International Schools vs US Public Schools

Although I’m not living in the US anymore, it’s hard to ignore the countless tragedies and appalling incidents that’s been happening in the last few months. Unsurprisingly, they are reported through other countries’ news media outlets like BBC and World News Asia, both of which I follow on Twitter. On the other hand, as a side note, Japanese media outlets rarely, if ever, reports school shootings in the United States. It’s just something I’ve noticed recently.
It has been reported that there’s been more than a dozen shootings on school campuses in 2018. More than a dozen, in the first two months. Following the Parkland shooting, the number of posts I’ve seen from my friends and colleagues in relation to gun control, arming teachers with guns, what their lockdown drill looks like, and the political action or lack thereof, have increased significantly.
Unrelatedly, at my school in Vietnam, we practiced a lockdown drill a few months ago. This was nothing like the lockdown drill I had practiced at public schools in the US during my student teaching. “Lockdown” was explained as something we’ll do if there is a threat on campus. And to our students, a threat meant someone who should not be on campus. No one ever thought that a person with a gun could ever come into the school, that a shooting would happen in a school was beyond comprehension to these kids. Guns were something that they only saw in movies and games they played, not something that could actually hurt someone they cared about. This realisation, along with the aforementioned increasing posts about the shootings and a real hard look at the students and families I work with, have got me thinking about the real differences between US public schools and international schools.​

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