When we send out children to school, we expect them to be educated in a safe and secure environment.
But with a huge number of school shootings this year alone, parents are more afraid than ever to let their children leave the safety of their home.
Although it's a teacher's duty to protect their students from harm while at school, they have to be prepared to do more than ever before, and it's caught the eye of one Massachusetts mother.
Georgy Cohen was touring a kindergarten classroom to get a sense of what to expect when her young daughter starts attending school. While she saw the typical school supplies scattered across the room, she noticed a lockdown song taped to the chalk board.
"Lockdown, lockdown, Lock the door
Shut the lights off, Say no more
Go behind the desk and hide
Wait until it's safe inside
Lockdown, Lockdown it's all done
Now it's time to have some fun!"
Horrified by what she saw, Cohen took a picture of the nursery rhyme and posted it on social media. She captioned it: "This should not be hanging in my soon-to-be-kindergartener's [sic] classroom."
The song, which is meant to be sung to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," immediately went viral, with thousands of Twitter users voicing their shock over what educators now have to teach their students.
I am so sorry for all of you.😢
— Nuclear Football (@EuphoricEuler) June 6, 2018
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Kids in Austria only know fire drills.
Which amount to a leisurely stroll to the school yard...
Thats how it should be
I am 45 went to elementary school in CA. The only drills we had were for fires and earthquakes. This is truly insane.
— Genesee Larche (@genesee_larche) June 7, 2018
My kindergartener's school had a practice lockdown today, and she cheerfully told me that she and her classmates did so well. This is not normal. This is not okay.
— Andrea Bongiovanni (@andreamichelle4) June 8, 2018
"It's jarring," Cohen said in an interview with the Boston Globe. "When I was in kindergarten, we had fire drills. It was different "” we didn't have these same types of threats."
However, Cohen made it clear that she was glad the school have been taking preemptive action.
"These are the things they unfortunately have to do. I get it," she continued. "Part of their job is to educate and keep my kids safe and I feel confident they are going to do both of those things to the best of their ability."
"I think that this is a case where our educators are in a new reality, and they are doing the best they can across all different grade levels to ensure they keep students safe," the school board's Superintendent Mary Skipper said.
"We regularly do our lockdown drills, and for our youngest students you have to age-appropriately introduce them to it," she added.
Sadly, these drills have become a necessity now more than ever.
The massacre at a Las Vegas country music festival at Mandalay Bay and a school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School this past Valentine's Day are only some examples of the terror Americans have been facing on a nearly daily basis.
