When I give advice to young people about priorities, I always consider three things as the most important in order: safety, health, and accomplishments. Safety is the number one concern in any event. With the ever increasing incidents of public tragedies, such as the New Town school shooting, Boston Marathon explosions, people are more sensitive to the safety issues.
Today, when I visited my junior practicum student interns in Trenton, I signed in at the front entrance first, and then the security guard politely apologized to me that she would need to scan me with a metal scanner, just as if I were entering the airport security gate. I was a little surprised but I politely accepted her request.
When I mentioned this to a cooperating teacher, I was asked, “Didn’t she know you?”
“Of course, she knew me. I have been working with this school for about ten years. But this is her job. I suppose. ”
“Were you scanned before?”
“No. This is the first time.”
“Didn’t she scan other teachers and the principal?”
“I don’t know.”
I am not sure if I have received a special treatment or not. However, it really doesn’t matter if I will need to be scanned every time I enter this building. The question is whether this tightened security measure may truly avoid any undesirable disaster.
