Teachers Fake Gunman Attack 863
Anti_Climax writes "Staff members of an elementary school staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables.
It'll be interesting to see what happens to these teachers after the charges brought against students in recent months."
I love the internet ... (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.cityschools.net/schoolsites/se/index.h
Scales Elementary Telephone (615) 895-5279
Zero tolerance (Score:4, Informative)
Dependency (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Poor judgement (Score:1, Informative)
Some people have the belief that if you give any warning then the drill "isn't real enough." I can certainly understand this view, but the actions in most drills can cause damage to equipment or injury to persons if they are performed improperly. After you verify compliance with procedures you can lower the amount of warning you give. But you would never jump into a drill without warning with untrained personnel. You would be liable to get somebody killed.
The potential emotional injury (and even potential physical injury) for this incident is very high. The correct way to have handled it would have been to walk the students through the scenario, followed by a slow motion drill. Then later a drill would be announced (though not the type, it could be a fire drill, a earthquake drill, etc.) and performed with monitors to make sure that no students injure themselves. Of course, parents and senior school officials would have to be informed before any program like this was implemented.
Not nearly as bad as its been made out to sound? (Score:1, Informative)
Now, the only decision you have to make is do you believe the 11 year olds description of "about 20 kids started to cry" or the schools "the children remained there quietly for a short period of time"?
Darwin Award? (Score:3, Informative)
Keeping in mind that a Darwin Award is awarded to individuals that remove themselves from the gene pool in spectacularly stupid ways. It doesn't necessarily involve dying, but is does require that one be rendered incapable of reproducing, whether though death or sterilization.
So, who was killed or had their nuts cut off as a result of this dumb little stunt?
NOT a drill (Score:5, Informative)
http://cityschools.net/schoolsites/se/index.html [cityschools.net]
While I agree that the administrators on the field trip might have been a bit boneheaded in pulling this particular prank in light of recent events, it doesn't sound like this was any kind of "drill" at all. They also seem to have done some kind of follow-up with the students' parents after the trip.
Re:Right Idea, Wrong Implementation (Score:3, Informative)
I think statistically they are in the same neighborhood.
I don't know about the USA, but according to http://www.fire.org.uk/advice/FA/odpm_fire_pdf_028 815.pdf [fire.org.uk], between 1998 and 2002 there were on average 1500 fires in schools per year in the UK. If that's in the same neighbourhood as school shootings, move to a new neighbourhood.
This is a classic case of "man bites dog" reporting distorting public perception. School shootings get worldwide coverage, school fires usually barely make it to the local press, so if you get your information from the headlines you get the entirely wrong impression that the headline events are common and the non-headline events are rare.
Sensationalized coverage (Score:2, Informative)
This link was posted in another comment. People should read the news release at the top of the page as it offers an account of the events that contrasts starkly with the media accounts. Apparently, there was no "attack" staged; rather, the teacher told the children that there were people somewhere nearby shooting guns, though not at people. Most of the children did not seem upset by the incident. A few did, but supervisors talked to them and reported that they seemed fine afterward. But read the press release.
Re:My first thought hearing that comment was rathe (Score:1, Informative)
--
In Fascist America, commerce controls YOU
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:2, Informative)
But, of course, you do not say to a bunch of small children, "Kids, a bad man with a gun is coming to kill you today!"
The other side of the story (Score:4, Informative)
Unfortunately for them, even their own version seems crazy, insane, evil, outrageous, and inexplicable. According to them, it was customary for the teachers to perform what they call "typical campfire pranks" on the children. That's no way to treat pre-teen children. So-called "pranks" from adults are absolutely unacceptable, because children do not have enough experience to judge when a situation is absurd.
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Meh. (Score:3, Informative)
You'd be wrong [aol.com].
"(Oct. 18) - The Independent School District of Burleson, Texas, just south of Ft. Worth is the first in the country to adopt a policy of training students to immediately fight back and use their advantage in numbers to take tactical control if a gunman enters their classroom."
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:2, Informative)
This was not a "drill" (Score:1, Informative)
And this is even more insidious than a "school drill" because this was a camping trip, the kids are in an unfamiliar area.
You kind of wonder if, next year, the kids might not just pull a similar prank on the teachers the night before the last night. I wonder how they would like it.
Re:Poor judgement (Score:4, Informative)
I guess the right of the property owner trumps the right of the individual in Ohio. Makes sense in a way, I guess. Learn something new every day.
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:3, Informative)
Nice hypothetical. Sounds like those police shootings [google.com] where some dude reaching for his wallet gets 32 bullets in return from the cops. Except the cops *are* trained. Oh, so you think that *supports* your argument? Perhaps. Personally, I think the general impunity and unionization under which cops operate results in such problems. Sure, teachers are unionized, too. However, they're generally not given free reign to use deadly force, and, as such, would likely think twice (or thrice) about endangering anyone, else they be sued into oblivion.
Now, if the kid in your hypothetical scenario was wielding a chicken nugget, then the hypothetical teacher couldn't be blamed at all.
But seriously.... if it was widely known that a teacher was armed (even if they fancied themselves like Sledge Hammer [wikipedia.org]), do you think any punk in their right mind would chose that classroom to start something?
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:4, Informative)
Or you may not hit him hard enough and he kills you next.
This happened at restaurant I used to frequent: Some guy went in to rob it. One or the workers hit him in the head with a 2x4, but didn't hit him hard enough. The guy shot and killed the would be hero.
There are probably several dozen people who would say: "That wouldn't have happened if I'd hit him." Go ahead keep believing that, but until you actually do it, you have no idea what you're talking about.
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:3, Informative)
Not correct. If it were a duly-designated gun-free zone, the killer wouldn't have been able to bring his weapon into the school. Someone must have forgotten to file some paperwork.
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:3, Informative)
There is probably more difference between a feminist living in Berkeley California and a Baptist living in Alabama, then there is between someone living in Poland and someone living in Germany.
The population of Poland is about 38.6 million. The population of CALIFORNIA ALONE is about 36.5 million.
Most nations of the entire European Union can be matched up against the population of one or two or three US states. But aside from just the basic population issue, the US is HUGE, it is more than twice the size of the entire European Union combined. The entire EU is 4.4 million square km (1.7 million sq mi). The US is approximately 9.1 million square km (3.5 million sq mi). That distance matters.
The US Eastern Seaboard and the Western US Seaboard have population density and city spacing comparable to most of Europe. They have decent connection and interaction internationally. Foreign travelers to the US visit the urban areas, not rural middle America. And Rural Red Americans are far less likely to have any experience at all traveling internationally. In many ways our two Seaboards and interior major metropolitan centers have culture and attitudes much closer to the "average" European. However vast swaths of the US have a population density, and most importantly the level of interaction and CONNECTEDNESS, that still pretty much qualifies as isolated frontier land. New York City and Los Angeles... 3961 km (2462 mi) apart... are in many ways better connected and have more mobility and interaction to each other and internationally than most towns in rural Middle America have with any city, much less with the rest of the world. Rural Red America, millions of square km/mi, an area larger than the entire EU.
There's a famous saying: The British think a hundred miles is a long distance, and Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
Half of American think little of the fact that they have to travel a hundred (or a few hundred) miles just to get to even a minor population hub. And the other half of Americans, around the urban areas, think little of hundreds or a thousand of miles skipping from major population center to major population center.
From grandparent post:
Americans are surprisingly socially conformant, in particular when it comes to the God/country/family stuff.
That can be rather true of Heartland Rural Red America. But it's not particularly true of Urban and Seaboard Blue America.
-