Journal Entry #9: "Lockdown"

Journal Entry #9: "Lockdown"

The world is a different place than it was prior to the shootings in Montreal, Columbine, and any number of other places. How much do you pay attention to violent issues in the media? How safe do you feel in school? What suggestions do you have for finding our way (as a society) to a more peaceful state? Do you have any thoughts, comments, opinions or suggestions about how the situation at Stamford on October 14, 2009 was handled?

The world is changing, and not in a good way. People admit to torturing for information. People go to see movies focussing on slaughtering people, like Hostel. People are going around, beating other people to death with hammers in the Ukraine. Students are being shot by other students in schools. I’m not one to read the paper, or watch the news, but obviously I will hear about events that are as substantial as Virginia Tech when they appear on the news.

Even though all this exists in the world, I feel pretty safe in my school. Maybe it’s because all these things happen elsewhere, but to be honest, I just feel safe, and I’m not sure why. I think it’s that when we’re young we feel invincible, so it’s almost like "that would never happen to me." Then again, I’m sure that’s what the victims of these things said too. It must have been unreal for the victims of the Virginia Tech, Columbine, and Montreal massacres. It may be because of these events that I feel safer, simply because schools are much more cautious now, and take threats more seriously. They look for signs of behaviour that could lead to events like this, to make sure they don’t happen.

As much as I think about it, I don’t think there is really much I could suggest to make us a more peaceful society. I can’t tell all these people who are in gangs to stop killing each other. I can’t tell countries to stop going to war. People need to learn that violence isn’t the only answer, that there’s more rational ways to handle situations. That being said, I think the situation on October 14 was handled very well. They stayed very relaxed about the situation so that we didn’t panic, and just told us to lock our doors. They didn’t tell us about what had happened until after it was over, again, to make sure that we didn’t panic. Staff also came around to each class in order to make sure that any questions we had about it were answered. I found it kind of aggravating that they didn’t tell us immediately what was going on, but that’s just the way I am. But I can completely understand why they weren’t open about the topic immediately, with all these grade 9's who have just started high school. I don’t think they could have handled the situation any better.