MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - 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 and lasted five minutes during the weeklong trip to a state park, said Scales Elementary School Assistant Principal Don Bartch, who led the trip.
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During the last night of the trip, staff members convinced the 69 students that there was a gunman on the loose. They were told to lie on the floor or hide underneath tables and stay quiet. A teacher, disguised in a hooded sweat shirt, even pulled on a locked door.
After the lights went out, about 20 kids started to cry, 11-year-old Shay Naylor said.
“I was like, ‘Oh My God,’ “ she said. “At first I thought I was going to die. We flipped out.”
Principal Catherine Stephens declined to say whether the staff members involved would face disciplinary action, but said the situation “involved poor judgment.”
Jeez, ya think, Principal Victoria? The worst part of it, really, is that episodes like this just serve to indoctrinate kids even more into this sensationalist cult of fear that's going. They are far more likely to die in a car crash, or at the hands of an abusive relative, than in a random act of senseless violence.
Preparation is important, and violence is real. But these things tend to go wholly unaccompanied by even the pretense of proportion and sensibility. It's just emotional button-pushing, the needless ramping-up of fear.
what's really great is that if certain right wing pundits had their way, those students who were exercising their second amendment responsibilities could have opened fire and killed them all!
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