Learning Fear: Mommy I Got an A in Terror!
Active Shooter Drills and Terror In Schools
In today’s schools, various drills go on throughout the school year such as ’live shooter drills’ (with gun sounds and sometimes blood and bodies), terror-on-the-bus drills (deadly hijackings), and ’drug busts’ (with drug dogs and planted narcotics).You can dress it up any which way you want, be it ’preparedness’, be it ’security from terror’, be it ’today’s reality’. Rationalize it any way you choose.
These actions ultimately are MASS HABITUATION.
It could be that the best intentions of officials are to, like in an old-fashioned fire drill, enable children to maintain calm during emergencies and leave the building quickly and in a controlled fashion. However, schools traditionally did not start raging infernos in the teacher’s lounge in order to drive the lesson home.
Habituation - "Definition: Habituation is a decrease in response to a stimulus after repeated presentations. For example, a novel sound in your environment, such as a new ring tone, may initially draw your attention or even become distracting. After you become accustomed to this sound, you pay less attention to the noise and your response to the sound will diminish. This diminished response is habituation." Source
What these drills are REALLY doing to youth is not preparing them for the statistically minute chance that they might be the victim of some terror event, but instead habituating them to everyday fear, oppression and ultimately unthinking compliance with authority.
The message is to be afraid, and then be pliant - but never to think for oneself.
Behave as instructed because if the bad guys don’t get you, the good guys certainly will.
More on behavioural habituation lessons...
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Educational Exercises Aimed At School Shootings, Drug Abuse Result In Terrorized Students And K-9 Attacks
By Tim Cushing | TechDirt
from the administrators-and-cops:-both-woefully-underqualified-to-educateq dept
In what seems to be a continuance of the questionable "scared straight" programs (questioned by no less that the DOJ), schools are involving kids in drills ostensibly aimed at educating them about how to react in extremely rare situations. Recently, we covered a so-called "drill" that involved a hijacked bus full of kids, which was "defused" in front of an audience comprised mainly of educators and people holding the local PD’s purse strings. It was a rousing success, if your measurement standard starts at "everyone dies" and tops out at "no one was injured." This was portrayed as an essential bit of "anti-terrorism" training and an educational experience for bus drivers and students, but considering it all played out in front of town officials, the ultimate purpose seemed to be nothing more than a chance for the cops to play dress-up and get all duded up in some underused tactical gear.
Scott Greenfield covers another bit of "education" aimed at, well, who knows what exactly. The new concern is the "active shooter," and several schools are performing drills onsite in order to train staff (and children) how to react in case of school shooting.
Today, schools are engaging in active shooter drills. Trying to impute the best of faith to those who came up with the idea, it’s because this is perceived as the most likely tragedy that a school can face. It may not be likely, but it does happen. So why not be prepared?
"If you missed last week’s ’mad gunman terrorizes American schoolchildren’ news story,this time out of North Carolina, don’t feel bad; these days they’re common enough that it’s not reasonable to expect any one person can keep up with them all.
Still, last week’s story was notable for two reasons: One, nobody actually got shot; and two, the gunman was on the school’s payroll. Seriously: Administrators at Eastern Wayne Middle School later sent parents a letter explaining that they sent a masked gunman to various sixth-grade classrooms as an ’enrichment lesson on exhibiting good citizenship and observing your surroundings.’"
The explanation letter, reducing a basic concept of disaster preparedness to the idiocy of “exhibiting good citizenship” (a good citizen does not get shot?) can be forgiven. To the extent school administrators were ever capable of using comprehensible language to explain something clearly and accurately, they are now paid by the jargon phrase used and can’t be expected to forget the entirety of their education and experience. Just ignore it.
There’s more stupidity here, including the fact that children aren’t being informed that these are, in fact, drills.
A suburban Chicago high school ran a “code red” drill with the gunmen shooting blanks in January. Last month, an Indiana school ran a shooting drill replete with blood and a body count.
Last year, an El Paso, Tex., school set up a shocking surprise lockdown simulation that enraged parents like Stephanie Belcher, whose son sent her a panicked text message.
“He said, ‘I’m not kidding. There’s gunshots and people screaming and we were locked in a storage closet,’ ” Belcher told KFOX-TV. “These kids thought that their classmates were being killed and that they could be next. There’s no excuse for that.”
The potential for harm, either physical or emotional, is high. "Preparing" students for a highly unlikely event by terrorizing them teaches them nothing more than "this situation is terrifying." It’s highly doubtful anyone from the administration side is learning anything either. If they were, they might realize how counterproductive it is to prepare for an event you can’t control by inducing a uninformed state of panic in the student body. No amount of tying "try not to die" to citizenship ideals is going to change that.
But cops and admins like drills, especially when it gives law enforcement a chance to show off their "tools" (often just guns and tactical gear). Cops and admins also like teaching kids that any policy- or law-violating act is sure to result in swift and zealous punishment.
In Brazil, Indiana, Judge J. Blaine Akers decided to kick off a weeklong "Red Ribbon Awareness" event at the courthouse by grabbing some local elementary school students and subjecting them to a simulated drug search. Things went predictably bad.
According to the report, the officer and his K-9 partner, Max, as well as another K-9 team were requested by Clay County Superior Court Judge J. Blaine Akers to carry out a simulated raid of a party with actors in place to help "educate the Clay County fifth-graders on drug awareness."
He added the juveniles in the scenario met with officers prior to the start and were asked to remain still when the dogs searched for narcotics.
McQueen said a very small amount of illegal drugs were hidden on one of the juveniles to show how the dogs can find even the smallest trace of an illegal substance. He added all this was done "under exclusive control and supervision of members of the court and law enforcement." Four scenarios were carried out that day with the incident occurring during the third scenario.
"As I got closer to the actors, Max began searching the juveniles," according to the officer’s report. "The first male juvenile began moving his legs around as Max searched him. When the male began moving his legs, (this is what) I believe prompted Max’s action to bite the male juvenile on the left calf."
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Read the full article at: techdirt.com
