And before you say that’s just a boomer thing, consider these comments from where I got it:
My Indiana elementary school in the early 80s too.
Born too late for duck n cover drills.
Born too early for active shooter drills.
Had earthquake and fire drills, tho. Which are almost the same? Probably not gonna line up outside and wait for the bell if there’s an active shooter, tho.
Shooter drills have everyone sit in the corner of the room with the lights off, shades down, door locked, and instructions to be quiet and attack anyone who goes through the door with whatever you can throw
and attack anyone who goes through the door with whatever you can throw
Gee, it’s almost like having a deadly weapon that can be wielded by almost anyone, and would do an excellent job at protecting those children, would be a good idea.
Naw, let the children fight off bullets with books and paperweights. Life’s a bitch - no sense in coddling them.
Of course, the solution to children using deadly weapons is to give them to more children. Genius!
Schools used to have shooting ranges built into them. And school shootings weren’t a problem. Kids are more than capable of being responsible around firearms.
The only reason you’re gunphobic is because you’ve been brainwashed.
Or - get this - it’s because I’m from a country where having more guns than citizens isn’t considered normal.
Children aren’t old enough to vote, why the fuck would you think it’s a good idea to give them easy access to ranged, deadly weapons?
“Gunphobic” is an absurd term, because a phobia implies an irrational fear, so fearing misuse of objects explicitly created for killing things isn’t exactly a “phobia” so much as it is a legitimate concern for the country with the 2nd highest rate of firearm homicides per capita on the planet.
In my country, we don’t do “school shooting drills”. We don’t need to.
We didn’t have drills, but they did ad lib an emergency plan for the beltway sniper.
The fallout shelter at my jr high was turned into the cave all the theater nerds dwelled in. Now it probably a shooter shelter :(
Duck and cover, it’s just good science.
Where i live it’s an area at high earthquake risk; they still teach kids to duck under the desks until the earthquake it’s over; then evacuate.
Sheltering from bombs does feel a little dumb; unless it’s for the same reasons as the earthquake: saving your head from the collapsing debris.
For the classic 1950’s atomic war scenario, probably more for flying glass and so forth.
Obviously it’s not going to save you from a direct hit. You need to get in a fridge to be protected from that sort of thing…
And then you get to be extra sad when you can’t get out of the 1960s fridge.
Yeah that’s what bothered me about it too.
Indiana Jones survived being shot multiple times, almost got his heart ripped out, encountered weird magic from various artifacts, survives a nuclear blast but then suffocates from being trapped inside a fridge. The End. Bum da buh bum bum da da da!
“Billy is that you?”
We named the dog Billy.
I only lived through a handful of earthquakes in the 10 years I lived in L.A. but maybe I should have gone through those drills in my midwestern school, because my reaction every single time wasn’t, “oh shit, an earthquake, better get somewhere safe,” it was, “oh cool! It’s an earthquake! I wonder if it will be bad?” And then I just sat there like an idiot until it ended. Thankfully, it was never bad.
The only serious one i experienced happened in the morning; i was 13; i woke up and saw the fucking chandelier swinging; i started panickng, got my sister in my arms (5y), and started screaming for my dad an mum to get out (dad had already woken up because he felt something, but their bedroom only had floor lights) ; we were on the second floor, by the time we went down the roof had collapsed but the ceiling had held up fine ( only the half-rotten wooden frame broke, everything else held). I still have nightmares of waking up and seeing that chandelier swinging hard side to side.
One that’s bad in your location it lasts longer, so you have time to get past that and decide to get under so those swinging lights and buckling walls don’t land on you.
Otherwise, as a kid you might as well enjoy the thrill. Even if later on you discover lots of people died innearby towns. (1971 Sylmar quake earthquake, I lived 50 miles away.)
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I always thought those were a Boomer-exclusive thing, too. Glad I never had to do it, in any case!
Are there manufacturing standards for school desks that include “strong enough to hold up the roof”?
I mean, if you’re far enough away to notice a bomb going off before the shockwave hits you putting something between you and the soon to collapse roof is probably your next best move.
I always thought it was about shattering windows. Bad place to be, overwhelmed emergency services and covered in deep cuts
It was just about giving you a sense of control in a horrible situation. It was never going to save anyone.
Oh man, that hit the nostalgia button hard in a very bizarre way. I was still using these in the early 90s. I can still picture my name, written in the teacher’s mesmerizingly neat handwriting, taped to the top corner.
I’m in neither boomer nor Gen X, but I remember these style of desks. Hated them.
We used these in my elementary, middle, and high schools, and I went to HS in the mid 2010’s! And we did still do drills with them.
No duck and cover for this Xer, but we did a shiton of stop, drop, and roll. Spontaneous combustion was apparently a big deal in my childhood.
Do you mean US school mass shooting shield?
Sure, if you want to go all retro with your shield.
Retro is the hot right now.
Hot like a hydrogen bomb!
Nowadays that’s where you hide from a active shooter.
Actually you pile up all the desks in front of the door and turn the lights off so the shooter can’t see in the room and can’t get in if they try.
I was born in 1968. I definitely remember the duck and cover drills. Our school was a fallout shelter & they would rotate out the supplies every now and then. All the way up to high school. This is in the northeast.
Ah yes I do remember hiding in the black void under the table top, where existence can’t reach you
surely they still do that. even my younger siblings got their turns. we even got to watch the dumb old duck and cover video with the turtle.
