Whoa! People taught to fight back?!?!

The very first thing we do when school starts are intruder drills. At my school, I was elated when my hide by the door and spray em' with the fire extinguisher to block sight idea caught on. Everyone else is supposed to throw textbooks and anthing else they can find and rush an attacker. I also feel better knowing many of my teachers were former military and we have an armed cop on campus during school hours. I beleive that if you are passive, you will die. But if everyone goes on the offensive you might get lucky.

Yeah the hide thing has worked out real well (sarcasm). If your going to die, take them with you if at all possible.
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The safety and preservation of my students is personally important to me. Therefore, FWIW I make a very clear assertion in the first class of every semester to remind my students, some of whom who may have been misinformed in their earlier elementary and high school experience, that they have an absolute right to life and need not the permission of some traditional authority to defend and preserve the same. Having no taste for candlelight vigils, I also provide them the courtesy of advanced and hopefully unneeded notice that their most immediate "authority figure" (me) has no intention of being a cooperative victim.

hiding

I've always thought that the idea of hiding until a shooter walks up and shoots me in the head sounds like a nightmare. Kind of like cooperating with an airplane highjacker. That changed after 911 and now passengers jump on people who are acting up.

While this seems like a first, other groups, organizations who aren't irrationally afraid of defending themselves have had this mentality since the beginning. You don't just give everything away to the bad guys just because they ask.

More groups will get back to the natural instinct of self preservation and the bad guys will figure it out.

Good deal

If I am going down, somebody is going with me ............ ain't none of this hiding bull____.

Great. But if the people in the school are prohibited from being armed, it's unrealistic.

'Bout time! I know one of my old teachers, a bird colonel Marine, wouldn't advocate the duck & cover mantra. He'd have been leading the assault, with a lot of us right behind him. Weapons are plentiful in a school, we just need to teach the kids how to utilize 'em.

Weapons are plentiful, people just typically avoid teaching students how to view normal items as weapons.
For every intruder stopped by such everyday items now viewed as weapons, many more fights between students will involve the use of such items they now feel confident in using as weapons but that previously would have been overlooked.

So I agree with teaching a pro-active strategy, just be aware that it does not come without some negative consequences as well. If you teach a bunch of teenagers in high school how to seriously injure and maim with a bunch of regular items all around them, a percentage of them are going to now use those same items in situations where they shouldn't have been used.


That is assuming they are really teaching how to effectively do damage with items that actually will inflict damage. If on the other hand they are teaching something like throwing books, well I don't think that is going to inflict the type of damage needed to stop someone intent on shooting people. That would be more of a feel good technique, giving the illusion of an option for success so they don't feel helpless.

I like to say and preach. That You are your first responder in all events. You are there first. You do not need permission from any one to protect yourself.

Finally, Some REAL common sense.

This is why all teachers should carry...... oh, wait. You all live in anti school carry states. LOL

There is really not much you can do at a place of work except hide. Employers are at risk if they allow employees to carry guns, but they are not at lawsuit risk if a Rampage shooter comes and kills all the unarmed employees, as that is a law enforcement matter. That is why all Convenience stores/Pizza Delivery companies fire employees who shoot in self defense.

Really if a Rampage shooter comes in, you will survive if you are lucky. Locking yourself in rooms is better than being caught out in the hallway, but where you are and whether you survive is all up to luck and your ability to guess right.

Don’t expect the Police to come in and save you. I remember watching a video of the SWAT teams outside of Colombine. A heavily armored, heavily armed SWAT team member was responding to a reporter’s question “why are you not going in?”, and the answer was we “have not received orders”. The real reason was these Professional Mall Ninjas were afraid to go in because they had some real killers in the High School and it was a lot safer for them to stay outside while the killers continued murdering helpless school kids.

To be completely honest, locking yourself in classrooms isn't a terrible practice.
In my schools, the doors were sturdy and had tiny windows with steel mesh in them. Lock one of those, and a shooter would be unable to get a good angle through the window or break through and into the classroom without thoroughly preparing before or walking all the way around the building, for rooms with windows.
I would still hope someone could find the opportunity to catch a shooter off guard and stop him, though.
Don't discount textbooks. Throwing them would do every ounce of jack and squat, but get close enough and you can still knock someone thoroughly stupid with six pounds of hardcovered algebra.

... get close enough and you can still knock someone thoroughly stupid with six pounds of hardcovered algebra.

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I can vouch for that from personal experience. Every algebra class I ever took knocked me stupid for the entire semester.

Great. But if the people in the school are prohibited from being armed, it's unrealistic.

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Fair enough, but it beats them essentially saying to lay down and wait to die.

Asia331, what field are you in?

Chem lab - beaker (to pitch it at them) or flask (throw at them like a grenade) of concentrated acid (nitric or sulfuric) or a base like ammonium hydroxide (fumes).
If you have 2 flasks of hydrochloric acid and ammonium hydroxide, when they break they will create a foggy white cloud of toxic gas that will take your breath away and also provide a "smoke screen".

Good to hear this mentality is being taught just next door. Relatively. I was in junior high (dating myself here) when 9/11 happened. They corralled us in a room with the lights off and the door locked while we watched the events happen. Being a half mile from the Canadian border had the teachers worried for student safety. All I could think about looking around the room was 1 grenade could take out 30 students. Guess I had a combat mindset long before I was ever trained in it.

One of my old teachers was a former Special Forces operator. He had a plan of action that he made sure everyone knew. He would be closest to the door, and if the perp managed to get it in, take the first shots or distract em' to give us a vital second or 2 to react. Someone would hose the perp with the fire extinguisher to blind, throw anything from books, trophies, or maybe even some strategically placed baseballs and ''paper weights''. The biggest and strongest were to rush an attacker. Of course this wouldn't end well for most involved but i think it's better to atleast give yourself a chance and everyone was pretty much on the same page.

This has been "unofficial" policy around here for a while. We had, unfortunately, a school shooting at a nearby district high school toward the end of last school year. One teacher was found immediately after (within a minute or so) walking the halls wearing a bullet proof vest and carrying a framing hammer. Both items were stached in his desk drawer. The shooter fled immediately after killing several students and wounding more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chardon_High_School_shooting

I'm gonna forward that article to my stepdad. He's a former Major, Ranger, Airborne and Special Ops vet who does substitute teaching to fill the hours of his retirement.

No, it's nothing new, but it is radically different from what most schools are taught to do, and fighting back is virtually ignored in the media, or if it is covered, demonized.

I do agree that most kids would probably panic under stress like that. I believe I have the mindset and mentality needed to act in that type of situation, and no, nothing as serious as a school shooting has ever happened to me. But it's atleast something to have a plan and have everyone on the same page so God forbid it does happen, we won't have 30 kids with different ideas on what to do. Even if just 4 or 5 respond, someone might get lucky. Speed and intensity was the plan.