My wife is a teacher in Toronto and today had to do very intense lessons and real-time training (complete with her class of grade three and four kids) for what to do if there’s an active shooter in the school.
She’s been teaching for almost thirty years. When she started, lockdown training didn’t exist. Because it didn’t have to.
If you think what’s happening as a result of school shootings in the States is confined to the States, think again.
It happening here, and it’s fucking terrifying.
In 2006 I was in canada on a work / travel visa, one of the things I did learn or at least pick up on was that Canadians are proud of the fact they are not Americans. So while the langage is the same, there are a few differences, currency is still the dollar, quaters,nickles, dimes still mean the samething, sport is similar, both countries crazy about baseball and icehockey (certainly around the time of the stanley cup final)
One thing is the attitude towards guns, something that canadians seemed proud of those differences.
That was 2006, before the explosion in social media use (e.g facebook) which is really starting to become that pivotal moment in history where things started to go horribly wrong.
My thoughts are with Canadians, please don't turn into the USA 2.0, the difference is what makes you a great country.
@zleap Guns are far and away the top problem for me. As it is, accidents happen and blah, so on some level I need to accept that when my wife goes to work and daughter goes to school, there’s a teeny, tiny chance I won’t see them alive again.
But with a wife who’s a teacher and a daughter in grade school, I know that the chances of that would skyrocket in the U.S. And that one political party is a-ok with that. And I just can’t imagine living like that.
Also, we have better beer. 🙂
@zleap Addendum: Some things here are definitely shifting toward a U.S. temperature, though.
I overheard two adults trying to talk a third into being anti-Trudeau, and the last bit was “And he [whisper whisper whisper] and that’s why he wants to take our guns.”
Easily the most bananas thing I’ve heard in a long time. You could literally have put those same people in the States and replaced Trudeau with Biden, and it would’ve been standard fare. But here? That’s weird and concerning.
@zleap Oh, there are stark differences, for sure. I think being happy with our gun control is just one of them.
But it’s not just us. I grew up in the 70s and 80s and knew that Americans were apt to sew Canadian flags on their bags when they went backpacking around the globe. They knew even then that OTHER people would be happier that they seemingly weren’t from America, too.
In the more recent half of my life, honestly I’m just relieved I don’t live there for a few reasons.
1/2