Brittany's Classroom Management Kit

Many people, students and teachers alike, have the belief that the school building is a safe haven from many emergencies. Because of such a belief, school staff and students can possibly be lulled into a sense of calm that hinders their ability to react when an emergency occurs. In the present day, more and more, the emergencies to be concerned with are less fires and more school shooters or weapon-wielding individuals invading a school. Therefore, teachers must be ready for a wide range of emergencies, moreso than ever before.

 

The main key to dealing with emergencies is to stay calm and stay in control of yourself and your students. However, the specifics of different emergencies make them require a bit more depth of preparation than reactive ones. While all emergencies should be considered, the main three that teachers should prep for are: an Active Shooter Emergency, a Fire Emergency, and a Medical emergency.

 

It is a sad fact that an emergency teacher must consider is that a shooter or an armed student might threaten the rest of the school body. However, to help prevent tragedy from occurring, teacher must be prepared to face such threats. The Active Shooter Reference guide by the FBI gives three, clear options when a gunman enters a location: run, hide or fight. The guide further states that one should only, “fight as a last resort and only when your life is in imminent danger.”

 

Schools around the United States are answering the call to prepare for such dangers by having plans which involve arming teachers, putting police or armed guards around propriety, changing the design of the school to hinder shooters, adding bulletproof objects, and lastly teaching teachers self-defense against different, possible shooter situations. Such workshops teach one how to attack with one’s body, using every limb to one’s advantage, as well using the surrounding (i.e. staples and scissors) to attack the attacker. Moreover, these workshops teach how to find blind spots in a room so the attacker doesn’t see the teacher when they enter the room and thusly the teacher can attack unseen. Lastly, such workshop focus on disarming a shooter by teaching teachers to grab the barrel of the gun and hold the slide so the gun doesn’t fire. Many parents and schools believe that workshops of self-defense must be mandatory for educators. To stress that point Zach Hudson, co-founder of Defensive Tactics Solutions, said that, "You got to make sure you get those fire drills in every year. Fire drills are important, don't get me wrong, but guess what, kids aren't dying in fires. They're dying because they are being shot. That's the truth, and that's the threat." Teachers can be masters of their content, but if the student’s aren’t safe then not a bit of that content matters to your students.

 

Another emergency to consider, which most school already prepared for by law, is the emergency of a fire breaking out at school. Many students and some teachers feel that fire drills are pure monotony, but from experience I know how much they help ease a situation. When I was in 2nd Grade a fire broke out during our morning meeting because of a craft project involving an iron and fabric. It was because of our drills that we didn’t loose our heads during the entire event. That’s the main crux of fire drills, teaching students what to do and how to behave in the event of an emergency. The main thing to remember with fire drills is to take the event seriously, treat it like it’s read and the students will take note of that attitude as well. Secondly, let your students know what is expected of them in terms of behavior and actions. Typically the procedure for a fire drill, as put forth by veteran Secondary Educator Melissa Kelly is, to have students calmly line up at the door, make sure everyone is lined up before you leave, grade the grade/attendance book to keep student’s records safe and to take roll, turn off the lights and lock the door (although this is only during a drill to protect student’s personal belongings. After this routine of leaving the room, head to the pre-chosen meeting place outside, but make sure the students know what it is expected during this time, namely being that they are quiet, don’t stop and remain on their best overall behavior. When you arrive at the meeting place, keep students in line and take roll from your attendance book. Make sure your students remain clam and collected, but don’t be afraid to talk to them to ease the tension a bit. From personal experience I know that following a routine can make a bad situation a bit easier to bare-it gives one a sense of control over a situation.

 

However, something that I had not considered was how seemingly simple fire drills can affect certain people with certain circumstances. For example an autistic blogger wrote that, “When the fire alarm went off at elementary school, I would end up huddled in a ball crying. Every. Single. Time. The teachers didn’t know what to do with me, so they’d tell me to get up and get in line with everyone else while we walked out of the building. Then they’d yell at me when I couldn’t respond fast enough. That made me cry more. When we’d finally get outside, I would resume my sitting (or crouching), rocking, and hands-over-ears position. No one ever tried to make the situation better. Ever. Every time there was a fire alarm, I couldn’t concentrate right for the rest of the day, sometimes longer.”

 

In this moment, teachers failed to prepare for the possibility of a student with disabilities reacting strongly to something we deem routine. Therefore, teachers must consider in their planning how to help students with such anxieties to develop a copping mechanism to more effectively handle said anxieties.The last, key emergency that teaches should be prepared for is medical emergencies. One never knows when a medical situation can develop, situations ranging from pre-existing conditions such as seizures to unexpected ones such as low blood sugar. The way to be ready for any emergency is to be prepared for as many possible outcomes as one can be. A good place to start is to know and keep up to date on CPR as well as knowing First Aid. Some other things to consider is to know the emergency numbers for your area as well as to know exactly where you are in the school, enough to give directions well enough to emergency personnel. Besides that, a medical emergency is a situation where you must remain calm yet firm to keep control of the situation. Also, if possible, protect yourself as well by having plastic gloves on hand to protect from any bodily fluids you might encounter. All in all, keeping calm and preparing beforehand with certain skills will enable teachers to be better ready to handle such emergencies.

 

In the end, teachers must take on many hats in order to effectively protect and teach their students. More and more teachers have to take on more and more hats to be prepared for the varying situations that they could encounter. However, all that preparation only turns teachers into more effective educators.