Safety in Classrooms
When the security of our classrooms are in question,
where do we go?
When I was in school, we used to have 2 types of drills: Fire and Earthquake. I remember them fondly because we didn’t have to be in class. They were not a bleak reminder of the state of the world. Growing up in the 90s was this ignorantly blissful period, post-Loma Prieta, and pre-Columbine and continent-destroying fires. Lucky us, I guess.
However, if you’re like me, and you would like to raise a family someday, then we haven’t completely dodged the question of school safety. School drills now have a heavier air to them, no longer innocent and joyful escapes from class, but accompanied by loaded discussions around whether teachers should carry firearms. The sanctity of our places of education is threatened by its own participants. Our children are threatened by their classmates, and those holding the guns have fallen victim to a society plagued by violence and lack of gun control.
School Shootings from 2013 to 2019 from Everytown
As a child or a parent, school shootings are top of the mind. When considering which schools will give our children the best chance at getting into the dream college, or where they will make the most friends, now we must consider where will our child be least likely to get shot. And with the seemingly indiscriminate array of schools affected by this now pandemic, how do we make this choice?
Do we keep them at home, locked up and safe from the threat of unpredictable school shootings now on the rise? For most of us, homeschooling is not an option. Is education something worth risking your child’s life for? There is no doubt that gun violence in America is on the rise with 130 incidences of a documented school shooting in 2019.
Living in fear of an unpredictable school shooting is now the norm. We can wait for our government or our society to trend away from these dangers, or we can take control of our own safety. Innocent Armor CEO and co-founder Mike Wang did just that.
Releasing the first line of bullet-resistant streetwear, Innocent Armor may not be the solution to gun violence in American schools but it is a response. It is a way to provide a sheath of awareness and protection within our schools. Innocent Armor was founded upon this very principle: universalizing protection. We no longer have the luxury of predictable safety within our schools, but with Innocent Armor we can at least allow ourselves a step towards it.