Fake Gunman Attack on Sixth Graders is Poor Judgement?
Try Pure Cruelty and Idiocy!!





How did you feel when you heard about the Virgina Tech shootings? Were you terrified? Did you pray your children would never endure such a horrid and terrifying experience?

Now how would you feel if your child's teachers, the very people you trust on a daily basis with your child's physical and mental well being, decided to stage a fake gun man attack? On sixth graders. While they were away from home on a school trip. Without your permission. Telling the children that it was real and NOT a drill. Turning the lights off in the room and telling children to get under their desks. Even going so far as having a teacher in a hooded sweatshirt pull on a door handle.

Sixth Graders terrified, scared, and crying with fresh memories of 32 students being massacred at Virginia Tech, hiding under their desks thinking they might die.

Seem unreal and outlandish? Read this report from CNN:
MURFREESBORO, Tennessee (AP) -- 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.

"We got together and discussed what we would have done in a real situation," he said.

But parents of the sixth-grade students were outraged.

"The children were in that room in the dark, begging for their lives, because they thought there was someone with a gun after them," said Brandy Cole, whose son went on the trip.

Some parents said they were upset by the staff's poor judgment in light of the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech that left 33 students and professors dead, including the gunman.

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."



Poor Judgment??!! There is a lot more involved here than poor judgment. What in the hell made these teachers and administrators think they had any right to do such a thing? As a parent I would be more than outraged. I would have found every single one of them involved and told them exactly what brand of hideous and cruel monsters I thought they were and then I would have beat some sense into their heads. I am not a violent person and do not usually believe it solves anything. But if any group of people ever deserved to have some sense beat into them, it is the participants of this charade.

How will these children ever feel they can trust a teacher again after being subjected to this insane and sickening exercise? We do not subject prisoners in the U.S.A. to acts of cruel and unusual punishment, but this school faculty felt it was acceptable to subject innocent young children, sixth graders to this type of terrifying mental abuse?

What is almost as sickening as the act itself is that the school 'did not comment' on whether these faculty involved would be punished. They should have been fired immediately after stepping off their bus once they returned home!!!

What do you think should be done with the staff involved?
How do you feel about this situation?

8 comments:

Diane said...

I am OUTRAGED. The high handed, all consuming power that we grant to the trainers and teachers of our young children has always been a point of contention with me. The god-like mindset of our current education system should terrify most parents, as the rights of home and family are continuing to being overlooked, over-ruled or denied. All this done without proper evidence of a truly good national or state education score. Turn your children over to us, turn your back, and don't walk in unscheduled is appalling. These educators are just folks like you and your neighbors, performing their jobs. They are educated early, before their careers as educators begin, then followed up with workshops and conferences. They are as infallible as you and I, yet there words ring thorough our youths ears for hours a day, with authority we are forced to support. If you wouldn't allow your child to sit in your neighbors house for 6 hours of each day, without knowing their moral and judicious character, then the same should be said of our teachers. This episode should be further proof, that we don't warn of the dangers of fire by sticking an infants hand in a flame, or discuss historical wars by smelling the smoke of a hot gun mussel. Why would we teach terror and in-human violence by putting the taste of such violence in the mouths of our babes, our futures, and our most prized treasures. If this act had been committed on an office staff of professional adults, I'm sure the cries of injustice would reach the steps of the Supreme Court. I cannot image any sanctioned adult standing for it. So why would we, the caregivers of our future, accept it towards our children?

Anonymous said...

Diane - Well said!

Anonymous said...

I don't even know what to say. I am in shock that this happened! I'll just second what you and Diane said. And then go worry about those poor kids having nightmares and needing therapy and then thank God that I've decided to homeschool my children.

Anonymous said...

Karly - I agree that there are days when I wish I had made that choice for my kids. I was home schooled through 7th grade :-D

Lisa said...

WHat kind of a MORON thinks that this is ok? That just blows my mind. And pisses me off!

Anonymous said...

Lisa - Agreed! I just cant' even imagine that someone thought this was a good idea!!!

Sassy said...

I think my jaw just hit the floor! What in God's name would possess them to do such a thing and think it would help prepare students? Prepare them for what? A trip to a pyschiatrist because of some kind of stress disorder no doubt. Good Lord, how very irresponsible! I think I'm speechless now........

Anonymous said...

Sassy - I just can't believe the audacity that they have to even attempt to justify this as sound reasoning or with good intention in mind. And making you speechless, now that's gotta be some sort of first ;-)