the stranger person drill

I am becoming very negligent to this blog, I may have to break down and get the net at home! I am sure I encounter things everyday that you would find strange or interesting but they have become so common place to me as to seem unremarkable. I'll try to be better.

Have any idea what this is?

To be honest I never gave it much of a thought. They have one in each classroom and I think I kind of assumed they were used to clean the spiderwebs off the roof or some other mundane usage. Well I discovered their true purpose during the stranger person drill (this is what my teacher said it is called)! A few years ago a strange guy entered an elementary school and killed? maimed? seven children with a knife. Since that time in typical Japanese overreaction fashion all schools in the country are now equipped with these human fending off devises and the teachers must take courses to ensure they are able to wield them. One of the teachers dressed up as a "stranger" and all the kids had to evacuate the school while select teachers, who are adept with the human forks, rushed to the location of the intruder and pinned him against the wall. Of course he did not struggle at all and it was a piece of cake. However, I am curious to see how well they work against someone who is not so complacent. Perhaps the inventor of the human fork is friends with the minister of education?