Lock Down

I never posted this because I was too crazy that week, but I edited it and so without further ado here is the harrowing and dramatic tale of "The Lock Down." It was a normal, chaotic day at school. It was lunch and I was busily grading papers and trying to finish up Christmas presents for the students. Then the intercom came on calling all students in for an inside recess. My first thought was "Great Scott, it is not that cold." (The wind chill often sends the kids in from recess.) Then I breathed a very dramatic sigh, because I knew my well crafted work time would turn into entertaining fidgeting children. However, the secretary came back on the intercom and this time she said the most dreaded of all words at a school, "Lock down." Two words and I was struck with fear. I knew this was not a drill, and so I ran outside to usher in the kids. Then came the task of closing all blinds, turning off the lights, and locking the doors. Keep them out of sight, out of mind. I knew nothing else about the situation, and my students began to get jumpy. "What's going on?" they wanted to know and I had no answer. We talked about precautions, keeping ourselves safe, and how fear and jumping to conclusions help nothing, and so we tried to be as normal as possible. We quietly read a funny story to get their minds off the situation, and then I learned why we were in lock down. A member of the safety team brought the news that a citizen had reported a suspicious looking man with a shotgun in the neighborhood next to the school. Needless to say, I gave a word of caution about staying away from windows and doors, but acted as if nothing new was going on. I calmly continued the story, but inside my head I was going crazy. As I was reading, this horrifying thought kept reoccurring: What if he tried to get in OUR room. What would I do? Just like when I was little and would figure out where I would hide if a robber came in, I tried to engineer some other plan of safety. The scariest thought was I was in charge of all of them, my actions affected their lives. I had followed the safety guidelines, but there had to be more I could do. I suddenly wished I had taken more kickboxing classes, lifted more weights, and blast where was our baseball bat? I'm not sure how any of that would really help, but I still thought of it. It's pretty amazing what the brain can do. There I was reading aloud, while I thought processed how to kung fu the killer, and continued to pray. Prayer kind of battles out fear, and soon I was okay. I knew that I would be able to handle whatever I needed to. The lock down ended about an hour later. They never found the guy, there not even sure if there ever was a guy. They cleared the area, my students and I had a talk about what had happened, then we finished the day and sent them home. I personally left school right after the students. Even though, they said the area was clear, I didn't want to be hanging around after dark with the shot gun man, you never know. This experience did help our school learn what we needed to change in our plan and what had went well. I personally decided that even if we aren't playing softball in the winter, I'm still going to have a bat in my closet, just in case. But more importantly, I'll always have a prayer in my heart.