I have this one favorite school and this one favorite class I love to substitute at. I love getting requested for it because it reminds me that I'm good at what I do. Yesterday I went, all excited and ready for the day, when before the bell even rang the principal came over the PA "all staff and students need to come to the field, this is an emergency situation". So we all file out, apparently a drill had be done the day before, the students weren't concerned. So we all get out there, 10 minutes pass and we are all still there. I find out from another teacher there was a bomb threat. The principal come back over the PA "please make sure that all students have turned off their cellphones" all the teachers look at eachother, we all know why.
First of all we can't tell students that it was a bomb threat. But they HAVE to turn off their cellphones. I stop several students that are actually talking to their parents, starting to get a little scared. Most students have never actually turned off their cellphones, they aren't sure how. I tell the students that their cellphones interrupt police signals, and thats why they can't be on them. Good reason I thought, one that would keep them quiet for a while, and plausable.
The truth? If it is a bomb, their cellphone signal could accidentally set it off. Can't say that though. Can't say that the last thing the school wants is all the kids freaking out and calling their parents. If there is a bomb the last thing we need is lines of SUV's filled with mom's looking to pick up their kids. We don't want more possible injuries.
We also don't want the bigger bomb. The bomb of bad PR. Better for the students to go home and tell their parents about how well the school handled a false alarm then calling now in the throws of it. We don't want to end up on TV, we don't want hundreds of rightfully frantic parents calling and getting no answer, because we are all playing "duck and cover".
It was a fake threat, but we still had to wait while they combed the 55 acre campus. Took all of first period, we get back to class and the students are calmed down, but not to keen to get back into the room. The principal comes on the PA and tells the truth, there was a bomb threat, called into the police on the campus payphone. There is a $500 reward for any students with information. The mood is light again, students joking about splitting the money if they can blame it on some kid.
The police caught the kid before the end of school that day.
All I could think of was the bomb threat that was called into my elementary school. No one actually believed this could happen, but in this age of metal detectors and kids shooting up schools so their suicide will be more memorable, because they want something real in their suburban nonexistence, in this age, my kids were actually a little scared.
This was a joke, but not to these kids, this was serious and kinda scary. They see it on TV, but hope it won't happen to them, and I have to sit there, hoping the kids take us seriously and turn off their cellphones and don't set off the bomb.
First of all we can't tell students that it was a bomb threat. But they HAVE to turn off their cellphones. I stop several students that are actually talking to their parents, starting to get a little scared. Most students have never actually turned off their cellphones, they aren't sure how. I tell the students that their cellphones interrupt police signals, and thats why they can't be on them. Good reason I thought, one that would keep them quiet for a while, and plausable.
The truth? If it is a bomb, their cellphone signal could accidentally set it off. Can't say that though. Can't say that the last thing the school wants is all the kids freaking out and calling their parents. If there is a bomb the last thing we need is lines of SUV's filled with mom's looking to pick up their kids. We don't want more possible injuries.
We also don't want the bigger bomb. The bomb of bad PR. Better for the students to go home and tell their parents about how well the school handled a false alarm then calling now in the throws of it. We don't want to end up on TV, we don't want hundreds of rightfully frantic parents calling and getting no answer, because we are all playing "duck and cover".
It was a fake threat, but we still had to wait while they combed the 55 acre campus. Took all of first period, we get back to class and the students are calmed down, but not to keen to get back into the room. The principal comes on the PA and tells the truth, there was a bomb threat, called into the police on the campus payphone. There is a $500 reward for any students with information. The mood is light again, students joking about splitting the money if they can blame it on some kid.
The police caught the kid before the end of school that day.
All I could think of was the bomb threat that was called into my elementary school. No one actually believed this could happen, but in this age of metal detectors and kids shooting up schools so their suicide will be more memorable, because they want something real in their suburban nonexistence, in this age, my kids were actually a little scared.
This was a joke, but not to these kids, this was serious and kinda scary. They see it on TV, but hope it won't happen to them, and I have to sit there, hoping the kids take us seriously and turn off their cellphones and don't set off the bomb.
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