A couple of weeks ago, WCK's school had a fire drill. The teacher told me the drill made WCK a little bit nervous and that she cried (WCK cried, not the teacher. Although if I had to be in charge of 18 three-year-olds, I'd probably cry a lot. And drink.).
When I picked WCK up on Tuesday, the teacher told me that they had another drill, and that WCK cried again. This one was a "shelter in place" drill. I'd never heard of this before. Back in my day, we only had two kinds of drills: Fire drills (everyone went outside) and "disaster" drills (everyone went into the hallway). I think the disaster we were officially preparing for was a tornado, although I suppose a school hallway can protect from a wide range of disasters -- nuclear war, swarms of locusts, bear attacks -- so they didn't want to label it for just one particular disaster. I remember we always had to take our math books with us during disaster drills. The theory was that if debris started to rain down on us, we'd put the math books over our heads and be protected. This was either a really dumb plan or math books were made out of heavy-duty materials in the '80s. I'm not sure.
Anyway, WCK's teacher explained that a shelter in place drill is in case "someone gets into the school who is not supposed to be there, and we have to call 911." I'm guessing that "someone" = "gun-toting maniac". Later, I Googled "shelter in place" and found the same drill can be used in case of chemical attacks by terrorists. Nice. Either way, the kids all go into the bathroom together, close the door, turn off the lights, sit on the floor and "hide".
I can't say that I blame WCK for crying over this one. I mean, I'm glad --very glad -- that the school has a plan to protect my child, but knowing that that it's necessary for three-year-olds to have to prepare for these kinds of things makes me want to start crying myself. Maybe WCK wasn't crying out of fear: She was presenting a moving commentary on today's society. Cry away, WCK. Cry away!
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