Lockdown Nursery Rhyme For Somerville Kids Gets Attention

SOMERVILLE, MA – The words are written in colorful letters on a poster hanging in a Somerville kindergarten classroom. Alongside them are helpful pictures of a key going into a door knob, a hand flipping a light switch and a face with a finger over the mouth making the "shhh" gesture. The rhyming lines are sung to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."

They could be directions on what to do if you need to go to the bathroom, or how to get organized for a fire drill – but these instructions are for what to do in the event of a school lockdown.

Georgy Cohen, a Somerville mother, shared a picture of the poster on Twitter while touring the classroom on Wednesday with the caption, "This should not be hanging in my soon-to-be kindergartner's classroom." Over 31,000 people have liked the tweet, and it's been retweeted nearly 15,000 times as of Thursday morning.

"Lockdown lockdown

Lock the door

Shut the lights off

Say no more

Go behind the desk to hide

Wait until it's safe inside

Lockdown lockdown it's all done

Now it's time to have some fun"

Cohen told the Boston Globe the poster was "jarring," but she did like that the teacher was educating students on what to do in an emergency situation. But the juxtaposition of innocence – the nursery rhyme tone and colorful lettering – alongside such a serious subject felt "somewhat dystopian," she said.

Cohen's tweet has garnered a myriad of responses, with some people saying lines like "now it's time to have some fun," made them "sick." Others discussed school safety and the "normalizing" of school shootings, likening the instructions to nuclear bomb drills during the Cold War.

In a joint statement Thursday, Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone and Superintendent Mary Skipper addressed the rhyme in the context of preparing students for an emergency situation:

"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. It is jarring – it’s jarring for students, for educators, and for families. Students in Somerville and across the country know how unnatural this is, as evidenced by their vocal leadership and advocacy this year in response to continuing school shootings. Yet we all know that one of the most important roles we have as educators and community leaders is to ensure that all of our students and staff members are safe and prepared in case of an emergency. So just like school fire drills, lockdown drills have sadly become a common practice in schools, and educators do everything they can to reduce students’ anxiety and stress so that they remember what to do in a real situation. This poem is an example of how one of our educators used a rhyme to help her young students stay calm and remember the key steps they would need to follow during a drill or real emergency."

Image via Shutterstock