Fire Hazards are Fun!
We all remember those the monthly fire drills, lectures from firemen about stopping, dropping, and rolling, and family escape plans. I teach about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (a tragedy of history) and the importance of building codes and fire regulations. And then sometimes I want to just throw the regulations out the window because everything gets to be pretty ridiculous.
Last week was Homecoming Week at my school and like many schools we decorate the hallways with a theme. This year’s theme was the Olympics to which each high school class covered their hallway with depictions of the sports, pictures of athletes, mountains, and general icons of the event. My sponsor class had the end hallway; the one hallway with an exit that no one uses for anything. Another exit is at farthest 20 feet away. After decorating most of the hallway with flags and various Olympics paraphernalia, two of my guys decided that wanted to make a mountain with skiers coming out the doors. I knew I couldn’t stop them, they are way to persistent, so I allowed their construction.
Backing up a bit, all day the seniors had been make disparaging comments about my juniors and generally being rude. We have a pretty strong rivalry better the senior and junior classes at our school. It seems a bit funny considering that they are 20 seniors and 16 juniors, but whatever they are teenagers and love competitions like this. Overall I would say that the seniors are a bit more competitive and have been known to exhibit some unsportsmanlike behaviors on more than one occasion. Or maybe I am just biased toward the juniors (I love those guys!).
Anyway, after my guys began to construct the mountain, a few seniors came around the corner and yelled “You can’t do that, it’s a fire hazard.” To which my guys replied “Duh! We are going to take it down Monday morning.” For my guys the joy was building the mountain not necessarily the finished project. Every senior proceeded to make a comment about it as they walked by. The juniors took it in stride and began to joke around about it. Everyone that walked by was urged to tell the guys the mountain was a fire hazard. This went on for about an hour and then a certain senior decided to take it a new level. She proceeded to yell at the guys and tell them that it was a fire hazard (“really we didn’t know that”) and she was going to get us disqualified from the decorating contest from that. At that point, I had to step in and basically tell her to shut up, but in a nice teacherly way.
We know about the regulations and the rules. The guys wanted to have a little fun and I didn’t see the harm in any of it. I have to say that the mountain was really cool when finished, complete with slalom flags, moguls, and little skiers. And to their word, the guys took it down after the start of school Monday.
Beyond the stupidity and crassness of the seniors, I wonder about the fire regulations. At some point when my guys were told it was fire hazard they replied “You have to be pretty stupid if you could not break through the paper to get of the building.” To which I silently replied, ”I totally agree, but I guess some peopleare just stupid.” Sometimes I wonder if we haven’t gone a bit overboard with the rules and regulations. I am all for have accessable exits from buildings in case of fire, but is it necessary to have two sets of doors 20 feet apart? Have we become so complacent to the rules and regulations that in the event of a fire, we could not find an exit without the drills and someone directing us? I seem to recall that after the initial 9/11 attack, those people in the World Trade Center found exits on their own and tried to make their way out of the buildings. Of course many were blocked and that was a tragedy, but did they have monthly drills at the buildings? I think not, I think the people understood the severity of things like fire and could think clearly in that disaster. The fire department was late on the scene and in the meantime, people found their way out and helped others along the way.
So what if my students blocked an unnecessary exit for one night (a night when no one was at school). Why don’t we stop worrying about all the rules and regulations and start helping people think for themselves? This doesn’t just apply to this incident or even just to fires. Why don’t we wake up and think for ourselves? We might surprise ourselves with our hidden abilities and intellect. Or maybe I’m wrong and we all need monthly fire drills to remember to exit the building when it’s on fire.
Leave a Reply