Today’s half day started with a friendly competition. Our staff was divided into teams, and we were to go against one another in a scavenger hunt. People were AMPED. One team even made T-shirts.
The principal came on the PA and announced that the weather wasn’t cooperating for the scavenger hunt, but we’d have a Kahoot quiz.
I ambled to the library at the appointed time, fully expecting to be chill about the whole thing (I’m a lover, not a fighter). And then my friend and colleague looked me straight in the eye and said, “WE. HAVE. To WIN.” I don’t know where she got this crazy level of competition, but I have never seen that side of her. (What can I say? My friends contain multitudes.) Our team named ourselves The Magnificent Seven and entered the Kahoot.
Wouldn’t you know, we won. We WON!
But…did we?
The scavenger hunt: It was supposed to be a race to our evacuation rally points. And the Kahoot quiz was about protocols for active shooter situations.
Let that sink in.
I’m supposed to pretend that this isn’t entirely messed up? I’m supposed to pretend that “escape the shooter” survival games for schoolchildren aren’t sinister and dystopian? Shall I ignore the fact the necessity for any of this speaks to critical faults in our societal foundation?
So yes, my team and I cheered. We high-fived one another early and often. We are anxiously anticipating the lunch we’re treated to as a prize.
But don’t think, for a moment, we can’t recognize the price at which it comes.
Soapbox: The Way I see Things 
Oh wow! I was so excited for your win (yes, I’m competitive)… and then mic drop with the Kahoot content. Sigh. There are no winners in this game. Thank you for sharing.
No winners, indeed, and a terrible game – one that we are all forced to play.
Sigh. That’s an unsettling game for sure. So sad that this topic is now a regular part of our staff development, so regular that your admin turned it into a game. It’s surreal, isn’t it?
ENTIRELY surreal, Sharon. And it hits at odd times – like when we’re in the staff lounge at lunch casually talking about active shooter drills or modifications we are making to our classrooms. Like…this is just normal lunch conversation now? Oh, heavens.
Great post! I was pulled in by the creativity of your PD offerings and then smacked upside the head by the content of the PD. What have we become?
What, indeed. I thought, mistakenly, that Sandy Hook would be the turning point. And yet here we are.
An excellently horrifying and dystopian twist at the end of your slice. You perfectly evoked the competitive nature of your friend and the Kahoot staff meeting, then turned our expectations upside down! Terrific craft work here.
Thank you. This slice brewed for me all day. I felt haunted by the juxtaposition of the fun and games with the sheer horror of school shootings. I’m glad it came through.
Well that took an abrupt turn. Good on you for stepping back and calling out what we have become.
I am still amazed at how folks who are normally super chill get way fired up about competitions.
I’ve grown to be dogmatically anti-competition as a pedagogy thanks to Allie Kohn’s voice in my head, but I still play to win when I play, lol. Thanks for the perspective and share.
Thanks. I’m also not much for competition, but I will admit to having gotten swept up in my friend’s excitement. And yes…what HAVE we become? If i don’t dissociate to some degree, the anger may destroy me.
It is a sad commentary on the state of our world that this type of game becomes part of an in-service day for teachers.
I know, right? And I get it, though. We have to talk about these things, and we have to discuss protocol, so gamifying it isn’t the *worst* way to go, I suppose.
It’s just…icky, though.
Wow, I get it, I do, but wow. There is something downright unsettling that ‘active shooter’ is such a common thing it has been ‘game-ified’. That someone, thought that a thing to do.