In a shocking story straight from the halls of America’s public schools, a kindergarten teacher in Somerville, Massachusetts, has changed the lyrics to the sweet lullaby, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” to “Lockdown, lockdown, Lock the door … ”
Georgy Cohen, a mom and Twitter user, shared a snapshot of a poster with the rhyme, which was taped to the blackboard of a classroom she was touring for her five-year-old daughter, as reporting from several media outlets indicates.
The children’s rhyme reads: ”Lockdown, lockdown, lock the door. Shut the lights off, say no more. Go behind the desk and hide. Wait until it’s safe inside.”
“When I was in kindergarten, we had fire drills. It was different. We didn’t have these same types of threats,” Cohen told The Boston Globe in response, also noting she was happy to see that the teachers at the school were taking precautions and preparing their students for an emergency situation.
Both Cohen and Somerville Public Schools declined to share the school that housed the poster, but district officials confirmed it was the work of one teacher and is not used across all Somerville schools, as Time reported.
The lockdown rhyme is a reflection in many ways of a culture that too often devalues human life. Violent video games are a part of this scenario.
Online video game marketplace Steam, for example, recently canceled the release of its “Active Shooter” game after widespread opposition from the parents of victims of the Parkland shooting.
This should not be hanging in my soon-to-be-kindergartener’s classroom. pic.twitter.com/mWiJVdddpH
— Georgy Cohen (@radiofreegeorgy) June 6, 2018
In the game, players, assuming the role of the merciless attacker, stalk victims on a school campus. “Bullets spray, blood spatters. SWAT team members are shot dead. Civilians are splayed out on the floor,” reads a description of the game from The New York Times.
It doesn’t stop there.
In a forthcoming animated offering by the same company, called “Kindergarten,” children — five-year-olds — are shot in the head by the principal and stabbed relentlessly by the janitor.
No good comes from games that unequivocally debase the sanctity of life, despite the overused claims that art is merely imitating life, not the other way around.
Related: Relax, Parents — The Safest Place for Your Kids Is Still School
Meanwhile, with more than 42,000 retweets so far, the response to Georgy Cohen’s tweet has struck a collective nerve, but there is little comfort to be found.
“As much as we would prefer that school lockdowns not be a part of the educational experience, unfortunately, this is the world we live in,” reads a statement from Somerville Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone and Superintendent of Schools Mary Skipper.
Elizabeth Economou is a former CNBC staff writer and adjunct professor. Follow her on Twitter.
(photo credit, homepage image: Georgy Cohen, Twitter)
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