Drills, then and now

[madamesilverspurs]

Back in the ‘50s we had many “duck and cover” drills. Those exercises were predicated on an external threat from a foreign enemy. Thank God we never had to put those drills to real use.

Today’s kids, however, have grown up with “active shooter” drills. And these exercises are predicated by an internal threat of repeating incidents — incidents that were entirely preventable thanks to an unspeakably useless congress that is unwilling to act.

Children are dying because Congress is afraid of the NRA. Period.


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[Wellstone ruled]

1. Every Wednesday morning at 10 o'clock just before Recess.

[ProudLib72]

2. Duck and cover because those desks can save you from a nuclear blast!

No one had the guts to tell us back then it was all a farce. We were naive in those days.

[csziggy]

4. Best depiction of "Duck & Cover" in a movie!

This entire movie is a real flashback for those of us who lived in Florida during the Cuban Missile Crisis. We all KNEW we would die, either from the original bomb blasts or from the fall out.

[ProudLib72]

5. I believed it was worthwhile

We took it very seriously in my school. But we didn't go into a hall. We hid under our desks, bunched up with our hands behind our heads. I remember doing duck and cover from 1st to 4th grade, until I moved to a different state. We look back on it now and think about how silly it all was, but at the time we weren't joking.

I wonder what the psychological impact of duck and cover drills was. I went through it in the late 70s. The OP says the 50s. That is an entire generation of people who were traumatized by teachers telling us that the bombs were going to fall and wipe us out unless we knew how to duck and cover properly.

[csziggy]

6. My elementary did not have closed halls

Just covered ones along one side of the rows of classrooms. The classrooms had no cover - no closets, the entire north wall was glass, the top of the south wall was glass, usually open for air flow. The school offices were the only really sheltered areas and there was not room for all the kids in them. Even the bathrooms had high rows of windows that were usually open since there was no air conditioning.

About 1964 I read Pat Frank's Alas, Babylon and decided that it would be better to die in the initial attack than to linger on in the chaos that would follow. I was twelve when I made that realization. I was younger than the students at the Stoneman Douglas School.

[Leghorn21]

3. PERIOD.

THIS IS NOT A DRILL