To my pen, forgive me for typing..: Another One?!

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Another One?!

We had our first lockdown drill last week - a smart procedure to practise after TWO MORE school shootings took place (in the States this time) but so soon after our own Dawson College shooting in Montreal. Read about the Plate Canyon High School shooting HERE and the Weston High School shooting HERE.

However, if our own lockdown drill is any indication of what would happen during a real situation, my students and I would not be here today. Why? Because I couldn't lock the door.

My students were very nice and tried to reassure me that I wouldn't get fired for not being able to follow through with the simple instructions. It didn't make me feel any better. How could I not lock the door? I tried and tried and even got a student to try to help and we still couldn't lock it. This I couldn't believe since I had practised the day before (yes I had practised because I had wanted to be the perfect teacher who could lock doors quickly and efficiently). Anyways they found it all fun and joy to sit and talk in the dark room when they should have been doing work. They found it funny that I couldn't lock the door.

We always think these things won't happen to us but who knows right? So we only practised fire drills when we all attended high school - so what - school shootings aren't something recent, we probably should have practised lockdown drills too - like what if THIS had followed through?! Even if it was just an admitted prank..

My dad was a student at Brampton Centennial when the school shooting occured there. My dad saw bloodied kids. He knew the gunman and said he was "one of the most normal guys around." He had even played pool with him before. He knew the victim. He knew the teacher.

What makes kids go from pool playing to school shooting?

P.S I'm still hung up over the fact that I couldn't get the door to lock.

23 Comments:

At 5:29 p.m., Anonymous said…

hey liya
awww...what a sad story..lol...no really, I understand what you must have gone through. I hated lockdowns at Turner Fenton; you had to shut the lights and get under the desks and sit in the dust for so long. It was so annoying! At turner, we also had like an alarm that went off when the school was under lockdown, so while crammed under the desk or in a corner away from the window, we had to listen to the continuous drone of the alarm!

And wow, your dad went to B.C? That's so cool! Did he know Premier DAvis' daughter? Didn't you say your family is from South Africa...or maybe I got that mixed up.
At 8:20 p.m., 'liya said…

Crisammons etc: I love Abercrombie & Fitch.. but I already have my back-to-school wardrobe thank you very much :D

Faiza: Okay, am I just too old because I don't remember having any lockdowns at Turner!? Or maybe they had them when I left? All I remember are fire drills!

I don't know if my dad knew her, I'll ask him. All he talks about from his highschool days is the one day he skipped school and went to go play pool (at Shoppers World) and my grandfather (his dad) caught him. My family IS from SA (both sides), but they came here young, grew up here, and my parents met at university here (York!) .. and from there I was born and the world was okay :D
At 9:58 p.m., Umar said…

and you'd be even more bummed out if, according to one your earlier posts, your students discovered your blogging life.

what if you found a comment one day...

"Hey Ms. C..."
At 11:58 p.m., Anonymous said…

I think the Turner lockdown drills or whatever they called them started when I was in grade 11...so i dunno, maybe you were gone already? awwww ur parents story is so sweet...just a question...is that y u went to York? lol
At 12:14 a.m., Anonymous said…

Truly crazy people are those that everyone thinks are normal... it's the blood that boils inside that drives them to rampages... :)

Lockdown drills sound interesting. You'll get that door to lock next time inshallah. :)
At 6:26 a.m., Muhammad said…

this whole lock-down thing sounds a bit nuts, especially since I just watched "Bowling for Columbine"...

Kids are crazy these days.

anyhow, don't get hung up about the door lock.. the stupides t things often happen to the best of us... at the worst possible time too :P

wslm.

Muhammad.
At 7:03 a.m., sara said…

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
At 7:04 a.m., sara said…

i agree, kids these days are psycho! my parents went to york too! i wonder if they hung out together between lectures.
At 9:23 a.m., mezba said…

We never had fire drills in middle east, nor lockout drills. However we had BOMBING drills - yes, what to do if your school was BOMBED by enemy aircraft (namely Iran, then Iraq).

lol. To each his own, I guess. Yes this was during the Iraq-Iran war and then the Desert Storm.

PS. Why couldn't you lock the door? Did one of the kids put a chewing gum inside the lock? We used to do that at high school, so the gym teacher would think the table tennis room was locked, and then we would come after school to play.
At 9:05 p.m., nat said…

This stuff is realy scary, I remember even a few months ago volunteering at Turner and they had helicopters and news crews around because some man in the states found a website that had descriptive information on TFC's boiler room and how to cause a lot of trouble. Anyway 'liya I can meet with you at sq1 monday, wednesdays and fridays and 3pm sounds great, so just give me a call (I will email u my cell number). And it would be a good way to pass the time if you're fasting, I know looking at shoes always helps me forget about my empty tummy. Fazia, I am an english and geography major and I'm sure that we've passed each other and not know it. :)
At 9:34 p.m., 'liya said…

THIS JUST IN: another one... I heard on the radio of ANOTHER shooting and just read about it.

The point:

"...no school is automatically safe from an attack. These incidents can happen to a one-classroom schoolhouse to a large urban school,” he said. “The only thing that scares me more than an armed intruder in a school is school and safety officials who believe it can’t happen here.” (from something I read on msn.com)

Umar: Let's hope that doesn't happen, though I'm not really hiding anything or saying anything bad am I? I'm keeping everything anonymous - I think. Either way I should probably make this more secure. Only I don't know how :S

Faiza: Well then I must have been there for at least one year.. maybe I just don't remember?! But I remember fire drills so clearly.. maybe I was away those days?! *sigh* .. I may look young but I feel so old!

My parents story is kinda sweet I suppose. I think I'll post something about it later! They assumed that if I went to York I'd join the MSA and meet someone just like how they did - too bad that's not what happened. I met someone before going! Of course they thought it was cool that I was carrying on their "tradition" of going there though. My reason for choosing York really is because they offered me a better scholarship for my first year than the other universities I had applied. I was also interested in their Concurrent Ed program. And of course, V chose to go there too :D

Nauman: And you know this because?! hehe. Anyways, I sure hope I can get it to lock next time otherwise I'm just one failure of a good door-locking teacher. I was waiting for your "wake-up" call this morning but it never came! I actually got to work early today :)

Muhammed: That is one scary movie because it's .. true. I can't help being caught up about it. You know, it's one of those things that you think you'd never get wrong.. argh! I practised!!!!

Sara: Did your parents meet at York too? I didn't know they went there, I wonder if mine knew yours at that point? Probably - all South Africans seemed to know each other back then!

Mezba: I didn't know you went to school there. That sounds way scarier than lockdown drills.. a bomb dropping on your school at any second. Yikes. Well I wouldn't want to teach there.. or be a student then. Though I suppose each school has their own unique drills. My friend was telling me about a school he was a student teacher at where they had hurricane drills (here!). I didn't even know those existed in Ontario.

I don't know why I couldn't lock the door! I tried! There was no gum!

Nuffy: I remember that. I think that's what I linked to in my post. Scary stuff!

Monday at 3:00 sounds good! Wednesday I'm involved in extra-curricular stuff and Fridays I never really know what I'm doing :S Email it to me! Maybe I'll call you next Monday then? It does sound like a good way to pass fasting time. It takes foreverrrr to get to 7:00!
At 10:28 p.m., Squeeky said…

Assalaamu Alaikum :)

Oh no, that must have been so frustrating for you! What type of lock do you have on the door anyway?

It's scary what kids these days are doing. And what is even more scary ... is that these kids are our future *shudder*

I remember my gr 12 History teacher would always pick on me because I was so "nice, kind and quiet". He always liked to emphasis that it was people with my personality who ended up doing something crazy ... :S ... And I think he made fun of my height in there too ... argh!
At 10:41 p.m., Becky L said…

[your first comment is a spam comment. i wondered how long it would take for them to find you... I used to get them all the time, which is why i added "word verification."

yeah, about the last shooting you made reference to in your comments, it was here in Lancaster County. I know exactly where it happened. Its so sad-- that a 32 year old guy would go into a small amish school and kill girl students. i bawled my eyes out when i heard. i hate to think that someone might purposefully pick out the amish to attack.
At 2:09 p.m., Anonymous said…

shucks man...as Muhammad said, the stupidest things happen to the best of us at the most critical times.

your parents have such a morantic lurrve story. :P
At 5:49 p.m., 'liya said…

Squeeky: The door had a regular lock :S But it's not just kids.. the most recent shooting was done by an adult.

I'm in the same boat with you about the whole "nice, kind, and quiet" thing (but not the height thing hehe). I think it was in grade 7 or 8, my class was talking about how it's always the nice quiet ones who go crazy and then one boy was like "just like 'liya!" .. then the whole class looked at me and ever since then it's stuck that one day I might do something that nobody would think I'd do. Even the teacher went along with what he said!

Becky: I know my first comment is spam, I was trying to be funny but I guess it didn't work lol.

I'm not sure why someone would target the Amish or any type of student for that matter. All students deserve the right to feel protected at school. I don't know if he was being specific in who he chose though I did hear that he had some grudge against something that happened years back in that school. That's scary that it happened so close to you. I cried when I read the story this morning in the paper. Just to imagine what the last few minutes for those little girls were like..

Fatima: It seems like most parents meet in interesting ways but then their kids are have the boringist meetings ever. Their story is actually kinda funny. I'll write more about it later :)
At 9:06 p.m., nat said…

Okay just to let you people know, that I still HAVE my blog, I've just decided to make a few changes to the URL and the title.. so let me re-direct your attention to my blog http://myghettostory.blogspot.com/
At 11:00 p.m., Ek Umeed said…

I always abhorred drills of any kind at my high school; the only good that I could see come from it was that we had less class time left to have the teacher lecture or otherwise think to engage us in "busy" activities such as completing worksheets. Otherwise, I despised the whole business of the drills. A waste of time! And somehow, during exam week, we used to get more crank calls about bomb threats than anything else. Surprise! Surprise! (Rolls eyes.) But you know what?

Now that I am in college and residing in a dorm, I abhor the fire drills that we have. It wastes the fifteen minutes that I could have chosen to do something that I wanted to do. However, I also realize that if there was ever a real fire, I would consider myself lucky to be familiar with following the step-by-step procedures defined by the Department. The know-how would prove extremely useful in saving both my life and that of others.

Hmm, I feel a bit strange reading a teacher's blog, almost like a peeper. Let me explain why: I really respected all my teachers in high school, and thereby, I maintained a certain distance from them that I thought was both appropriate within and relevant to the the demands of the hierarchal relationship. Therefore, I find it hard to reconcile in my mind the humanness of your blog to the image that I have carried in my mind of my high school's teachers. In other words, I always suspected (though never could ascertain for sure) that they were not aliens from another planet. :)

Oh, and although I am not a kid in your class, I just have to let you know that the teachers that I ultimately loved in high school were the ones that were extremely passionate about their subject; they were also interested in knowing their students as more than "faces in the class." So, when these teachers taught their classes, I felt naturally drawn in by their enthusiasm; I actually looked forward to seeing them and attending their classes. And if these teachers happened to be both personable and lenient in grading system (meaning "not making it impossible to earn that 'A'") on top of bearing the two aforesaid qualities, I loved their classes more than anything in the world.
At 11:02 p.m., Ek Umeed said…

I always abhorred drills of any kind at my high school; the only good that I could see come from it was that we had less class time left to have the teacher lecture or otherwise think to engage us in "busy" activities such as completing worksheets. Otherwise, I despised the whole business of the drills. A waste of time! And somehow, during exam week, we used to get more crank calls about bomb threats than anything else. Surprise! Surprise! (Rolls eyes.) But you know what?

Now that I am in college and residing in a dorm, I abhor the fire drills that we have. It wastes the fifteen minutes that I could have chosen to do something that I wanted to do. However, I also realize that if there was ever a real fire, I would consider myself lucky to be familiar with following the step-by-step procedures defined by the Department. The know-how would prove extremely useful in saving both my life and that of others.

Hmm, I feel a bit strange reading a teacher's blog, almost like a peeper. Let me explain why: I really respected all my teachers in high school, and thereby, I maintained a certain distance from them that I thought was both appropriate within and relevant to the the demands of the hierarchal relationship. Therefore, I find it hard to reconcile in my mind the humanness of your blog to the image that I have carried in my mind of my high school's teachers. In other words, I always suspected (though never could ascertain for sure) that they were not aliens from another planet. :)

Oh, and although I am not a kid in your class, I just have to let you know that the teachers that I ultimately loved in high school were the ones that were extremely passionate about their subject; they were also interested in knowing their students as more than "faces in the class." So, when these teachers taught their classes, I felt naturally drawn in by their enthusiasm; I actually looked forward to seeing them and attending their classes. And if these teachers happened to be both personable and lenient in grading system (meaning "not making it impossible to earn that 'A'") on top of bearing the two aforesaid qualities, I loved their classes more than anything in the world.
At 2:09 a.m., Anonymous said…

I called on Friday morning but your sister answered the phone and said that she had it instead. I called Monday morning but no one answered... thus, I felt half-awake myself. :(

I know what crazy people are like only because I'm crazy myself. :)
At 2:49 a.m., Bilal said…

Yo, that sounds hectic! The world is going mad I tell you...

But when you live in South Africa, where crime itself is pretty bad, you wouldnt really be shocked by death-
but mind you, death here is normally metted out by violent criminals- not silly kids!

About locking the door- practice!
You def dont wana get caught out with a open door- and panic surely does paralyse...
At 9:17 p.m., 'liya said…

Nuffy: Finally you decide to upate!! I'm glad you didn't abandon it! I'll stop there soon :)

Uk Emeed: I'd probably feel strange reading a blog of one of my teachers in high school - which is why I wouldn't want students to read mine - which is why I want to figure out how to make sure they don't - but I don't know how. Teacher are humans too though :D An interesting subject which actually came up in my class today was just how "human" are teachers. Apparently one of my students stumbled upon some teachers gossiping and couldn't believe the things that were said. But like I say, we ARE human!

I want to be one of those teachers that you really loved in high school :)

Nauman: I got your call today. Call again tomorrow so we can continue the interesting subject you brought up about! I didn't forget :D

Bilal: That's why maybe I can visit SA but can never live there :S I don't think I could ever get used to it. Maybe I did feel a bit paralyzed in the situation but I did some practising today!
At 8:25 a.m., zee said…

sheeesh...lock down procedures. what has the world come to if we have to resort to such tactics to ensure the safety of those entrusted upon us...in your case, your kids.

but whats the reason for school shootings? i mean that it was only a US phenomonan?

And if the kid on the outside has a gun, cant he just shoot the door lock open? how does a lock down help?
At 5:54 p.m., 'liya said…

Zee: The reason for school shootings? I can't answer that, there's so many reasons and also none at all. I don't think it's just a US phenomenon though it doesn't happen very often in Canada (I'd like to think) but when it does it's big news. I'm sure it must happen in other parts of the world too but that I'm just not aware of it.

Yes a student can shoot the door but by the time they were to do all that the police would be there. A student who is shooting would want to shoot students who are within close range to get their work done fast.. I think .. yikes..