Ubalblog

[  Mood: Silly ]
[  Currently: Listening to CBC Radio One ]
So there is a new trend in Ottawa.

The school lockdown.

In the last few weeks there have been three sets of prank calls to 911 in my city claiming that there is a gunman in the schools. This means that the school, and any schools that are close by, go into lockdown.

What is that you ask?

Well it’s where students are herded into the nearest classroom, have to sit on the floor, away from the door and stay quiet.

Isn’t it fun living in a post Columbine world?

But lest you think this is just all good teenage fun, let me explain a bit more. ‘Cause my school was one of the ones that got locked down.

I was outside doing first aid when it happened. My students were waiting for me in another part of the yard for their Daily Physical activity when this happened. They were being supervised by another teacher who did not know there was a lockdown.

I had to thrust the child I was working with into the school and beetled over to the door nearest to where my students were. With me screaming at them to move, they bolted to the school. Once in the classroom, I now faced the reality of keeping 30 kids calm and quiet for 90 minutes. One of my students was so scared, if she could have melting into the wall, she would have.

But I didn’t have the worst of it. The primary classes are full of little kids who had to go pee. After 30 minutes, the teachers had them peeing in the garbage. Imagine being in a room when that’s happening. When my grade 8s said they had to go pee, I told them no. One said "Am I supposed to piss my pants?" My answer, "Pretty much."

This kind of stuff is stupid and its dangerous. After a prank like that, are students and teachers going to take the next one seriously? One High School has been locked down three times in a month because of this stuff. What happens if the next one is real? Will those students and teachers be quick enough and quiet enough to survive? Will the cops be as vigilant in responding?

The fact that the idiot or idiots that are doing this are stupid is obvious. I hope that they are prosecuted to the full extent of the law. In addition, I want them to be left alone in a room with all the primaries who had to pee in garbage cans as a consequence. They’d teach them a lesson they would not forget.