A seven year old explains the chilling new security drill at his school.
I was forwarded an email from a parent I know this morning.
I have changed the names of the principal, teacher and student involved. But the email is otherwise quoted directly. I apologize in advance to the person who authored this, but it speaks volumes about what parents’ fears and the new realities of life after the tragedy at Newtown.
Timothy (age 7) told me about a new drill they practiced yesterday. Called Mr. Wolf. Principle Johnson comes over the loud speaker and says, “Mr. Wolf is in the building.” And the kids empty out the side closets and climb into them and shut the doors. Ms. Carlisle turns out the lights. I said, “Who’s Mr. Wolf?” He said it’s a code word for if a guy who wants to hurt kids ever comes into the building. I asked if they giggled in the closet and if it was stuffy in there. He said it has holes in it so they could breathe just fine. And that they were supposed to be very quiet.
I wept when I read this. But I was also grateful for the preparedness planning behind it. If only wish we could now get each of our elected officials to spend a few minutes in this little coat closet with them.
About Mark Greene
While I understand the precaitionary measures after such a tragic event, this will only add fuel to the fire that is “Every guy is a danger to kids”. And will only render male survivors completly invisible, not that they aren’t invisible anyway.
Now I’m even more glad that I taught all 3 of my kids to disobey the teacher, break a window, throw a coat over the sill & head for the hills…..
Hidden in a closet sounds uncomfortably close to fish in a barrel….
Sound advice if you’re on the first floor.
Not just male survivors, but consider the message that sends to the boys in the school. Those boys will someday grow up to be men themselves. At some point they will go from being “innocent children” to “suspicious men,” somewhere around late adolescence in a lot of cases. Perhaps this is part of the problem with violence among young men – they are being told from a young age that to be a man is to be dangerous.
Good news for drug dealers and kidnappers. If you want to infiltrate a school, send in a woman who looks like a mom. The school’s too busy looking for a strange man to notice you.
Even worse, the message continues to be that the biggest danger to children is strangers, when statistically it’s the people they already know….
@ wellokaythen …. Then you must mean this women Aafia Siddiqui … Who doesn’t know her, I mean why we would be making this list anyway. A mother of three; schooled well, joined MIT, a fluent English speaker and by far the most suspected terrorist belonging to Al Qaida Organization. To top it up she is a neuroscientist, who can mess with your mind and you won’t even know it. FBI has captured her and has her in custody in New York. She also had a computer flash drive with emails (serving as a road map) sent to various suspected Al Qaida members around the world. I mean this is what Al Qaida wants, a highly educated fish that can blend almost anywhere.
She’s probably been brainwashed by the insidious wiles of patriarchy and a victim of a male-dominated culture. As we all know, it’s men who perpetuate violence, and as Sec, Clinton has said, women are the main victims of war.
[sarcasm]
Well, thanks for this input. When we get an upsurge in mass kidnappings, we’ll know to start profiling women. But for today, we’re talking mass shootings. And as a male, in that single context, I’m going to tell my son to look out for a man (most likely with an assault rifle.) I will also tell him to look out for all the other men who will be coming to help stop the shooter. As well as the women who will be coming, too.
There a reason why the Wolf in this case is a mister.