MOn May 15, Cindy Campos’ five-year-old son came home with a book he had received from his school in Dallas, Texas. Eagerly he lifted it out of his school bag and showed the book to his mother. It was a Peter Pooh book with a somewhat startling text.:
‘Stay safe’ – take care of yourself – is written on the front of the book and ‘run, hide, fight’ – run, hide, fight’. A phrase that American school children have heard several times by now, and that they know means they have to watch to get away.
The book is intended as a kind of guide for what the children should do in the event of a school shooting. To the local media Oak Cliff Advocate tells Cindy Campos that she was unsure whether to read it to her son, because how would she explain the seriousness of the book’s content in a way that he would be able to understand? And according to Cindy Campos, she was told nothing about the book until her son came home with it.
Our children should focus on leading the world in math and science – not learning to duck
Joe Biden, President
The book was sent out a week before the anniversary of the school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two teachers lost their lives just over a year ago.
Cindy Campos is frustrated by the book’s content, and she feels that the Pooh book is a symptom of a country coming to terms with the hundreds of school shootings that have occurred in recent years.
“It’s a bit like getting punched in the face”, says Cindy Campos to The Washington Post.
»’Hey! It’s normal now. Here you get a book about it”.
Pictures from the book show how Winnie the Pooh hides in his honey jar and how he pulls Piglet and Donkey after him. The pictures show what the children should do in the event of a school shooting, but Cindy Campos doesn’t think it makes sense to use Winnie the Pooh to explain something so serious, she tells The Washington Post.
“It’s like you can’t hide in a honey jar. My son doesn’t think this is about guns.’
163 school shootings
A children’s book about a school shooting is not something you would see in most countries, but in the US it might make sense. In 2023 alone, there have so far been 163 school shootings, figures show K-12 database of school shootings.
The numbers have been fairly stable from 1970 to 2017, with around 40 to 50 school shootings per year, but in 2018 the curve increased and has been increasing ever since. If the trend continues in this way, it is expected that the year will end with around 400 school shootings. Last year there were 304.
On several occasions, presidents have tried to overcome the problem. Most recently, President Joe Biden gave a speech in connection with the fifth anniversary of the school shooting at Santa Fe High School in Texas. Here he said, among other things, that “our children should focus on leading the world in mathematics and science – not learn to hide”.
Source: Politiken.dk – Forsiden by politiken.dk.
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