3: Week of Sept. 5

This week I was thinking a lot of September 11th and I wanted to somehow incorporate it into the lessons. I got to thinking, and realized my 6th graders were only 1 or 2 years old when the attacks happened! It seemed strange to me, but I guess it makes sense considering I was only in middle school myself. Ten years has passed so quickly! But anyways, I found a movie online that showed the attacks and had some different reactions and really gave a good idea as to what really happened. I asked questions ahead of time like "What city did it happen in?" and mostly no one knew. During the video, the kids had a lot of questions so I would pause it and answer everything. By the end of the movie, the students were all very quiet and you could tell it had made them think a lot. They said they were so thankful that nothing happened to their families. I saw a completely different side of the kids! (Normally they are all very goofy!) We talked a lot about what the attacks meant for us here, and how even though it was 10 years ago, we are still affected by it. Later, one of the kids came back to the classroom and asked me if i thought we would be attacked on Sunday since it was the 10 year anniversary. I told him I couldn't promise him that nothing would happen, but I was pretty sure they wouldn't target Bruceton Mills, WV! This experience made me think about how impressionable students are. I wanted them to know the truth and understand what happened, but I didn't want them to be scared. It is a hard thing to teach something that is so scary without scaring them! I came to the conclusion that it is okay for them to be a little scared, because after all, it was an extremely traumatic event. In the future, if I were to teach this again, I might spread it out over a few days.