Monday, May 14, 2007

Teachers stage fake gunman attack on sixth-graders

CNN reported Staff members of an elementary school staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables. The mock attack Thursday night was intended as a learning experience
Any teacher or other educator that thinks that that was a "learning experience" should be fired, and very possibly should go to prison.
and lasted five minutes during the weeklong trip to a state park, said Scales Elementary School Assistant Principal Don Bartch, who led the trip. "We got together and discussed what we would have done in a real situation," he said. But parents of the sixth-grade students were outraged.
I can imagine that they would be. I hope that they talk to the school board and see that all of these educators are fired, and if the school board backs the educators, then they need a new school board.
"The children were in that room in the dark, begging for their lives, because they thought there was someone with a gun after them," said Brandy Cole, whose son went on the trip.

Joanne Jacobs blogged What can we learn from this? That Scales Elementary administrators have a tendency to confuse stupidity with learning.

Craig commented No doubt these are the same people who won’t allow prayer or patriotism in class because some students might be traumatized by feeling excluded.

Paulie blogged It is a sad but true fact that schools must now drill on such situations, however use your fucking heads “Educators.” When you have a fire drill, do you tell 10-year-olds “this is not a drill the school is on fire and you may die?” What in the hell makes these idiots think having a shooting scenario drill should be any different. I continue to weep for those saddled by the monopoly that government has on education.

Rick Moore blogged With the Virginia Tech shootings still fresh in our memory, what in the world were these people thinking pulling a drill like this without telling the parents and the kids? Somebody needs to lose their job over this one, and I'm pretty sure there will be suits to follow.

Democratic Daily blogged What the hell is wrong with those people? Have we not seen enough fear mongering to last for a long time to come? It’s fine to teach the kids a lesson and make them safer if something was to happen, but this is plain stupid and insane. What happens to those kids now? What will this do to them now that those teachers chose to use tactics that are not only “poor judgment”, but criminal?

Joe Gandelman blogged Question: isn’t joking about terrorism and/or impending terrorist attacks something adults know they can’t do (just try fooling around with it on a plane or with a TSA inspector)?What made these folks think that telling elementary school kids they were really under attack by terrorists would be taken by all the kids (and seen by their parents) as a harmless “prank?”

Brian blogged It’s all well and good that these teachers want to prepare for a worst-case scenario, but I think they could have handled it a LOT better than this. If it were my kids in that school, I’d be one pissed-off parent, too. Think of the trauma, the nightmares, etc., that these kids are going to be dealing with. Not as much as if it were the real thing, of course, but still, it’ll be bad enough.

Armed Liberal blogged A tactical trainer who did something like that would be justifiably put out of business. May I suggest that other assistant principals who think that training is a good idea - which is the one thing Mr. Bartch ought to get credit for as he faces his well-deserved discipline and firing - go out and talk to people who teach this stuff for a living. IMPACT, and of the major shooting schools, or even local police (although they will by policy have to be very restrained in hat they suggest).

Stupid, stupid, stupid. No excuse imaginable.


John Hawkins blogged What these teachers did was absolutely unconscionable and not only should all of them be fire, none of them should never be allowed around children again.

James Joyner blogged Your mission, should you chose to accept it: Write a compelling explanation as to why the teachers in question are not frothing idiots.

Waveflux blogged Welcome to Scales Elementary School in Murfreesboro, TN, where the teachers are not only stupid, they’re cruel

Diane blogged They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, or so I'm told.

3 comments:

Laura(southernxyl) said...

I think the learning experience is going to be the school system's learning what counseling for post-traumatic stress disorder costs. Because some or all of these kids are going to need it.

If my daughter had been put through that I would have to be physically restrained.

coccibe said...

There is a real story about this.... do a google search for Fajitas blog. You will see how incorrect the media has been in all this.....

Don Singleton said...

I did not find any such blog