Philanthropic Misanthrope

3 Years, and Then They Fell

Today my 6th grade class at Northern Trails talked about the anniversary of 9/11 as well as the delusional man threatening to burn the Quran at Ground Zero.  Being someone who has established himself as an opinionated person, my thoughts on the matter are already bursting at the seam, but I’d rather talk about my amazement with my students on two accounts:

1) The way in which these kids can understand, express and involve themselves in meaningful discussion (in Spanish) that reaches down into the depths of their hearts and their minds.  By the end of the lesson these kids came to the stunning and ultimately radical conclusion that, no matter what race, what religion, what social, political or geographical group, there are good people and then there are bad people.  It’s a beautiful concept, really. These 6th grade students, with a little prodding, came up with it all by themselves.  Unfortunately I might’ve been the student who agreed with the misguided Pastor when I was their age.  Fortunately, well, I’m the complete opposite now, just don’t expect me to shove a Coexist bumper sticker down your throat.

I also was completely blown away when

2) The students said how old they were during 9/11/2001.  Three years old.  Three.  Two things are at work here: my own nostalgia, sitting in Ms. Scofield’s 8th grade Pre-Algebra class when a teacher walks in and tells her to turn the TV on.  She did.  We watched the amorphous smoke in it unorthodoxy trying to escape the hatred from which it manifested.  The bell rang and I went to band class.  I took my trombone case out, but we didn’t end up playing that day.  We sat in Ms. Schultz’s office, all of us crowded into her office, a couple girls were crying and I was wondering why.  To me they were just the tallest skyscrapers in the world.  I’d never seen them in person, just on TV, in my Social Studies books or printed on handouts in Mr. Behnke’s class.  I felt no emotional connection to them, my shock prevented me from thinking that there were people in those buildings, from the outside it didn’t seem like those two towers represented the financial center of the nation, of the world, of the universe or what we know of it. And while I sat there, wondering why Christine was crying, wondering why people were so afraid when White Lake’s greatest skyscraper was a water tower, the students I teach now were toddlers: two years before kindergarten, probably sleeping or maybe eating cheerios, asking why their daddy has to go to work every morning, why he can’t stay home and play with them.  It’s like Joe Dirt and the moon, sometimes when you look at it, you wonder who else is looking.  When an event shatters the world like that, it’s always good to know that you weren’t alone, no matter how old you are.