We grandparents love to hear about the cute and adorable things our grandchildren are up to. Here’s the latest news about Iliana:
Tomorrow, she gets to wear pajamas to school because her class filled up a “good behaviour” jar. The final fill-up was because the class did really well during the lockdown drill today. She explained to us that a real lockdown is when a person with a weapon comes into the school to kill you. They hid for the drill and the principal acted as the threat person. She said if she gets outside she’s supposed to sprint away because they’ll be trying to kill her. She said that the teachers weren’t talking about killing, but the kids figured it out. She and her friends were playing a game called “lockdown drill” after this and acting it out again.
Wow. That sounds like such a fun game. We didn’t have games like that when I was a kid.
Although we did play the “nuclear war” game where we hid under our desks waiting for the bright flash that would incinerate us. That was fun.
I am guessing you also pledged allegiance to a flag which stands for a republic with ‘liberty and justice for all.’ More subtle, but possibly an even more twisted game.
At least you didn’t forget the nuclear war duck and cover drills.
We had those also.
We lived in an area near an ICBM missile assembly factory, a plutonium producing reactor complex, and a Trident nuclear submarine base.
We knew that if there was a nuclear war, we were going to be hit hard.
The roads out of the area were all labeled “evacuation route”.
After the nuclear bombs dropped, the survivors were supposed to go home and assemble survival supplies and canned food for the trip on the evacuation routes into the mountains, after our parents got home.
There were no plans in case our parents didn’t make it home because they were vaporized by the nuclear bombs.
We played cowboys with cap pistol where we killed our friends multiple times practically every day. “Bang! Bang! Gotch you.” “No you didn’t. You missed.”
And yes, nuke drills, right after watching “Duck and Cover with Bert the Turtle”. The tune goes “dum-dum-diddle-dum-dum”.
Good demonstration (and need) for the therapeutic benefit of play.
PZ wrote: Although we did play the “nuclear war” game where we hid under our desks waiting for the bright flash that would incinerate us. That was fun.
Yes, we remember the instructions: Sit down, tuck your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye.
Remember, 2nd amendment fanatics are always shooting their mouths off. OOPS, that’s not right, they want to shoot your mouth off! Welcome to school, here’s your bulletproof backpack and good luck!
Don’t forget the kitty-litter pans in the restrooms for soaking up massive blood spills!
I too remember doing drop drills during the 1960s in school. I especially remember that when under the desks, we had to put one hand over our neck, to protect it in case of nuclear attack. I thought that was strange.
Now I realize that it was to protect our neck from debris when the school building would possibly collapse onto us, but everyone felt better about us having that protection.
It’s like we always have to be scared of something.
It’s like how people for millennia were scared of the elves and fairies. But then after WWII we switched to being scared of outer space aliens. And now we have compromised by being scared of aliens from the Caribbean, even if they have been US citizens for longer than the Trump family has lived here. (1898 vs 1905).
Republicans: “There, see? Kids are so much happier when we get ’em used to the idea of regular school shootings! Even liberals like PZ have to agree!”
I have absolutely no idea why the USA still has any teachers left. Between the crappy pay, the worsening student behaviour, the political threats and gun violence, I would do anything but be a teacher in the USA and being a teacher has been my dream job since I was 18.
Snarky @7: “Don’t forget the kitty-litter pans in the restrooms for soaking up massive blood spills!”
The tampons will also come in handy for that.
And no other country has kids preparing to be shot on their classroom. They should be using that time for gender reassignment surgery…
I don’t know why anyone would want to be a teacher, either.
Don’t forget the Onion article about how in America we are helpless against the threats to our children that every other country on the planet has solved.
Yep, that’s still my favorite Onion headline: ‘Nothing we can do about it,’ says only country where this happens regularly
Fortunately the only violent monster I had to face when I was in primary school was Maggie Thatcher, Milk Snatcher.
I just can’t imagine where my lifelong political grievances were formed.
raven@3
Me too. we lived in the middle of a ring of Titan missile silos, a big AFB, and Hughes Missile (now Raytheon) and we figured we were definitely a first strike target. They still tested the air raid sirens every saturday at 1 pm until the 70’s.
We didn’t have duck and cover drills in the UK as far as I know, and it wasn’t done when I was in school in Princeton, NJ for a couple of terms in the late sixties. I was eight and, at that point, was not aware that nuclear war was a possibility.
Huh. Growing up in Canada in the 1960s all we had were boring old fire drllls: Bell rings, orderly file out the doors, stand around for 5 minutes (stay in your lines!) then file back inside and back to work.
[related]
Some people do want to be teachers: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/30/texas-scheme-teachers-cheating-scandal