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."
Obligatory... (Score:4, Funny)
In the words of Stan Marsh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In the words of Stan Marsh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In the words of Stan Marsh (Score:5, Insightful)
I attended school in the US and have been in school when tornadoes where in the area and have been in the school when it caught fire. Gunmen attacking isn't something that generally happens in US schools. Furthermore, in all those drills it was clearly stated that they were in fact drills and not the real thing.
Such a drill has no basis in reality and goes against fairly well reasoned and tested methods of conducting such drills. A gunman attack isn't something that is likely to happen to a student in their entire school lifetime, including if they go through a doctorate program, and even if it was what reason is there to pretend that such a drill is the real thing?
Re:In the words of Stan Marsh (Score:4, Funny)
Baby Steps... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
More like, the parents will be set for life, and the town will have to close down it's schools due to legal fees, and several teachers will be bankrupted and never again able to find work. The kids might get to sponge off their parents' newly enlarged coffers a little more greedily, but I seriously doubt the kids will ever see a dime of it after they turn 18. Probably won't be given the beamer either.
Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Principal Catherine Stephens declined to say whether the staff members involved would face disciplinary action, but said the situation 'involved poor judgment.'"
You think so, Doctor?
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that there are ways to tackle issues such as this. One is probably the most obvious, talk about it. I think if you want to do something like this, you have to contact parents to alert them you want to do this, and give them the option to remove their kids from this class (and/or field trip).
These teachers probably cost themselves their jobs as well as any chance to ever work in their field again. And considering their actions, that is probably a good thing.
RonB
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Interesting)
Statists like yourself fail to understand the statistics of small numbers. In a land of ten thousand tiny republics, an individual republic is rather likely to be taken by a bout of foolishness, as reported daily by purveyors of lurid debauchery (i.e., the news). Each one is small enough that a single fool or madman can temporarily convince enough of the people to do something utterly absurd. Statists read this and congratulate themselve for having a strong, rational government that is vastly less likely to be co-opted.
What they ignore is that the localized madness serves as a relief valve, to let the madness free in a contained way, and to hold up as a horrible example to the other tiny republics. The madness runs quickly to completion, and everyone gives it up as a bad idea at around the same time**. Conversely, although a strong centralized government is vastly less likely to come off the rails, when it does there are no internal barriers to keep the fire from consuming everything, and little untouched reserve capacity to rebuild afterwards.
**Remember that school in Colorado whose board decided to ban the teaching of evolution. It was little reported, particularly in the European press, that the locals had reversed the ban before the statist parties could even get going, despite the statists calling in all their favors to ram the case through a Federal court.
100 million dead. Few of them Americans. A free man's prudence is a statist's paranoia.
You propose to run the most important yet most abstract functions of giant nations with unwritten rules? If one tried that with even a tennis tournament, there would be unending strife and turmoil and likely bloodshed.
Unwritten rules only work for a mono-culture. Clear written rules allow cultures to mingle without either destroying each other or being assimilated Borg-style.
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:4, Insightful)
I did like the way you railed on someone for assuming the states in USA are homogenous, and then referred to 'down South' :-)
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Interesting)
Some sort of "drill" for these things might not be a bad idea. Panic and poor preparation are 2 major killers in all life-and-death situations, so preparing students for this kind of thing can save lives. Make it dynamic, throwing a few curveballs into the mix (chained doors and such) to help them think on their feet. I mean, fire drills are pretty common and I'd imagine "bomb drills" are done, and let's not forget the "H Bomb Drills" of old (duck and cover!).
Then again, they approached this thing poorly. They didn't treat it as a drill and instead scared the living goose feathers out of the kids. That's just messed up, particularly since the kids were so young and it was so soon after the VT shootings when people are nervous about such things. That would be like your boss screaming "There's a plane heading for our skyscraper! RUN!" on like 10/12/2001.
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Interesting)
As an owner of a paintball field I'm around guns a hell of a lot. When everything happened at VT and I heard the guy simply walked in and shot people one by one, I was incredibly confused. I could not for the life of me think of a reason why you would watch a man with a gun walk in and start shooting your friends and NOT DO ANYTHING TO DEFEND YOURSELF. Obviously I wasn't there, and obviously there were probably some other circumstances. But out of thirty, what was it thirty two, people not one picked up a desk or a book and chucked it at this guy's head.
We (in general) have lost our survival instinct. We've lost that 'fight or flight' and we've become sheep-like. "Oh, it's not me. Maybe he'll leave aft-
So yes. Maybe drills are the way to go. Paintball has helped me find my instincts (nothing to get your ass moving like a guy shooting 15 balls a second at you), but I realise that's not for everyone. People just need to be aware that, and this is key, shit happens! You can not plan for everything, but you have to be able to REACT.
To stray back to the topic at hand, this is really fucked up and these teachers should be fired and given some kind of counseling. Something has to be loose in your head to think this is OK to do.
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Interesting)
The question is, when everybody else around you is hiding, running, ducking and covering, how difficult would it be for you not to do the same?
But, I agree with you that a little back bone and some forewarning could have easily reversed the hunter/prey situation in the Virginia Tech shooting.
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Insightful)
Any of those are better that laying there and hoping that you're not next. I agree with the GP post, it doesn't seem like anyone even tried to fight for their life.
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:4, Insightful)
I've thankfully never been in such a situation, but I don't know if I'd be able to find something heavy, stand up, throw that thing across the room, and hope I don't get in his line of fire in the process.
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:4, Insightful)
But when he's already demonstrated that he's willing to kill with no provocation, all bets are off. You're next whether you're 10th or the very next one to be shot.
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, the paintball guy above is crazy to compare moving around a paintball field the same as moving around a battlefield. I am willing to bet that 75% of the tactics used on the paintball field wouldn't fly when real bullets are in the air. In paintball you sit out a round. In the real world, you're done, and people know that, and I'm sure act very differently because of it.
But whatever, we are all internet tough guys. It's all easy to make the logical choices back out of the situation, but when your life depends on what you do next, thats a hell of a lot of pressure to be thinking clearly.
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Interesting)
Uhmm, not likely. Been there, dealt with it effectively.
I used to work in a truckstop, turnin' wrenches in Breezewood, PA. One afternoon I was there in the middle bay of a three bay garage fixing a flat on a semi. I had a tire hammer, braeaking the bead on a truck tire. (tire hammer weighs about 6lb. with an 18-24" handle) Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone 'sneaking' around the front corner at the first bay with something in his hand pointed into the garage towards me. As I looked up at him, I saw he had a revolver in his hand and his hand tensing, the cylinder started to rotate.(he was about 30 feet away) Still stooped over, I flung the tire hammer at him..hit him center of chest (right in the 10-ring! for you target shooters out there)- he collapsed while dropping the revolver.
Sucked to be him, he was just going to 'play a joke on me' with a starter gun with blanks.
As Nelson would say: "HA! HA!"
Shattered sternum, internal bleeding, broken ribs...it must have really hurt to laugh! And no, I did not feel bad about it at all.
The PA State Trooper that responded to the call examined the revover and said he would have reacted in the same spirit because it was impossible to tell it wasn't a real firearm from farther than several feet away.
Granted, a tire hammer may be more effective than a textbook, but I can't believe that nothing was at hand to someone.
The only real weapon is the mind, all else are tools to use or abuse.
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Insightful)
(Note: While I live in UT -- as Red as they come, these days -- I'm a liberal-leaning person with a strong belief in personal responsibility. I proudly own and use several firearms.)
I'm one of those pro-gun folks who does (and did, after VA Tech) suggest that if everyone (or a non-trivial percentage) was packing on campus, that there may have been fewer deaths. I won't mod you down for having a difference of opinion, though. That's just lame -- discourse is a cornerstone of any civilized community.
Anyway, as to what I quoted from your post... I can't speak for anyone else, but if I were to "go postal" (and were still in control of my mind, as it were) I'd actively seek out a place where I *knew* everyone would be disarmed if they were good law-following citizens. That is, post offices, courthouses, any K-12 public school grounds, many churches (being a private property), and gun-free college campuses like the University of Utah and, say, VA Tech.
While many would see the logical conclusion to arming *everyone* as a recipe for anarchy and accidents waiting to happen, those of us on the other side of the issue believe that it is wrong (and downright silly) to place law-abiding people at an inherent disadvantage by default for simply following the law. After all, criminals don't give a flying fig about the laws, so they will always have an advantage. There's a good Dark Helmet quote a about Good vs Evil that addresses this very issue. ;)
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:4, Interesting)
Oops...I hit submit too soon...Anyway, the problem with the idea of allowing anybody to carry a concealed weapon, as has been proposed in Texas, is that the assumption is made that all gun-owners are responsible, upstanding citizens. That's clearly not the case. Not to cast dispersion on gun-owners, but no group of citizens is made up completely of responsible people who should be trusted with toting a concealed deadly weapon into sensitive public spaces.
Right now, it's easy to keep criminals with guns out of courtrooms. You check everybody for guns at the door. But if you start allowing anybody to carry a gun into a courtroom, that means criminals can get in, too. Sure, the chances that a mass-killing would occur would be much smaller, because the gunman would be shot quickly, but it only takes one shot to kill, for instance, a judge. Such a killing in a courtroom would have repercussions much farther than that individual person who happens to be a judge. It would signal a breakdown in law and order. I think it's makes much more sense to have armed, trained, background-checked, guards in courtrooms, which is what we already have. There are also generally tons of armed police in the average courthouse. It seems to me that having untrained, unchecked civilians carrying guns is more of a liability than anything.
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Insightful)
I concede to this point. However, we allow these same people all sorts of other privileges. We let them navigate large masses of steel at high speeds (yes, there's registration -- won't touch that one for now), we let them purchase other dangerous substances (compressed gases, chemicals, poisons, etc.) w/o any oversight, and we even let them *breed* unchecked.
If you believe that the State should not meddle in your procreation, travel, or shopping habbits, then you should reasonably conclude that your own self defense (even with a weapon of deadly force) should fall into this category as well.
I agree with the courthouse thing, though. I didn't think through my list well enough in my example. A courthouse is probably the *last* place I'd "go postal" at. :)
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:4, Interesting)
As mentioned, the mental dregs of society can still do a multitude of dangerous things (drink, drive, buy materials for making meth labs and other explosive devices, vote, etc.), so this is probably one of those instances that Jefferson was talking about with favoring "dangerous liberty over peaceful slavery." Ultimately, it comes down to either: an acceptable substitute is provided in cases where concealed carry is not in the interest of the operators of a building (such as a court house, which has plentiful security to mitigate risk of assassination and keep the onsite criminals under control) OR the building operators are exercising their rights to (stupidly, I would say) prohibit possession of weapons by people who have no will to use them on that premises, with force of criminal trespass charges behind them. Which certainly has prevented a slew of robberies...or not, as someone intending to commit robbery doesn't give half a damn if the owner prohibits guns in their home or place of business.
Are there a few bad apples with CCW permits? Absolutely, but they are few and far between. Let's not forget that the police mistakenly shoot more innocents than CCW permit holders do, and generally with poorer accuracy...and there are more permit holders than cops in any given state, I am willing to venture (well, except states where there are no permits). I don't mean to disparage the police (too much), but having a badge does not automatically make one the best shot...one still has to practice. And I know they are "looking for trouble" with the intent of stopping it, but still, you'd think they'd shoot fewer innocent people than those "crazy gun toting cowboy hick vigilante wannabees with itchy trigger fingers" (that job is reserved to the President). So, as with anything (cars coming to mind with drunk drivers), you have to let the idiots do it too until they screw up and lose their privileges. I prefer liberty over legalism, and that I might be self-reliant for the most part, including protection of myself from the ill-willed or utterly foolish.
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's quite possible to be irresponsible, but still abide by the law. For instance, if guns are allowed into public schools, a perfectly upstanding teacher might carry his
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a terrible argument for a gun advocate to make. Comparing gun crime crime statistics for the UK vs. the U.S. greatly supports the notion that gun controls make you less likely to get shot. Of course there are still shootings in the UK, but they are a tiny, tiny fraction of what they are in the U.S. Essentially what is a common occurrence in the U.S. (tens and thousands of gun deaths each year) is a freak occurrence in the UK (negligible in number: 100s, for a country around a quarter of the size of the population of the U.S.).
The entire gun advocate position is based on making up stories, using powerful imagery like that of a teacher or student taking the VA Tech shooter down. It's based on the idea that we must protect ourselves against the exceedingly rare but sensational (the VA Tech shooting), at the expense of the common (theft of firearms, use in crimes of impulse, etc.).
It's the same kind of argument we see when we have discussions about what to do about terrorism. These security discussions are characterized by the description of sensational past and future events, and how to deal with this or that specific attack ("What if they attack the Super Bowl? Or they could put ebola in the water supply!"). Bruce Schneier writes eloquently about "movie plot" threats and the way they lead us to make irrational securty decisions, born of fear, out of all proportion to the actual risk that we're dealing with.
It's pretty simple: The actual risk of being shot by Seung-Hui Cho or someone like him is vanishingly small. The risk of being shot by some yabbo who's pissed at you and happens to have a gun handy is, relative to that, pretty high. Making the former less likely and the latter more likely is bad trade-off. It's too bad so many people are seduced by the cinematic scenario of getting into a shoot-out with the bad guys to notice this, or allow rationality, rather than their power fantasies, to dictate public policy.
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Yeah. 'Cos you can prepare for a crazy dude bent on filling an elementary school full of lead. Who the hell thought this neurosis-inducing plan might be a good idea?
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:4, Insightful)
I've been on patrols that were ambushed. These were well trained well disciplined professional soldiers and the first minute or so was still total pandemonium and I really have no recollection of specifically what any of us did. Until we were able to assess the situation the best thing anyone could do was get behind solid cover and figure out the nature of the threat.
The last thing I would want some teacher doing is making tactical decisions about how to get a classroom full of students out of as building, particularly when the teacher has no way to know what is going on anywhere else in the building. The portion of the VT incident that happened in the classroom area lasted 9 minutes. No time to determine the specifics of what was going on and where, consult a building plan to determine evacuation routes, communicate them to the professors in the classrooms, then have them execute the plan. Doing anything other than barricading oneself in a safe room in a situation like this is a tactical mistake.
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Poor judgement (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Poor judgement (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of drills is not to educate on what to do when you're scared, the point is to educate on what to do in this specific situation. Take fire drills, for example: are students tricked into thinking their school is burning down? No, of course not. The point of the drill is to inculcate the directions that all students must follow in order to avoid chaos. Tricking the students achieves nothing but emotional distress--which is not helpful in any way--and disorder. Drills are there to make the procedure second nature so that disorder does not happen; they're there so that students in distress don't have to make decisions, because the drill spells out all decisions beforehand.
Parental consent is ALWAYS necessary when anything out of the ordinary happens, especially when said extraordinary thing causes emotional distress. Unfortunately, the article didn't make it clear whether this was teachers acting on their own authority during a field trip, or whether this was sanctioned by the administration without parental consent, but whichever it was, this was stupid, stupid, stupid.
Re:Poor judgement (Score:5, Insightful)
"Emotional distress."
Re:Poor judgement (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Poor judgement (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was in high school, we received the same warning for a drill as for the real thing. No one panicked, but no one was sure whether it was real or fake. Let me reiterate, high school. This was monumentally poor judgement by the teachers and the administration (I cannot imagine this was done without some administator knowing something.)
I think this exercise is worth considering, but not for sixth graders. Some thought should be taken as to student shooter situations, but recent events have been in high school and higher environments. Hear me out on this. Running this exercise in a high school would be advantageous. Teenagers think they are invincible in high school and would be more apt to go "vigilante" in this situation and try to track down a shooter. This exercise could help identify some of these lemmings.
Re:Poor judgement (Score:5, Insightful)
What do you mean by that please? Because it looks like you're saying that if someone were to try to stop the situation, they're a lemming? Seems to me, cowering under a desk waiting to be shot in the head is the mindless, ineffective approach. A student tackling the gunman so others could disarm him, or a teacher with a concealed carry permit, or _any_ non-passive response, seems to be a hell of a lot better than just waiting to die.
You just defined lemming for him. (Score:3, Insightful)
I think he was suggesting more to get the hell away from the area via a safe route, or otherwise get somewhere the gunman can't get to (i.e. blockade yourself into a room much like the students that survived Virginia Tech did).
Both your suggestions are prime examples of what the person you were responding to meant when he men
Re:You just defined lemming for him. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think he was suggesting more to get the hell away from the area via a safe route, or otherwise get somewhere the gunman can't get to (i.e. blockade yourself into a room much like the students that survived Virginia Tech did).
Right. That's how at least one of the professors got killed, by him shooting through the door. Better chance than sitting and waiting, sure, but so much less effective than if he'd had the means to effectively defend himself.
Both your suggestions are prime examples of what the person you were responding to meant when he mentioned lemmings - people who just sit and die and people who, well, go and die. Both are equally stupid when there's another more blatantly sensible option - get to safety and let well trained police/soldiers wearing bulletproof vests and armed with flashbangs deal with the guy with a gun.
In the case of VT, there wasn't a _get to safety_ option, was there. The hallways were occupied by a gunman, the exits had been chained shut. Waiting for professional help is what got them killed. ONE teacher with a gun could have stopped it at something less than 32 deaths. Even knowing that his intended victims were allowed to carry if they so chose might have deterred his entire rampage - it was obviously directed at helpless people. If he didn't know his victims were forced by law to be helpless, maybe he wouldn't have started in the first place.
Lemmings aren't the ones fighting the killer and dying, lemmings are the ones dying while hoping that "well trained police/soldiers" will show up in time to save them.
Re:Poor judgement (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice try, but it is a violation of federal law to bring a fire-arm onto public school property.
(The one exception being Police Officers in the course of their official Duties)
Well, and that other exception, the homicidal maniac on a rampage. Pesky little thing, reality, isn't it? Seems to me the fact that you'll never stop every last madman is reason enough to let the honest citizens defend themselves if they choose. Outlawing self-defense for good people only harms good people.
I also remember hearing about a study that says having a gun in that sort of situation is a Bad Thing(TM) because it changes your first instinct to be "draw weapon" instead of "duck & Cover/Run/punch/etc" where a gunman would already have his weapon drawn, and presumably pointed at you
Sorry, but state after state which has enacted concealed carry laws have shown the opposite of your vague "study from somewhere". Person on person crime goes down, and the only people less safe are the criminals. Me, I prefer to have the criminals afraid to attack good people.
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Re:Poor judgement (Score:4, Interesting)
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:Poor judgement (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell that to the shooters.
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Why are you calling them "lemmings?" Someone who goes all vigilante and tries to do something is not following the herd.
In many school shootings, fewer people would have died had students rushed the shooter(s) in an attempt to take them out. Especially in the VT massacre, where the shooter was allowed to metho
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Though this is entirely the wrong way to go about teaching them what to do. I really do wish that the kids had a riot and beat the living #*$% out of the teachers and put them in ICU. Noone would have blamed them
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No - it's actually correct to use the same warning for a drill and the real thing. The idea is that the drill teaches your proper reflexes and actions - and when the rea
Re:Poor judgement (Score:5, Insightful)
My guess is that they wanted to "test" how the kids would react in a "real" threat situation. But how fucking nuts do you have to be to use kids a guinea pigs for a psychological experiment without at the very least inform the parents about it? Even with information, this is no way to treat kids.
For fuck's sake, those are teachers. Not some oddball nutjobs, or science wizards in their ivory tower, who have no connection with the emotional makeup of kids. Those are the people we send our kids to, every single day, to learn things.
Do you wonder why kids snap and start shooting? When the adults we entrust them to don't even have the foggiest idea just what they do the the psyche of a child? This is something we hear about, because it has been so damn over the top that you can't simply keep it under cover anymore. How much psychological abuse do we never notice? How often do our kids get scarred by teachers who don't have the minuscle idea about motivating and actually encouraging the kids to learn, instead relying on scare and pressure?
Damn, I think I know where those trigger-happy kids come from now!
Re:Poor judgement (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you wonder why kids snap and start shooting? When the adults we entrust them to don't even have the foggiest idea just what they do the the psyche of a child? This is something we hear about, because it has been so damn over the top that you can't simply keep it under cover anymore. How much psychological abuse do we never notice? How often do our kids get scarred by teachers who don't have the minuscle idea about motivating and actually encouraging the kids to learn, instead relying on scare and pressure?
Stop this THINKOFTHECHILDREN!!!!1!11!! BS, please.
The psychological problem with your children is that they live a too much protected life. They are hysterically protected and cared about. What would they learn about coping with conflicts, bad people, bad bosses, bad things of life and so on, in the world you want for them? Nothing. They would live in a carefully crafted shell of tender hydrophilic cotton, until it's too late for them to learn that the world is not that depicted by the Disney channel.
Human beings didn't evolve in a happy, Teletubbies-like world. They evolved in a cruel savana full of bloody predators. Yet we are here. Childhood is made to learn to cope with bad situations, not to stay in a happy candy world.
Let your children have emotional distress. Let your children smash their heads on the bad facts of life. They are children -they will quickly learn and know how to react and they will become stronger and stronger (if you have a family shaping those conflicts correctly, of course). What will make your children crazy, neurotic people is to let them discover how bad is the world at 20, when they won't be able to pick up any emotional instrument to cope with the world anymore.
Re:Poor judgement (Score:5, Insightful)
Parental consent is ALWAYS necessary when anything out of the ordinary happens, especially when said extraordinary thing causes emotional distress.
Oh please. Stop this "emotional distress" BS.
My parents were subject to a LOT of "emotional distress" when they were children. My children father was a refugee from the Italian-Yugoslavia border during the WW II, fleeing to leave most of his relatives (except for his brother and his parents) slaughtered by the Tito army. My grandma, when a child, slept on the ruins of her bombed house. My mother, when a child, lived in Venezuela, with only my grandma caring of her while my grandpa worked 500 km apart and there were earthquakes and revolutions.
Still, my parents and grandparents are psychologically healthy, very normal people. The fact is: human beings have been created to survive a much more cruel, distressing world than our Occidental world. A little distress is more than harmless: it is actually a benefit, because they learn to cope with stress and bad feeling when still young, instead of waiting too late to discover the world is not made of happy Disney cartoons.
The only problem with that happening is that children will (wrongly) learn that OMG TERRORISTS are a common, everyday menace, while they should have to fear obesity much more for their lives, for example.
Re: (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."
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Well, I had my head bitten off a few weeks ago by slashdotter's who insisted that children should be exposed to extreme violence as quickly as possible (I had suggested on holding off with getting them to play Halo etc until they were more mature) as apparently bears would eat them if they didn't (you thing I'm kidding, but look through the archives!)
Personally of couse I say hold off with both Sex and violence as long as possible, they have a whole lifetime to follow up on those topics but the innocenc
Crying "wolf" (Score:5, Insightful)
It would have been quite dangerous for teachers... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Crying "wolf" (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that those who are best qualified to teach are also usually qualified to do something that pays FAR better. Between the better pay and the horrific politics of public schools, it's pretty hard to convince someone to teach unless they have nothing else they can do.
A few summers ago I got a job as a teaching assistant at a summer program for gifted high school students. As stressful as it was, it was the most rewarding job I have ever had in my life. Unfortunately, as much as I enjoyed helping to teach those students, there's no way I could teach high school. As rewarding as it can be, it can also be VERY stressful, and the pay is just not worth the stress, especially when you have to deal with public school politics in addition to unruly students.
In short - unless the educational system in our country gets overhauled soon (not likely, considering that we have giant leaps backwards like No Child Left Behind which makes the political bullshit WORSE), we're screwed.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Learning about authority (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Learning about authority (Score:5, Interesting)
>This is one of the lessons that most people don't get, until much later in life.
I wonder what if one of the students had brought a gun that day? Maybe shot the hooded teacher who rattled the door?
hmph
At least a Disturbing the Peace Charge (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:At least a Disturbing the Peace Charge (Score:5, Interesting)
They (thought) it was a correct behaviour in this "post 9/11 world" (whatver that is), and were made to look extremely foolish. But now we have an ACTUAL case of terrorism. In this case, these teachers *actually* terrorized these students. There motivation matters not. They have *actually* done to these children what the Boston Authorities (B.A.) did to Boston (but, then, pinned the blame on the ATHF, who had no reason to think anyone could react in the ridiculous manner of the B.A.
These teachers should be drawn and quartered for their ACTUAL act of abuse of these children.
Re:At least a Disturbing the Peace Charge (Score:4, Insightful)
What Maroons! (Score:5, Insightful)
I say we take the asshats responsible for this and lock them in the school's auditorium with all the angry parents and let the asshats see how it feels to fear for their lives.
Re:What Maroons! (Score:5, Insightful)
Take care to remember that when you hear a news item that makes you think any of these words:
...then you have almost certainly been given only half the story.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Re:What Maroons! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What Maroons! (Score:5, Funny)
That's what I said!
Indeed, we are in danger of a stack overflow here. When you read about US politics, you are begin given half the story about the giving of half the story.
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: (Score:3, Insightful)
You say that like it's something negative that they will use their own mind to judge a situation instead of turning to someone to tell them what to think and how to act.
I love the internet ... (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.cityschools.net/schoolsites/se/index.h
Scales Elementary Telephone (615) 895-5279
The new "Stop, drop and roll" for the '00's? (Score:5, Interesting)
I grew up in US/USSR Cold War times and spent a few schoolday hours a year huddled in the fallout shelter basement during drills. We also had tornado, flood and fire drills. What fun.
Seems to me that as shootings get more prevalent it might be a good idea to have drills to limit deaths from mass panic.
Re:The new "Stop, drop and roll" for the '00's? (Score:5, Insightful)
What these teachers did was equivalent of yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater.
No it won't (Score:5, Insightful)
No it won't. Not much will happen to them. Unlike the student who was arrested a while ago for completing his essay assignment as sked, these teachers will not be arrested. At best they may be fired after a couple months of looking in to it. They will probably only get a slap on the wrist. Don't forget that America in not interested in protecting children. This is a perfect example. By pulling this stunt, the teachers were able to scare the kids and permanantly brand the image of terrorists into the Children's minds. It doesn't matter that the thing turned up to be a hoax, the less educated/experienced of the kids will live with fear for quite a while, perhaps their whole lives. The teachers are acting much as the rest of America acts. It more important to mold children into the "American Cog" than to treat them fairly, or to give them an education. I mean, after all, what about the terrorists?
modern life in the US (Score:5, Insightful)
Zero tolerance (Score:4, Informative)
Did these teachers ride the short bus? (Score:5, Insightful)
Telling the kids that it wasn't a drill and they had to fear for their lives was counter productive at best. The teachers and administration that were involved in this should all be locked up. The purpose of this act was to terrorize the children. At a minimum, each person involved should be charged with one count of child abuse for each child affected by this incredibly retarded action. The closest any of them should be to a child for the rest of their lives is asking "do you want fries with that?"
Poor Judgment (Score:5, Interesting)
When an adult does it, it's "poor judgment;" when a student does it, it's "a potential threat that must be dealt with seriously."
Seriously... (Score:5, Funny)
Let the punishment fit the crime (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, some decades ago... before Columbine, before the year 2000 incident when what's his name shot coworkers at Edgewater Technology, and I believe before incidents in post offices made the phrase "going postal" part of the language... on one Halloween I thought it would be funny to wear a Halloween mask at work. It was a corpse-like mask that fit over my head. Apart from the mask, I was wearing my ordinary work clothes. I sort of scrooged down behind my computer monitor. I waited for a couple of coworkers to walk buy, then slowly stood up, saying nothing.
Let me tell you, I was completely taken aback by the intensity of the moment of terror that evoked in my coworkers. The unspoken thought was that people don't wear masks unless they're robbing a bank, or something. I immediately took of the mask, apologized profusely, never did it again. I wasn't fired, lectured, or disciplined, but those coworkers were cool toward me for some time. I realized I'd made a serious goof.
They were adults. It was Halloween. I did not have any weapons. I didn't jump out. I didn't say anything: not "Boo!", not "stick 'em up," or anything suggesing violence.
And for a fraction of a second--my colleagues were in fear for their lives. Only a fraction of a second, but that's the effect of doing something like that.
I can't begin to imagine the effects of a staged mock attack by adults on eleven-year-old-kids lasting for five minutes. That's not a short period of time to be in fear for one's life.
did they train them first? (Score:3, Interesting)
did they coordinate with local law inforcement and emergency services so they knew it was only a drill and participate in the drill?
if something like this was done right it could be a good thing, this shows none the signs of having been done right.
wonder what would have happened if someone had been seriously injured or killed in the panic?
Obviously.... (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Procedures (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember one year, where they announced on Monday Morning that they would run the drill at some point on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. They paged, we hid, then police officers cleared each room and told us what a wonderful job we had done. That was that.
A planned drill is fine, these procedures should be rehearsed. But, what if one of these kids tried to be a hero? Someone really could have gotten hurt. These teachers need to be sacked, at the very lease.
Approval?? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not condoning it but... (Score:3, Insightful)
America is breeding a country full of paranoid parents and kids that need psychotherapy if someone says boo to them.
good training (Score:5, Funny)
faking attacks is good training in case of a real attack. when i was in the army we were the victims of mock ambushes and raids all the time in the field... often at night or when we stopped to piss. it taught us to always be on alert. my second week of basic training i learned to stop pissing mid-stream. by the 6th week my default reaction to being awakened was to choke whatever woke me up. even now that i have been out of the army for 10 years i occasionally wake up from nightmares and look around for my M16. i am sure these kids have received the same benefits, and in their formative years no less.
I dunno - didn't scar me for life when it happened (Score:5, Interesting)
First thing in the morning, he's starting up a lesson, and some guy barges into the room ranting about how he'd been cut off in traffic, and how angry he was. After a few shouted exchanges, he pulled a cap gun out of hit pocket and "shot" my teacher - though he got excited and "shot" himself in the foot instead. Then he ran out of the room.
I think the point of the lesson was to teach us how to be good eyewitnesses or something. I don't remember if my teacher had a fake blood pack or not - could be that my memory has embellished it.
We weren't cowering under our desks, but the accuracy of our eyewitness accounts was shockingly bad even seconds after the event.
Mr. Selvig was a great teacher.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you've ever played any sort of FPS game you know full well people react in odd ways and you can't predict which way they will come at you fr
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They're not - when they happen they get amplified by extensive coverage on the 24-hour cable news programs.
Too true (Score:4, Insightful)
Still, in terms of number of lives saved, the resources would be better spent on educating kids about things like basic traffic safety, good nutritional habits, and not sniffing paint.
Re:Right Idea, Wrong Implementation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well, how common are school fires?
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
Re:Darwin awards (Score:5, Funny)
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?
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Funny)
Because in about five seconds Jack Thompson will emerge from his hole and say that the teachers in question trained for this fake attack by playing Doom and Counter Strike.
Overheard during the kicking... (Score:3, Funny)
Student 1: Hey! Hey folks, wait, it's our math teacher.
Student 2: I know.
Student 3: I've known from the start.
Student 4: I've seen it in the way he walked.
Student 5: Could you cut the chatter and concentrate on kicking?