After morning announcements today, a voice came bursting over the intercom and requested that we all have a moment of silence for those who died on 9/11. It was a startling request. Partially because of the extra loud volume, but mainly because I had not thought of 9/11 in those terms in quite awhile. "Is it really 9/11 today?" I thought to myself in my moment of silence. I was about to think another thought when the intercom voice returned and cheerfully bellowed, "THANK YOU AND HAVE A SUPER DAY!" Once again, I startled, then finished my thought. It was about a blue sky moment last May when I was peering out a window overlooking Ground Zero with a small cluster of middle school students. "I was only in first grade when it happened," one of them soberly said to me. "I remember my teacher crying. I remember my mom coming early to get me out of school, and I know this is the reason we are having a war against Iraq, but can you tell me what happened?" Hard question. How do you describe that moment without over sensationalizing it? Without compromising the integrity of those lives lost? How do you communicate how on that blue sky day, our world changed? The kids, of course, are interested in the tails of diaster and heroism, but I am reluctant to turn it into an abstract of clouds of crushing concrete and a president with a bullhorn.
So as I have been finding resources on New York, I have been remiss in including information that will help me answer that question again when I return this May. The New York Times had some photos in it today that showed several shots of the NYC skyline long before 9/11 paired with a shot from the same angle and location taken since 9/11. They showed the void in a way my words cannot. I also know a rendering the memorial was recently released. I could use that. And a documentary has been made in 2005 about Phillipe Petit who walked between the towers on a tightrope when they were being built. I could use that too. www.imdb.com/title/tt0471020/
I'm not sure I can use picture of the towers coming down quite yet, though my library has a collection of books and photographs showing every detail of the day. Minute by minute.
It was strangely moving last year as I drove into the city through the Holland tunnel imagining what that moment must have felt like for travellers on that day. Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge was another surreal moment. The kids on the bus were excitedly ooohing and ahhhhhhing and all my mind's eye could see were ashen images.
Let’s Look At Europe! Collaborative Project.
15 years ago
2 comments:
I often forget the referencing requirement when I am thinking and posting. Intellectual property rights could easily be a whole other inquiry blog for me. It is not so important to me who said it or who said it first as it is that it was said, that someone heard, someone absorbed, and someone applied. That's information literarcy, right?
This entry can be connected to several references in the CC book. It is all about learning to encourage engagement by tapping into areas kids feel deeply about. Check out page 43 and Hesterspeak on "learning-ful" environments.
1) What is worth learning?
2) How to we create thoughtful environments?
3) And how do we know students are guilty of understanding? (Grant Wiggins or his buddy McTighe coined that expression first.)
My favorite reasons for going places with kids is because the soil is so rich. What better place to engage in a dialogue about our world than at a window overlooking Ground Zero on a day with a beautiful blue sky?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/nyregion/11thennow.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=brooklyn%20bridge&st=cse&oref=slogin
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