CHANGE THE LOADED WORD ‘LOCKDOWN’
Recent threats to Gold Coast schools have sparked widespread alarm, but is terminology fuelling fear?
ANOTHER week, another lockdown in a Gold Coast school.
American schools may make the headlines for horrific shootings and traumatic classroom events, but here in relatively gun-controlled Australia, our kids are becoming just as adept at preparing for disaster.
They’re called Generation Lockdown … and if you’re under 25, you’re part of it.
As well as maths, reading and writing, both my kids have been taught that when this drill is called, they should silently shelter under their desk until the all-clear is called.
It sounds dramatic, and it is – but is it traumatic? An extensive report by the
Washington Post shows that while lockdowns save lives during real attacks, even the drills themselves can inflict immense psychological damage on children convinced that they’re in danger.
The reports says that while lockdowns have become standard practice in the US education system as a consequence of the gun violence epidemic in schools, they are creating a “secondary crisis” for schoolchildren who live in near-constant fear that they are in danger in the classroom. The students have asthma attacks, write their last wills, soil themselves, and text family members final goodbyes.
And here on the Gold Coast, we seem to have an over-representation of false alarms, which no doubt feel all too real for some children.
As one parent was quoted after an event at Coombabah State High School: “Everybody goes hoax, hoax, hoax but now there’s that underlying threat,” she said.
“When I picked (my son) up yesterday he said he was so worried on the oval that they were so exposed, he was so paranoid someone was going to shoot them.
“Some of the girls were hysterical. It’s because all these kids see these shootings in America.
“First it was Helensvale, and now it seems like Coombabah is going to be a target.”
But what can we do?
If a threat is delivered to a school, no matter how unrealistic, the school must act.
And as the number of threats seem to increase, schools must inevitably practice. There is no criticism there, our institutions may be built to educate our kids, but they also must keep them safe. If we practise fire drills, then we need to practise lockdowns.
Yet the fact that lockdowns continue to make headlines, combined with overseas news of shootings and trauma, is causing some parents to, perhaps, overreact.
They turn up with tearstained faces at the school gates, in a state of hysteria that, unfortunately, can be infectious.
Look, I can’t say I blame them – any threat, real or imagined, to my children is literally my worst nightmare.
But guys, we have to be the adults in the room.
While you might be freaking out on the inside, be strong for your kids. The more you worry, the more they worry. And while getting rid of lockdown drills would be wonderful, it’s not realistic.
What we can do, however, is change our terminology. It’s simple but effective.
The term “lockdown” originates from prisons, not exactly a school-friendly environment. Currently, the word has immediate associations with active shooters, terrorist threats and imminent death and destruction – none of which has yet happened in our schools.
So why not just call them an emergency drill? After all, teacher friends have told me a real lockdown is far more likely to be called for something as non-sinister (if still dangerous) as a swarm of bees or a dog on school grounds.
The reality is that these drills have been happening for a long time – my first was in 1991 when we were called to sit
on the oval after a bomb threat was called through. I don’t think my mother even knew about it until I mentioned it … last week.
Without the name “lockdown” it just wasn’t a scary situation … it wasn’t really a situation at all. Just an opportunity to skip some school work.
Schools themselves have a responsibility to keep the drills and actual events as nonthreatening as possible, and experts advise that drills should never be undertaken with a specific scenario in mind.
A quick survey of my two members of Generation Lockdown shows that their school has the mix right, neither is fazed by the drills – although remaining silent is a stretch for both.
The threat of real danger is remarkably small for us. Even in America, the statistical likelihood of any given public school student being killed by a gun, in school, on any given day since 1999 was roughly 1 in 614,000,000. And since the 1990s, shootings at schools have been getting less common.
But even here, of course we have to be prepared.
Still, let’s take the messaging down a notch. Let’s demonstrate by our words and our actions that while we take this seriously, it’s actually no big deal.
Australian children should be officially excused from Generation Lockdown.