Monday, March 31, 2008
A not-so-typical Friday
Ray Stubblefield
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From the RoundTable blog
It was Good Friday. It was also the first day of spring and the end of the marking period, so teachers had a workday to finalize grades. Nothing unusual about that, but we also had a mock lockdown drill. The scenario was shooters on campus.
The little town of Rocky Mount was hopping. Almost every level of law enforcement was there, along with SWAT teams, fire and rescue, and emergency medical. If it had lights and a siren, you can bet it was on campus some time during the morning. And of course, there were the media with their cameras.
By all accounts, it was a success. A lot of people worked very hard to get it right, and I applaud their efforts. We all should.
While chaos ensued on other parts of campus, three colleagues and I stayed locked in my room, remaining quiet while trying to be as productive and as comfortable as we could be on the cold, hard floor. The idea was to stay low and out of sight.
An hour or so into things, a SWAT team burst into the room. These guys looked like soldiers: helmets, bulletproof vest, automatic rifles, camo uniforms tucked into black boots. There was no doubt that they meant business.
As they clear the building, going from room to room during the initial contact, they have to assume you are one of the shooters. So guns are trained on you while someone frisks you and checks your ID. If you didn't know these were the good guys, you might be a little intimidated.
This was not your typical workday. When I started teaching 27 years ago, I never thought, even in my wildest dreams, that I would be going through such an ordeal in my classroom. And this was only practice, and there were only a few volunteer students there to help add to the realism.
While they were herding us into another room, I got to see some of the craziness that had taken place earlier, people injured, people killed. It was all made to look as authentic as possible.
As things started to wind down, it was almost noon and everyone was treated to free eats. Over burgers, chips and soda, a few of us discussed our morning. We still weren't allowed in the building, so we ate outside in the beautiful spring weather.
A picnic in the aftermath of mayhem. Even though this was a mock disaster, I thought, how much crazier can our world get? But we didn't really need anyone to tell us. The Virginia Tech shootings were just last year about this time, and a little more than a month ago a gunman was spotted on the campus of Ferrum College.
It was all so bizarrely incongruous, like a scene from an old "Twilight Zone" episode. In the natural world that surrounded us there were blue skies, fresh green grass, flowers and birds singing. Life was bursting forth and starting anew.
There was peace, harmony and beauty. As the last of the big emergency vehicles rolled out of the parking lot, it was so obvious that our man-made world was anything but.
When I started teaching all those decades ago, a student could go hunting in the morning and come to school with his rifle mounted in the rack of his truck. He could even carry his pocketknife to class, and no one thought a thing about it. Those same actions today will get you arrested and expelled.
The overriding question on all of our minds was, "What had happened to our society to make all of this so necessary? What kind of world had we made for ourselves?" And it occurred to me that we weren't just fighting terrorism abroad; we were fighting it in the homeland as well, fighting sick, twisted minds that believe killing innocent people is somehow the solution.
As I walked up the stairs to go back to my classroom, I knew that I could retire in a few years and be away from all this craziness. But I couldn't help but wonder, what will our schools be like, what will America be like in another 30 years? Does it make me a pessimist to think the future does not look bright?
Despite that, I take pride and comfort in knowing we have a lot of people in education and emergency services working hard to make our world a safer place. Some of them were on the campus of Franklin County High School that Friday morning, and some of them I work with each day.
In appreciation and recognition of their dedication and service, I salute each of them. Thanks for being so good at what you do.
Stubblefield, who teaches earth science at Franklin County High School, is a Roanoke Times columnist.
