9/11
Today, lingering in the air, is a feeling of somber rememberance of what happened 5 years ago. There is literally no one I’ve talked to who doesn’t immediately recall where they were the moment they heard the news. As a social studies teacher it was my job to discuss the history of today and luckly I’ve got text books that are new enough to include information on terrorism and 9/11. (I found it interesting that it’s listed in the index under September 11. I believe it’s the only date listed that way.) It’s not that I can’t talk all about the event on my own, it’s more the idea that I want to explain it in the most child appropriate way possible.
Anyway, as I’m discussing this event with my students, I was struck by the fact that some of them were barely 4 years old when it happened. This led me to the sense of knowning that in a few short years my students will have not been alive in a time before that terrible day. They will have been born into a culture that lives a fear that while growning up, I myself, did not. It’s hard to teach a lesson like this to someone who doesn’t remember it first hand. It’s hard to put the events into words the way a teacher should– unbiased and without too much emotion. It made me realize that I’d made myself forget a lot about how we all felt the days right after. I am thankful that we still revisit this day each year because it would be a far worse tragedy to forget.