Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Mexican teacher calms small children during gunfight

A kindergarten teacher sang along with her young pupils to keep them calm last week, while outside the Colonia Nueva Estanzuela school in Monterrey, a gunfight raged as an armed group aboard seven trucks murdered five taxi drivers accused of spying for an organized crime gang.

While filming the incident on her phone, the teacher gently asks her class to keep their heads on the floor, as gunshots ring out in the background. She reassures the children that everything is okay and that they'll be safe in the classroom, reminding them to keep their heads down.


YouTube link.

To distract them, she starts singing the Raindrop Song from the Barney show in Spanish. The song is about if raindrops were chocolates and how you'd open your mouth wide to catch them all.

By getting the children to sing the song she managed not only to keep them calm but also to keep their heads on the floor, as she prompts them to turn over and look up to the sky with their mouths wide open. The as yet unidentified teacher is being hailed a heroine.

There's a news video showing some of the aftermath outside here.

3 comments:

Eve said...

Yet another reason to count my blessings.

What a brave woman.

melissa said...

My husband's aunt lives in what used to be a really nice area in Monterrey. She told us that she's now often woken up by gun fire in the middle of the night, and that the drug gangs are now targeting civilians and residential areas that used to be off limits. She's extremely worried as hearing shots fired are now the norm, and she can't move because she can't sell her house. It's horrible because she has such great memories of the city...my husband's cousins were raised there, and they used to have a really nice life! Now it's all down hill in the city.

cath said...

What an amazing teacher!