Earlier this week, a Twitter user named Georgy Cohen posted this photo she took in a classroom at a school she was considering for her 5-year-old daughter.
The handwritten poem on the blackboard was set to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star" and is meant to help the kindergarteners prepare for an active shooter situation.
This should not be hanging in my soon-to-be-kindergartener’s classroom.
"I was surprised and then just sad," the 38-year-old from Somerville, Massachusetts, told BuzzFeed News.
Cohen was visiting prospective kindergartens for her daughter.
Her photo has been shared all over social media, with many calling the poem "heartbreaking."
"I don’t blame the school at all — they are doing exactly what they need to do to keep little kids safe. I blame our prevailing culture and chronic inaction as a country," she said, adding that she did not want to identify the school.
People were distraught that this is the reality that their children would face in school.
Cohen said a lot of people had called her picture dystopian. "I think that’s important," she said. "It’s important that we don’t let this feel normal, that we continue to be shocked and disgusted and reckon with the sick feeling in our stomachs."
"This is not okay and should not be normal, and we should be fighting for change," she said.
People compared the image to a horror film.
Many quoted the tweet and called for a change to gun laws.
Cohen said that the viral reaction had been exhausting, but that she was glad that people were shocked.
"If it gets people not just thinking and reflecting but acting more meaningfully toward gun reform, all the nonsense will have been worth it," she said.
