School Drills: Country or Culture, Allison Hughes

After spending the past four months here in Sevilla, I have noticed so many differences in day-to-day life. One that particularly stood out to me was the differences in safety precautions and drills between the United States and Sevilla. Growing up, I went to high school in downtown Chicago. A new semester in high school meant a new round of drills. We had fire drills, tornado drills, and lockdown drills. The purpose of these drills served to familiarize and reinforce proper evacuation routes, shelter-in-place regulations, and practices. By the end of the first week of a semester, I knew exactly what to do, in every single one of my classrooms if there was a fire, a tornado, or a school shooter. These drills have been a part of my “first week of school routine” for the past 15 years.

I didn’t truly understand the normalcy of these drills and precautions until the lack of them in my semester here. Before beginning at Universidad Pablo de Olavide, I did a 2-week intensive Spanish class with my CIEE and at both of these schools, there were no earthquake, fire, tornado, or lockdown drills. At first, I was a little shocked by this, but then I thought to myself, “Okay, well they do have a fire hose and extinguisher in the hallway, that can keep us safe in a fire… maybe the lockdown drills and the concept of school shootings aren’t a thing here”. Back home in Chicago, my high school would have a real lockdown once or twice a year.

Back in September in this class, we talked about whether or not culture and country are the same thing. We defined culture as the behaviors or expectations found in human societies. We also discussed the different cultural universals in different countries. I don’t believe that culture and country are the same, but that we create some of our behaviors and expectations (culture) from the countries we live in. In this case, I expected for there to be safety drills in Sevilla because of the lack of safety I was used to in Chicago. Afterall, the United States has had 300+ school shootings this year and Spain has had 0 (School Shootings by Country, 2022).

Reference: 

“School Shootings by Country 2022.” School Shootings by Country 2022,

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/school-shootings-by-country