Look, I’m the guy who thinks that we need to get kids thinking about how to react to horribly bad events – including school shooters – and I’d fire the clowns who initiated this:
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.
The mock attack Thursday night was intended as a learning experience and lasted five minutes during the weeklong trip to a state park, said Scales Elementary School Assistant Principal Don Bartch, who led the trip.
A tactical trainer who did something like that would be justifiably put out of business. May I suggest that other assistant principals who think that training is a good idea – which is the one thing Mr. Bartch ought to get credit for as he faces his well-deserved discipline and firing – go out and talk to people who teach this stuff for a living. IMPACT, and of the major shooting schools, or even local police (although they will by policy have to be very restrained in what they suggest).
Stupid, stupid, stupid. No excuse imaginable.
br. During the last night of the trip, staff members convinced the 69 students that there was a gunman on the loose. They were told to lie on the floor or hide underneath tables and stay quiet. A teacher, disguised in a hooded sweat shirt, even pulled on a locked door.
br. After the lights went out, about 20 kids started to cry, 11-year-old Shay Naylor said.
br. “I was like, ‘Oh My God,’ “ she said. “At first I thought I was going to die. We flipped out.â€
…
Some parents said they were upset by the staff’s poor judgment…
And the others were too angry to speak?
I don’t have anything but “me too” to add to what Armed Liberal said, but I’m going to say it anyway.
This is too ridiculous to be taken seriously. I think there needs to be an ‘office’ episode based on this with Steve Carell as the principal. The teacher can be Dwight.
How is this different than the usual campfire stories that are standard for trips like this? If crazy gunmen don’t fit the role of the bogeyman, than what would be better? Maybe the staff took it too far, or maybe they didn’t. I don’t know. This seems like overreaction from the other side of the debate. Worst case, it’s a matter of bad taste.
lurker – You are a moron. Why? 6th graders cannot discriminate between the fake and the real in a case like this. This was pure terrorization and stupid beyond belief. I would bet if I broke into your office with a gun, told you you were going to die, you would cry like a baby.
This whole scenario is idiotic beyond belief. The ‘adults’ involved should be fired. Perhaps treated to some of their own medicine.
Fools.
But if they don’t learn tactical movement in school, how do we know their parents are going to teach it to them?
Take the time to talk to your kids about combat!
Something similar happened in Taiwan last month:
http://foreignerinformosa.typepad.com/the_foreigner_in_formosa/2007/04/strike_a_pose_t.html
(Scroll down to the first update.)
The case Armed Liberal mentions is far worse, however, because of the involvement of grade school students.
I would change school for my child. And of course principle of this school would answer my questions in court. Idiots, damn. Sorry for cruel words
I would bet if I broke into your office with a gun, told you you were going to die, you would cry like a baby.
What if one of the kids had a ‘fight’ instead of a ‘flight’ reaction to this and seriously injured a play-acting shooter? Would that kid be in trouble? I hope not.
If a kid did knock one of these play-acting teachers upside the head, it certainly would have been a useful learning experience.
Mary: What if one of the kids had a ‘fight’ instead of a ‘flight’ reaction to this and seriously injured a play-acting shooter?
For that matter, what if someone witnessed or overheard this incident, didn’t know it was a drill, and called 911 who dispatched police and a SWAT team? No doubt the MSM and any manner and number of bloggers would be close behind as well. This little simulation of theirs could easily have ended up with fatalities and national media scrutiny.
It reminds me of the scene in Lethal Weapon 3 where Mel Gibson and Danny Glover intervene in a robbery in progress, only to discover (too late) that they were just filming a movie.
I know you are, but what am I?
lurker, Robo, don’t make me stop this car…
A.L.
_”How is this different than the usual campfire stories that are standard for trips like this? If crazy gunmen don’t fit the role of the bogeyman, than what would be better?”_
Boogeyman didnt just shoot up 30 people in a school in Virginia a few weeks ago.
I’ve read that it might have been intended as a prank.
I.e. That it was traditional for the teachers to pull a prank on the students during this field trip.
If #13 is correct, that makes this even worse.
AL-
bq. Worst case, it’s a matter of bad taste.
When someone makes a statement like this about the situation you posted about – terrorizing children, you want to equate me with the same child when I call them out on it? lurker has come around making some pretty inane statements, like this one. I feel more like I am disciplinging a child with him but I will respect your wishes not to bait the moonbats or whatever lurker happens to be.
later tater………
Agree or disagree, I find the reaction to this incident as more evidence of the encroaching zero-tolerance culture. Apparently, it’s a bi-partisan occupation these days.
Lurker, what your response is is evidence of an encroaching “equality” culture, where everything is the same, everyone is the same, and there is no such thing as evil. It used to be considered to be a Good Thing to poof yourself up sanctimoniously and opine, “I never judge anyone.” When you probe that delirious superiority with a few questions such as “Oh yeah, what about female genital mutilation? Is that OK with you? How about beheading Christian school girls just because they’re Christians? How about that? How about brainwashing school children to grow up to hate and kill another group of people because of their religion, telling them that suicide is something to aspire towards – you think that’s fine, too?” Then the superior puffer-upper suddenly becomes very interested in digging the dirt at his feet with his shoes.
I can’t believe you’re seriously going to defend this insane act of malice by these dumb teachers, evidently in the name of “it’s all information, and therefore equal”. Or are you just a career nay-sayer and devil’s advocate, making a habit of standing up for what everyone else agrees is bad? If so, do I have a candidate for you to support: Mr. Ron Paul who thinks America deserved to have 9/11 inflicted upon us. You deserve each other.
CNN
Looks more and more like a scary story prank gone wrong.
“Teacher Quentin Mastin came up with the prank, said Murfreesboro City School District spokeswoman Cheryl Harris. It was his turn to tell a scary story to 69 sixth-graders from Scales Elementary School who were on a weeklong trip at Fall Creek Falls State Park.
He decided to pretend there was someone shooting a gun. The children were called into the common area and told there were two men driving around shooting randomly. Then a teacher told the students to “do a code red” — a school emergency drill — and they got under the tables and turned off the lights.
Another teacher drove a car up to the building and flashed the headlights while a third put a sweat shirt over her head and rattled the doors. That’s when some of the children started crying.
“They never meant for it to get carried to the point it did,” Harris said.
When teachers realized some of the children were really scared, they turned on the lights and told them they had just been pretending.
“They took the opportunity to say, ‘This was a prank, but if it had been an emergency, you did the right thing,”‘ she said.”
http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/05/16/faked.attack.ap/
After Virginia Tech this elementary school reportedly went over its “code red” procedures with it’s students. Apparently this involved hiding under your desk, not a suicide charge. If they had been taught the suicide charge then they really would have been sh*tting in their pants.
NahnCee,
I have no clue what you are talking about in this context; and your post seems to be in response to some imaginary person, not me.
If I had to pick a contrast instead of an equivalence, it’d be the differing reactions to the banning of realistic looking but fake weapons used as props in university plays, and this prank gone bad.
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