Today, like millions of others, I reflect on September 11, 2001 and the incredible loss out country suffered that day.  Loss of so many lives, and the loss of a feeling security that most of us took for granted.  Working in a K-2 school, September 12, 2001 was also a very important one for us, as staff – sorting out how to help guide our little ones through such a tragedy, while trying to take care of each other, and ourselves. 

We held an emergency staff meeting the morning of September 12^th, as I’m sure was held in just about every school across the United States.  We talked about our own feelings around the events, but then quickly moved on to how the attacks should be addressed with our students.  With students as young as those in our school, the most important approach is to keep the daily routine as “normal” as possible… “business as usual”.  Teachers and staff were told to acknowledge the tragedy if a student were to bring it up, but we weren’t to dwell, or have lengthy conversations about the events.  

Of course, the adults… the staff… had much more of a problem dealing with the events than the students, but educators are amazing in how they can pull themselves together to be there first and foremost for their students (compartmentalization can be a wonderful defense mechanism!).   And working with children the day after such a horrible event was an incredible blessing…. because the children were too young to fully comprehend what had happened… the losses suffered… the fear imposed.  Working in a school, especially with young children, was a wonderful, glorious distraction… yet with an important purpose.  It also reaffirmed my “north star” – my “knowing” that I was doing exactly what I was meant to do, and that I was in the place I was meant to be.

The most clear memory I have of that “day after” was of a second grade student I passed in the hallway that day.  His mouth was circled with white… it looked like frosting, so I asked him if his class was celebrating someone’s birthday… if he was eating a cupcake.  He responded, with the biggest, happiest, most excited grin, “No!  We’re doing science!”  Apparently his teacher was moving forward with her lesson plans – without skipping a beat - a wonderfully constructive science project involving cake frosting.      

That moment, with that student, was such a bright light during such a dark, gloomy, sad time – and it was a wonderful reminder that live goes on, that it was still okay to be excited about life and learning, and that there’s a lot of important work we all have to do as we help students learn, and grow, and “be” this world that is both wonderful, and often uncertain. 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 at 1:58 pm by Maribeth Bush and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.