There once was an almost-quaint era in our schools.
Students conducted fire drills. Those of us who grew up during the Cold War went through drills where we would be instructed to duck under our desks in case the Soviet Union decided to launch nuclear missiles at us.
Today we are in a different time. Now our students are conducting “active shooter drills” in schools. Educators are instructing our children about what they do when someone unloads a firearm.
Welcome to 21st-century America? Good ever-lovin’ grief, man!
Today’s students are facing dangers I never recall giving an instant of thought back when I was a kid. Parkland, Fla., has joined a lengthening list of American communities that have been scarred by gun violence tragedy. Seventeen people died; more were injured. A former student is arrested and charged with premeditated murder and is being held without bail in jail.
I suppose you can say that our school systems mark the most graphic changes in our culture. We’re hearing now in the wake of the Parkland massacre about these active shooter drills. Oh, my!
Consider, too, how public school students are able now to attend their schools after giving birth to children. Schools have day care centers on campus for the babies who belong to students.
I remember quite vividly how it used to be. It was around 1966 at the high school I attended. A girl revealed she was pregnant; she was unmarried. Almost immediately, this girl disappeared from the face of the planet, moving somewhere far, far away … never to be seen or heard from again by her friends at the school we all attended.
It’s not that way these days. See what I mean?
So it is with active shooter drills in our schools.
They’re keeping track these days of on-campus shooting incidents throughout the United States. Here we are, a month and a half into 2018 and we’re on track to set some sort of unofficial record for these kinds of events. Some of them have produced no casualties. Others have been tragic, such as what occurred in Parkland, Fla.
The very idea that we have to teach our children about how to deal with active shooters sickens me to my core.