Adventurous Day

I started with an oh-shit morning. This happens when you wake up, look at the clock, and say, "Oh shit!" The clock in question read 6:18, and I usually get up at 5:25.

You are looking at an unshowered man.

Bolted out the door and got to school only ten minutes later than my usual 7:00 (school starts at 7:20). Whew! Let's get moving. Start the day with media literacy, then segue into the stupid MEAP test, go to lunch, teach college writing, and head into another section of media literacy. At about 1:40, the PA came to life.

"Good afternoon, students and staff," said our principal in a cheerful voice. "We're going to conduct a fire drill in just a few moments. Teachers, please tell your students to take their belongings with them." And the fire alarm went off.

Naturally my own alarms were working overtime. 1) Fire drills are always at the beginning of class, never in the middle. 2) They are never announced. 3) The kids generally don't take their stuff with them. The whole thing smelled like a bomb threat or similar. So I threw my own stuff into my satchel, grabbed coat and keys, and headed outside with the kids. Moments later, a fire truck came screaming down the street and hurtled itself around the corner to the front of the building.

Naturally speculation ran rampant, but we didn't learn anything. At least the weather was warm, if windy. The buses arrived and the assistant principals told the kids they could go home at the normal time of 2:10. I spoke to said AP, and he said there was an "immediate threat" to the building, though he wouldn't say what it was. I'm still thinking bomb threat.

Once the kids were on the buses, I went around to the front of the building to go home, congratulating myself on having grabbed my own stuff. (Actually, after the Year of Many Bomb Threats, I grab my coat and keys whenever there's a building evacuation, even if it's just a drill.) Many police cars were in evidence, and one of the officers directed traffic to expedite people getting out. So now I'm home.

From oh-shit to evacuation in six easy hours!

--
Steven

Comments

[Lisa]

Pretty slick of them to call it a drill. Do you think that helped keep everyone calm while exiting?

[Steven]

I think so, yes. Some of the kids were actually griping about it the next day, if you can believe it:

"They can't call it a fire drill if it's not a fire drill, can they? That must be illegal or something."

"Look," I said, "we cleared the building in under four minutes, there was no panic, and no one got hurt. So knock it off."

Sheesh.

--Steven

[Lisa]

The kids were probably bummed that they didn't get to have the adrenaline rush of being in a real emergency. I think most people have an exaggerated belief about their ability to behave calmly in a real (or possible) life or death threat situation, so the announcer definitely made the right decision to play it down.

[Catherine Shaffer]

I can't remember if they called it a fire drill when we had bomb threats when I was in school. I think they just evacuated the building without explanation.

The problem here, as I see it, is announcing beforehand that it's a drill convinces everyone that it's not serious and there's a risk that people will blow it off and not get out of the building, or run back inside or something. Also, if it's a fire drill, but they have to take time to get their coats and books and things, then that's going to screw up preparedness for a real fire, when you are expected to *not* take time to do these things. When I was in school, fire drills were always unannounced, so there was never any panic in getting out of the building. Then we get outside and find out whether it was a drill or a real emergency or someone just pulled a fire alarm.

I think panic is a low risk in any case. In fact, when stories started coming out about the WTC attacks, you had exactly the opposite--people staying at their desks too long, in shock or in denial. This is what I observed in the workplace as an adult. People who didn't "have time" for fire drills. Sometimes you'd come back inside and find them still at their desks, having never left the building. The school probably needs to make a separate emergency plan for bomb threats, etc. and then rehearse those as drills at unannounced intervals. So I think the students who are griping do have a point. The next time there's a "fire drill" what are the students going to think? There's an erosion of confidence there, and a lot of confusion. Is it really a fire? Should I grab my book bag and my coat? Is it a bomb threat? Should I be scared? The point of rehearsing emergencies is NOT to have to stop and ask those questions, but to know what to do and where to go automatically.

In this day and age, every school needs an emergency plan for terrorist attack, unfortunately.

[Steven Piziks]

Nah. Students aren't office workers. Office workers roll their eyes and say, "I have too much to do. I can't leave my desk right now. Why don't they have these things when there's nothing going on?"

When students hear "fire drill," they leap out of their chairs and whoosh out the door. "Yay! We get out of class for ten minutes!" Like I said, we cleared a 2,000 person building in under four minutes with no panic. If the principal had said "bomb threat," some students would have panicked, others would have =pretended= to panic, and still others would have spent time trying to get to their lockers because they'd know they probably wouldn't be allowed back inside, risking their lives if it turns out the bomb is real. So calling it a fire drill is definitely the way to go.

[Micah]

I think that fire drills being announced is good because it gives teachers that deal with handicapped kids warning, but if announced, the whole school could care less, except at my school when they make an announcement and the alarm rings, the students STILL freak out and the teachers laugh while they check eAttendance(drills are always at the very beginning of class).

[harrry potter]

we had a fire drill, but it was unplanned