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I’m starting to think lockdown drills do more harm than good
I keep thinking about my scariest experience teaching. Logically it should be when the bagel shop exploded nearby. Our preschool was just a couple blocks away. We felt the boom and had to evacuate. Luckily no one was hurt and it went about as smoothly as you could hope in that sort of situation.
But really it was one day we were out on the playground. I think it must’ve been during the lead teacher meeting, because even though I was just the assistant I was the one in charge.
And the lockdown alarm went off. I’d done lots of them before, but never as the person in charge and never on the playground. We had also had one pretty recently before this and it really seemed like too soon to be having another drill. So in my head I was like, “Well shit, this could be real. And I’m in charge.”
So I called the kids (4 year olds) over to the stairs to get ready to go inside and counted them. I forget who the other teacher was but I remember she was either an aide or sub, so not normally in our classroom. She clearly thought it was a drill (and she was correct, but I didn’t know that yet.)
I was very consciously like, I need to be calm and confident, or at least appear that way. Dumb to freak the kids out if nothing’s happening. And if something’s happening I need them to…
