, I dont know.
Maybe theres a way to do it better. (There surely has to be.)
But we shouldnt accept the easy normalization of this idea that a school shooting is somehow the same as a fire, earthquake, or tornado.
And we shouldnt lose sight of the fact that the only reason schools are doing it at all is because were so desperate to try to make some difference, any difference.
We subject children to the lesser trauma of drills, hoping it will prevent the greater trauma of death.
But honestly?
These school shooter trainings seem like what youd get if you translated thoughts and prayers into a ritual sacrifice for teachers & students to enact periodically throughout the year.
No matter how much this is normalized, its not normal.
And the sad resignation that so many seem to adopt as the mature response? Doesnt seem fitting if we're supposed to be the adults in the room
/fin
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1096048357041233920.html
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Have you ever wondered what goes on in those school shooter trainings... (Original Post)
demmiblue
Feb 2019
OP
spanone
(135,950 posts)1. K&R...
rurallib
(62,483 posts)2. Thanks for posting - I hope this goes viral
I think I will send to my puke senators FWIW
demmiblue
(36,920 posts)5. I hope it does, too.
If you go to her Twitter account, she is retweeting a lot of other people's responses to her thread. Very illuminating (and sad).
Security kabuki for everyone!
jalan48
(13,916 posts)4. K & R.
Fuzzpope
(602 posts)6. Utterly mortifying.
japple
(9,850 posts)7. This is about as effective as Duck & Cover.
Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)8. K&R
Thanks for posting.
Susan Calvin
(1,657 posts)9. I'd like to think I wouldn't sign that liability waiver.
If I got fired for that, I hope I could sue their pants off.
progressoid
(50,020 posts)10. MAGA
AwakeAtLast
(14,134 posts)11. I absolutely would not have signed that document.
They can write me up and escort me out.
Susan Calvin
(1,657 posts)12. That should not be a condition of any job. nt