Stranger Danger!

One day in my first year I was sitting in the Teacher’s Room preparing for class. My teacher went over the schedule for the day with me and told me that in the afternoon we would have a Stranger Drill. I did not fully appreciate what this meant until later.

Later my Vice Principal, who spoke a little English, came up to me. He said, “Amanda-sensei. Today, Stranger Drill. Amanda-sensei, stop stranger!” He made battle motions like I should single handedly take on the scary intruder. Then he laughed and said, “No no, Amanda-sensei run.” My JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) however was in the group of those who had to stop the stranger. Most of the men were in that group, while us girls were to run and make sure the kids were safe.

At the end of the day the P.E. teacher, who is quite tall and large put on a sweat suit on top of his clothes. He put on a baseball cap and a mask and sunglasses. I was told that he would play the part of the stranger that the students would have to run from. He them pulled out a giant blue inflatable baseball bat. This was less than intimidating, so the teachers rummaged around in a closet and produced a kendo sword.

A typical "stranger"

The illusion of danger complete, he snuck out into the hallways. We all waited in the Teacher’s Room for something to happen. A little later we heard a loud SMACK and several screams. Kids came flying down the hallway and ran out the door. The male teachers ran down the hall toward the classrooms. I watched the kids run, but my curiosity got the best of me and I ran after the guys to see what was going on. It was my first stranger drill, after all. I was very curious.

By the time I got around the corner, several of my teachers had the P.E. teacher “stranger” pinned up against the wall with these long PVC poles that I had seen scattered throughout the school but never known the purpose of. They are called sasumata and there is one in every classroom, one in the hall, and one in the teacher’s room. There was also a desk out in the hallway that I assume one of the homeroom teachers had pushed out at the stranger to keep him away from the children. After a few serious moments the island’s police officer (who was there to observe) gave the okay and everyone started laughing and let him go. It was really hot, so the gym teacher wasted no time in ridding himself of his stranger disguise.

Elementary teachers practicing how to subdue the stranger

For anyone who doesn’t know, Japan has very strict gun control laws. Pretty much no one has a gun. You can’t just go out and buy one for self protection either. The only civilians who have guns are hunters. I’m sure there is probably a black market for guns among the yakuza in the big cities, but most ordinary people in Japan have probably never even SEEN a gun.

Because of this, the security has different threats to worry about. We don’t have drills in case someone comes to school with a gun because that can pretty much never happen here. However, for whatever reason, there is a different threat to schools. Some people have been known to wander onto school campuses with knives assumedly looking to harm the children. With a sasumata you can keep someone with a knife at arm’s length from you and pin them against the wall or the floor.  If you would like to see some more pictures of how this works, simply do a Google images search for sasumata.

We all went outside to where the students had gathered for the police officer to give his report on how everyone did. Unfortunately, my kids didn’t respond well at all. My third graders (9th graders) never even left the school during the drill. They are up on the third floor and all of the action happened on the second floor (where the other two classrooms are). I think someone was supposed to alert them to evacuate the school, but since no one did and they didn’t “know” there was danger they all stayed in their classroom. Also, a large group of kids ran out the teacher’s entrance, which they are not supposed to do. They are supposed to run down the stairs closer to the classroom and then exit the school building on the first floor. I assume this is because there are no less than 3 exits on the first floor. If the stranger is not alone then someone could be blocking an exit, such as the teacher’s entrance. That way would become a dead end. But if they go down the stairs they have lots of options they can use if necessary and it would take a lot of strangers to block them all.

The kids didn’t really take it seriously, but it didn’t take long to be reminded of why they should have. The day before our drill, at another junior high school in Amakusa someone had been seen after school with a knife near the school grounds. One of the track kids had spotted the person and alerted the teachers. They called all the kids into the gym, canceled club activities for the day and told the kids to go home in large groups and to keep an eye out for anything suspicious while teachers and police searched around the school. They never found the person to my knowledge, although it was suspected that it had to do with a custody battle.

Sasumata in the hallway

It’s pretty scary to think that something like that could happen in our little corner of the world. You could tell that the news really had an effect on the kids. But you’ll be happy to know that the next year the students did much better. Everyone evacuated and it seemed to go off without a hitch. That time our stranger was a man who works at the city hall and is apparently a Judo master. I think he made an excellent stranger and I’m pretty sure the teachers had a hard time restraining him.

While Stranger Drills are a big deal and should be taken seriously, I can’t help but love them. I admit that I get excited when I hear we’re going to have one. It’s just so different from anything we did back in America so I look forward to taking part in it. I never want a stranger to actually try to hurt any of my students, but I really enjoy taking part in the drills.

One other item of note: this is one of only two times I know of where it is acceptable to wear your indoor shoes outside, the other occasion being a fire drill. When we come back into the school after the drills everyone has to wash off the bottoms of their shoes to make them clean again and acceptable to be worn inside.