What is it about the color red that invokes so many feelings and emotions?  It can represent romance, power, evil, fear.  Years ago, I remember the red “power tie” for men and the “power color” for women being red.  Maybe it still is. Red is the color of our life’s blood, the color of a beautiful rose, the color that represents the devil.  In my part of the world, it represents Big Red Nation, the Cornhuskers, and the city of Lincoln is literally a sea of red on fall Saturdays.

Red makes something special or helps get something noticed.  It’s the color of the Batphone.  It’s the color of a clown’s nose or the rouged cheeks of an elderly woman. It’s the color of the power button on my TV remote and the color of the word COKE on my diet coke can.

Red can be a scary color.  It’s the color of fire, firetrucks, and other emergency vehicles.  It’s warns us to stop with signs and lights.  Red seems like a loud color to me, if red had a volume.  It demands attention, wants us to know of its importance.

And perhaps that’s why we refer to the scariest of all drills at school, the Code Red Drill.  Today I did something I’ve tried not to ever do before one of these drills.  I tried to scare some kids.  I hate scaring kids.  Sure, I’ve got the teacher look down and can sometimes reprimand a student with a single, well placed eyebrow raise, but I’ve always thought it was my job to help shelter kids somewhat or to temper the scary with a little humor and let the kids know that I was in charge and I would take care of them.  But today I needed to scare some kids.

I have a certain class of students right now that behave as if they are “all that”.  Everything is a joke, everything is funny.  I had them first thing this morning, and they arrived as the morning announcements were going on.  As they talked through the principal’s announcement about the Code Red Drill this morning, some were laughing and talking about how they got to hide today in the dark and how much fun that was going to be.  All I could think of were those poor kids at Sandy Hook Elementary.  How terrified they must have been, hiding in the dark, in closets and under things.  How these senseless deaths devastated families, a community and a nation.  At first I was a little angry at my students, but then I realized, why wouldn’t they behave like this?  They see violence all the time in the media, on TV, in the movies, some in their own homes.  They’re completely desensitized.  And unlike my little ones who worry so much about “what ifs”, this bunch looked at it as a game.  One of them actually left his classroom right before the drill to use the restroom so that he would get some attention because he was gone.  He did.  So, I decided to make things a little more real for them.

I asked them to define the drill for me, what it was and why we were doing it.  Yes, it’s in case someone dangerous gets in the building.  We talked about how sometimes the person is very angry or suffers from mental illness.  How that person might not care who they killed.  How sad their families would be if they died.  Died.  It means you’re never coming back.  It means your parents will be sad forever because you’re never coming back.  How your friends would be sad.  What if your teacher was killed trying to protect you?  How would his or her family react?  How would you react?  Talked about hiding in my room, in the dark, on the floor behind the risers, listening to gunshots and hoping the person was going somewhere besides where they were.  What if they had little brothers or sisters in the other parts of the building?  Were they safe?

After I surmised that they were sufficiently somber, I went back and reassured them that the reason we practice scary things like this is so that we can be as prepared as possible IF something like this were to ever happen.  I told them how I had already thought about my own routines; how I made sure one door was always locked and how I could quickly lock the other.  How I had checked to make sure nobody could see them from the windows by the doors.  How I knew where my cell phone was to call for help.  How I had already checked around the room for possible weapons in case I needed to fight.  For them.  That they were my first priority.  You see, I don’t want them to worry, but they do need to take things seriously so that when I ask them to do something, they do it quickly, silently and without question so that I can do everything I know to keep them safe.

When I first began teaching, all we did were fire drills.  Then tornado drills.  Now we’re trained in CPR, how to use defibrillators, how to deal with bodily fluids and still more trauma training.  We’re trained how to deal with suicidal students, students who are abused, students who are poor, students who are homeless, students with mental illness.  And we’re being trained on what to do to keep our students alive in case of a shooter.  Not exactly what I went to school for, but a reality in our culture today.  So, while I will wear my red for my Huskers this Saturday, at school I will remember red means I will do everything I can to protect my kids.