I’m a Teacher Who Just Went Through Her First Active Shooter Training
It felt like an ambush.
Winter break had just ended, and we teachers had two weeks to organize our classes before the students returned to school. As part of the preparations, we were told we had to attend several conferences and seminars.
However, one particular item on the to-do list got everybody’s attention. Little did we know that, under the name of “Safety in the Classroom,” we were about to go through one of the most traumatic experiences in our long careers as teachers.
We were about to receive our first-ever active shooter training.
It felt like an ambush.
The instructor, a police officer, started by providing basic safety instructions. He talked to us about how to spot “troublesome” students — a term he ended up using a lot — and how to reach the delicate balance between protecting ourselves and keeping our classes safe.
We expected this little training to be about what to do when students bring drugs to school or how to intervene when a fight breaks up in the school’s yard.
But the instructor had other plans…
Soon, after he explained how to send “troublesome” students through the correct institutional…
