(no subject)
My school sent out a notice to all teachers that in our classrooms, we're supposed to take some time to talk about September 11, 2001. Almost all of the children in the class were born in 2000 or 2001. This is not something they have in their memories and I had to stop and wonder if they needed to either. Do we need to teach them about this? It's a horrible thing I have in my memory, I don't feel the need to share that with them. When the tsunami happened in Japan, we debated if we should talk about it or not. I decided I would talk about it so they could ask what they wanted to ask (will this happen here?) and I could reassure them that it wouldn't. I have to wonder if telling them about what happened that Tuesday will present that same question. And do we lie (no, it will never happen again) or do we scare them (there are a lot of crazies out there)? Do we tell them that Osama Bin Laden's death has ended this? It hasn't. Do they need to know at ten years old that this could happen again? Do they need to know it happened at all?
I also was hesitant about teaching something that's so... real. And that gave me pause. We teach the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War Two, the Holocaust. But those things didn't happen during my lifetime. They are academic subjects as much as the Crusades and the Black Plague. They happened, they were tragic, but they aren't 'real' to me in the sense that they happened to me. September 11, 2001 happened to me in that I was in my twenties and very aware on that day. I know where I was, I remember the horror, I watched it happen. I couldn't teach it like a historical event. I would have no idea what to do in front of a room of 25 ten year olds. Thankfully, I do not have to cross this bridge quite yet as my students are mid-to-low functioning Autistic and cannot comprehend anything close to that complex. But I wonder what I'll do next year when it comes up again and I'm in front of a class. We'll see.
I also was hesitant about teaching something that's so... real. And that gave me pause. We teach the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War Two, the Holocaust. But those things didn't happen during my lifetime. They are academic subjects as much as the Crusades and the Black Plague. They happened, they were tragic, but they aren't 'real' to me in the sense that they happened to me. September 11, 2001 happened to me in that I was in my twenties and very aware on that day. I know where I was, I remember the horror, I watched it happen. I couldn't teach it like a historical event. I would have no idea what to do in front of a room of 25 ten year olds. Thankfully, I do not have to cross this bridge quite yet as my students are mid-to-low functioning Autistic and cannot comprehend anything close to that complex. But I wonder what I'll do next year when it comes up again and I'm in front of a class. We'll see.