Please can you help settle a curiosity for me…

[rowan_johnson@mastodon.social]

Please can you help settle a curiosity for me…

Americans only: did you do “active shooter” drills when you were at school?

[rowan_johnson@mastodon.social]

Non-Americans only: did you do “active shooter” drills when you were at school?

[rozeboosje@masto.ai]

@rowan_johnson Of course not. I grew up in a civilised country. While an "active shooter" scenario was not literally "impossible" it was SO remotely unlikely that doing such exercises would be as absurd as training the kids for the chance that a meteorite would hit the classroom during Maths.

[robb@social.lol]

@rowan_johnson I didn’t but my wife’s school she works at (primary + nursery) do run active attacker drills which is…the same?

[timmymac@social.vivaldi.net]

@rowan_johnson no, but only because I'm old. My kids all have.

[matt_birchler@mastodon.social]

@rowan_johnson not when I was a kid, but that was too long ago 👴

Grade schools and high schools do them everywhere today, and have for at least 10 years.

[andydearden@mastodon.green]

@rozeboosje @rowan_johnson Dunblane, Scotland, 1996 remains the worst such event in UK history. Very rare, so it really wouldn't make sense to run regular drills.

[rozeboosje@masto.ai]

@AndyDearden @rowan_johnson imagine. That's 30 years ago and we still remember it. I can't remember anything about the last mass shooting in the USA I heard about. Shocking.

[jswright61@ruby.social]

@rowan_johnson
I’m too old (born in 61)
I was too young for nuclear bomb drills (which was a thing a few years before I started kindergarten)
We did do tornado drills (grew up in St. Louis, Missouri) which were essentially the same as I understand it to the nuclear bomb drills I missed. We had to sit cross legged on the floor bend at the waist so that our torsos were as close as possible to parallel with the floor, put our hands on top of our heads and interlock our fingers. NOT A FAN.
@jan

[natebarham@wandering.shop]

@rowan_johnson Needed to ask “Americans only. Do schools in your town/city do active shooter drills?”

Mastodon is too old collectively for most to have done the drills themselves unless you’re a teacher, like me. I’ve done many. Multiple times per year for almost my entire career of ~20yrs. I hate it. And it is (horrifically) necessary.

My kids (15 and 18) and students know *only* a world with these drills. They’re as “normal” as fire drills for them, which is a different kind of terrible.

[danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host]

@rowan_johnson probably need some age normalization in this? The '70s and '80s aren't the naughts and teens...