KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!!! We heard outside the doors of my political science class. A student must be late and can't get in. The teaching assistant walked up to the door, opened it and to everyone's surprise masked gunman came in the door with AKs and RPGs. "GET ON THE FLOOR," they yelled at the top of their lungs. Half of the people in the room quickly ducked to the floor and the other half looked around confused. One the "terrorists" ran to the front and pointed her gun at Professor Dekmejian and one of her accomplices did the same to a visiting professor. "I WANT A MILLION DOLLARS, A VIDEO CAMERA AND A PLANE," she demanded. The professor told he would give her anything she wanted but she wasn't satisfied. The others continued to yell at students to get on the floor. The faces of those students walking in late were of complete confusion.
"I WANT A MAGILLIAN DOLLARS," she yelled.
At this point no one really knew what was going on except that this had to be a horrible joke the professor was pulling on us. Yet very little people got off the floor. Well, except for those few who wanted to make sure and capture this moment with their phones.
Finally the professor got up and called the supposed terrorist to the front of the room. SHOCKING TO EVERYONE STILL ON THE FLOOR, THEY COMPLIED.
Slowly the mood in the room began to relax and all those nervous laughs began to fade. The danger was over. It was all a joke. But who would do such a thing. It was our fellow classmates talked into it by the professors.
What was the point of this we all asked?
Simple to show us that terrorism is still alive and probable. "I am not here to scare you," the professor and former USC graduate student said. "But terrorist are planning attacks as we speak."
His major point is that we need to be prepared because attacks can happen at any time and the terrorists can be anyone, including our classmates. We are not to be paranoid but aware of the situation, so that we are not caught off guard.
Ignorance is our biggest weakness. We must inform ourselves of the events occurring all around the world and learn about the reasons why organizations like Al-Qaida hate us. The better prepared we are, the better chance we have of combating terrorist plots and be ready to respond when terrorist do really come knocking on our door.
4 years ago
Wow. I don't know how I would react to that. It sounds really unnecessarily scarring, and I think the teacher should have made his point another way than through a terrorist simulation. That would, in my opinion, fuel paranoia rather than preparedness. Because what, even if your class was more open to the "it could happen to us" mentality, could they do to prepare? No matter how much you do prepare (and again, I don't know what that involves) there's no way to avoid being caught off guard when a terrorist comes into your classroom, especially because the chances of that happening are very unlikely. Because realistically, you probably won't experience that scenario, I think your teacher's lesson might be paralyzing students more than enabling them — even though you said the point was not to create paranoia.
ReplyDeleteWas this the Terrorism and Genocide class?
Yes it was the Terrorism and Genocide class. He does it every year and they've been doing this for more than 10 years. I don't think it has scarred anyone too badly because then the university wouldn't allow him to continue doing it every semester.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI was actually going to take this class but I definitely will not anymore after hearing this, I am very easily scared and would probably have had a heart attack if this happened haha!
ReplyDeleteBut on a more serious note, I must disagree with your point and expand on Taylor's. There is nothing that an average person can do to prepare for a terrorist plot. Yes our government agencies that deal with these things should be "prepared", but for a normal student or working American citizen, the most important thing we can do to resist terrorism is to not be terrorized on a daily basis. The point of terrorism is to promote fear, and if we live in fear of a terrorist attack every day, then those terrorist groups have certainly won.
I'm in this class too! I actually just saw this post but i vividly remember this day. Besides the guy coming in and holding the gun backwards, it was all very serious and scary. I guess a few people in the room knew about it, but at least a few were hiding under chairs on the floor. This definitely was scary, but what was reassuring was that DPS was all over it, and, as the guest speaker mentioned, intervened the first year. With the recent terrorist attacks, we do have to be more aware, but with the recent tragedies at schools, at least we know ours is well protected-or at least should be with DPS everywhere.
ReplyDelete