Imagine this: It's just another day at work or school, and suddenly someone rushes in and tells you there is a shooter nearby. Immediately, you take cover and spend the slow-passing seconds thinking, "What do I do now?"
Now imagine the whole thing was a joke.
Not funny, I know. Yet, that situation is exactly what some of the teachers from Scales Elementary put their sixth-grade students through on a field trip.
In the aftermath, school officials explained to media that it was a poor choice in judgment, a prank and even a teaching tool.
The students were on a week-long field trip at Fall Creek Falls State Park, and it was teacher Quentin Mastin's turn to tell a scary story. He thought it would be a good idea to tell the students that there were shooters nearby and even have a teacher dressed in a dark hoodie come up and pull on locked doors. When some students began crying, the teachers realized their "prank" had gone too far.
After telling the students it was a joke, they told reporters they sat down with the students to discuss what had just occurred.
That is the worst joke I have ever heard.
Scary stories are usually about ghosts and witches, not about a scenario that could conceivably happen and has been happening at schools across the country.
As for using the scenario as a teaching tool, I would have been too scared to learn anything from that situation.
In Kentucky, the Lincoln County Area Technology Center did stage a school shooting drill. The high school students who attend the school for vocational classes knew that the situation was a drill.
This drill involved the entire community, including the local hospital, fire department and police department. The drill was to check to see how the community would respond to that kind of situation.
During the drill, fake blood and rubber bullets were used, and the "victims" were treated by medical personnel for their injuries. The practice taught the community there were some communication issues necessary to be worked out between the agencies.
That drill is a teaching tool. That prank participant Don Bartch, the assistant principal of Scales Elementary, told reporters the prank was used as a teaching tool is ludicrous in comparison.
The students quoted in newspaper stories said how scared they were and how they thought they were going to die. School shootings are far too serious of a subject to be made light of. School shootings are not a joke.
If a student had been the one to pull the prank, it is likely their punishment would have been much more severe than what Bartch and Mastin received. Students get expelled for pulling a fire alarm as a joke. Youthful indiscretions are never excused, yet they are referring to this as merely a bad judgment call.
Whether there was a malicious intent behind the prank is not the question. Neither is their ability as educators.
What is in question is why they are receiving what seems to be merely a slap on the wrist. If anything, their punishment should be more severe than what a student would receive. They are older and are supposed to be wiser.
Both Bartch and Mastin have been suspended without pay for the remainder of the school year. The other teachers involved have not received any disciplinary action.
Students have had the opportunity to see counselors if necessary, but nothing done now can erase those five minutes of fear.
Every action has consequences, and though it was not a real school shooting, some of those students truly believed their lives were in danger.
Jessica Giles, an assistant professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, said some students may have "increased amounts of fear about violence and school shootings and increased distrust for authority figures."
School is no longer a guaranteed safe space. Hopefully, everyone will learn something from this situation - that school shootings are not a joke. They are serious situations that need to be discussed and unfortunately prepared for, because most of the time they are not pranks.
China Reevers is the State News opinion writer. Reach her at reevers1@msu.edu.
