On that day in September, in classrooms all across the country, everyone wrestled for an explanation of the events on 9/11. But like the rest of the country, even instructors were at a loss. So students sat in class and watched the news, or they went about their normal lesson plan without dealing with the tragedy. As a result of educational uncertainty, University of Massachusetts Professor David Mednicoff and grade-school teacher Robert Peterson have developed a Smithsonian National Museum of American History award-winning curriculum for teaching about the events of 9/11.
Changing perspective
The 9/11 curriculum was developed for grade school through college-level students as a way to help answer questions that came up about 9/11. This new approach that both Mednicoff and Peterson developed doesn't simply show students what happened, but uses the attacks to help students critically think about the United States as part of a "global village" (Gregg, 2005).
One way the global village idea is demonstrated in the grade-school curriculum is in an exercise that teaches where the United States fits in the world. In the exercise, students are spread out on a large global map, being evenly distributed according to population within the countries. The instructor then distributes cookies to the countries to signify their Gross Domestic Product. As a result, 15 students in Asia had to share six cookies, three students in Europe shared nine cookies, two students in South America shared one cookie, three students in Africa shared half a cookie, and one student in North America had eight cookies all to himself (Gregg, 2005).
Students react to this exercise strongly, trying to negotiate with the other countries, even suggesting war as a way to get more cookies. According to Peterson, this exercise helps students gain a foundation about the inequalities and animosities that exist toward Americans from people of other countries.
For college-level instructors using the 9/11 curriculum, the dialogue and critical thinking get more involved. In Mednicoff's "Explaining Terror" course, students keep a journal that gives students an opportunity to react to post-9/11 world events such as Western involvement in the Middle East (Gregg, 2005). This not only gives students a concrete understanding as to why the attacks occurred, but puts it in terms that creates a classroom dialogue that respects the feelings of the student.
Incorporating emotions
As instructors begin to learn different ways of teaching 9/11 events, it's also important to develop different strategies for dealing with tragedy and student emotions sooner within the classroom. According to the University of Oregon's tips on dealing with tragedy in the classroom, it's important to get students to talk about their feelings about a tragic event in a group. This includes discussing initial reactions and student questions about the catastrophe.
As students begin to share emotions and personal feelings about the event, the University of Oregon's counseling center suggests that instructors respect their students' feelings and be prepared to field questions as to why the catastrophe occurred. Also, instructors should be honest about what facts are presented and promise to come back to these issues once there are facts to support a future discussion.
By dealing with student emotions in conjunction with an ongoing dialogue, instructors are better able to react to tragic events while giving students the opportunity to grieve. Even though the 9/11 events threatened our sense of security, it helped college educators understand the importance of education in students' search for answers, and their need to grieve.
References:
Dealing with the Aftermath of Tragedy in the Classroom. (n.d.). University of Oregon. Retrieved from http://counseling.uoregon.edu/dnn/FacultyStaff/RespondingtoCampusTragedies/DealingwithAftermathofTragedyintheClassroom/tabid/243/Default.aspx
Gregg, S. (2005, April). Teaching 9/11. NEA Today, 23, 7.
