Will a Shooter come?A Perspective from Kindergarten
A light breeze ruffled the yellowing aspen leaves. A small bird flitted through the white-green branches. Dandelions hugged the sidewalk by the school door. The air was crisp on that sunny September day when I picked up my granddaughter from kindergarten.
“Grandma!” she squealed hugging me and eager to show me her papers, one of a black and white cat sitting on crayon-green grass with blue sky at the top of the paper. “My teacher read a story about this cat,” she said grabbing my hand. “And I traced over the numbers on this paper. See, I didn’t go outside the blue dotted lines.”
“Nice! You were especially careful—I see that. Did you go out on the playground?”
Her pink and white tutu swished as she walked. “Yes, I played on the slide with my friends.” She was skipping and dancing along the sidewalk while her hair, in ribboned ponytails, bounced. “The wheels on the bus go round and round,” she sang. “Sing with me Grandma.”
We finished the song, and I asked, as she was climbing into the car seat, “What else did you do today?”
A long pause and a frowny face—“It was scary!” she said with eyes wide. “We had our active shooter drill.”
My heart stopped. Tears welled in my eyes. I couldn’t swallow or speak—Columbine still fresh in my mind-- thinking how she was only five years old and that she knew about school shooters. Stay calm I said to myself—hard to believe that this tiny, spirited bundle of enthusiasm, buckling her car seat, had learned, in her own words, “Bad people come into schools and shoot kids.”
“So, tell me what you did during the--- drill,” I said, not able to say all the words as I gripped the steering wheel and knew my voice should not express alarm.
“We each have a cubby to go into. We must be very quiet,” she said bringing her finger to her lips, making the quiet sign. I saw her clearly in my rear-view mirror as she continued. “The teacher closes all the window covers, locks the door, and turns off the lights so the active shooter won’t know we are in the room. Then the teacher comes to the corner and reads us a story very quietly.” A long pause. “Grandma, do you think a bad guy will come to school and shoot me and my friends?”
Why does a five-year-old have to know this? Be afraid of this? What has happened to our country? I realize I am the first person she is asking about our “new normal.” “No, Sweetpea, I don’t think anyone will shoot you. I promise that your teachers are keeping you safe. The principal is keeping you safe. All the grownups in the school are keeping you safe,” I said as my voice sounded like I was talking about normal things, but my heart trembled.
“Grandma,” she said with a more authoritative voice, “If a bad guy isn’t coming to shoot us, then why do we have to do the active shooter drill?”
This one is very smart. No one is going to get anything by her. “It’s like wearing a seat belt in the car with you in back in a car seat. It’s safer for you just in case there is an accident.”
“No, Grandma, it’s not like that at all. An active shooter doesn’t happen on accident. They PLAN to bring their gun to school and shoot us.”
“Well, maybe it’s like a fire drill. You told me about your fire drill. We don’t expect a fire to happen in school, but just in case it did, everyone needs to know what to do.”
“Grandma, there must have been a fire sometime so people know there might be another one. So, was there an active shooter before in a school?”
Like I said, extremely smart and remarkably persistent. Do I tell her about Columbine? Does a five-year-old need to know this? And how to tell a five-year-old such a thing?
She senses my hesitation, leaning forward and pointing at me and then, “Grandma, when you were a teacher, was there an active shooter?”
“Sweetpea, yes, I am extremely sad to say that before you were born, a long time ago, there was. But now that’s why schools have drills so kids and teachers will know what to do to stay safe. Now you’re very safe in school because now everyone knows what to do.”
“Grandma, what does “active” mean?”
“When you were on the sidewalk on the way to the car you were active, now you’re sitting, so you’re not active. How about we get active and go for ice cream before you will be active at your dance studio? What kind of ice cream do you think you’d like today? I knew that wouldn’t be the end of the questions but wanted her parents to have the opportunity to continue the conversation.
“Chocolate—my favorite,” she said flinging up both hands.
Now at age fifteen, she must still ask herself, “Will a bad guy come to school and shoot me and my friends and my teachers?” I bet she also remembers that I promised her that grown-ups would keep kids safe.
Why haven’t we done that? We’ve had more than 20 years to make it happen. We, as a nation, have the blood of murdered children on our hands. We have the tears and anguish of their families in our broken hearts. No one wants this. We can make it stop. We know how to do this.