Small red blocks are screwed into the bottom corners of the classroom doors in Schar. Along with them are locks to bolt the door shut with directions that guide those who use them properly. If there is a lockdown drill, this device can be used to keep those inside safe.

These lockdown devices are specifically in Schar. In the time where mass shootings are a growing threat to the United States, many schools and places dedicated to learning have taken precautions to keep schools safe.

Simple measures such as going straight to the office and having to sign in, have grown into larger precautions like schools using bulletproof glass and having students carry see-through backpacks around school.

In 2019 alone, there have been 22 school shootings, but 2018 had the most school shootings in U.S. history with Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School being the most severe.

As education students take their steps to go into the classroom with field experience and student teaching, the dynamics of the new and upcoming teaching generation has to adapt to the new times of protecting their students from a possibly dangerous person.

Dr. Amy Crawford, professor of education, has been an educator for 15 years.

“When I first started in education, it was not something that we regularly thought about,” Crawford said.

When she began teaching 15 years ago, only three school mass shootings happened that year. Now the country has a school shooting about every 12 days.

Schools are taking the initiative to look out for students by watching for warning signs, having officers at school each day and increasing the number of lockdown drills for intruders, these locks may be a new way to avoid more lives being taken.

“Not only here at Ashland, but when they get into the field, they will do various trainings preparing them and their students for the possibility of an active shooter which to think about that in today’s society is kind of depressing,” Crawford said.

Education majors are required to take psychology classes to become certified in areas such as childhood development and psychology of adolescence listed in the Ashland University Academic Catalog. These courses, along with the classroom experience when student teaching, builds up the passion inside that student even more.

“The gratification of being an educator outweighs the fear of an active shooter, the impact you will have on the students and that they will have on you trumps the fear,” Crawford said.