You’re walking in the hallways to your next class, nervous of your upcoming test, but you hear a loud bang mid-daydream. Everyone in the hallway stops and they freeze – time pauses for a few seconds. Was that a gunshot? That’s impossible, not in my school. Your mind circles around in different directions needing an answer, but you find out it was just a loud door slamming and you continue with your day.

     It’s sad that this is what students have to face. Students have to be able to know what to do in a lockdown, but in reality, they don’t know what to do in these situations.

     The problem with lockdown drills is that they should be completely random and unexpected. School emergencies will not just happen at 9:12am during dog teams every time. If students are in a school shooting, they wouldn’t know what to do because they have never physically been trained to do this other than hiding in a corner and the teacher turning off the lights in their classroom. 

     According to CNN, there have been at least fifty-eight school shootings in 2023 as of Oct. 3. If people were to talk to anyone in those fifty-eight school shootings and ask them what time it happened, it would be different for each person. Teachers tell students to run into a classroom if they happen to be in a hallway, but if they have never been in this situation it is likely for students to freeze up and panic.

     This is a serious issue, and students need to learn by experiencing drills regularly. Schools need to have a monthly lockdown drills at a completely random time and a completely random day. Walking in the halls during passing periods? Lockdown drill. Learning during class? Lockdown drill. 

     Some students don’t take these lockdowns seriously, making noises and talking during them while everyone else is silent. This is a serious matter in which people have lost their life. Students need to be strictly taught to not even speak during these drills and just be silent so that they know how to be quiet in case it is a real emergency.

     People may think to themselves that a shooting won’t happen here, but we can’t cross out the possibility of a shooting anywhere, because it can happen to anyone, including us. If it ever does happen, we need to take it seriously and know what to do because human lives are at risk.