Tell me what you really think.
My son, who was ten then, had to write a paper on what he remembers about 9/11 and he doesn't. He doesn't remember anything. I can tell him where we were and what we did and what I allowed him to see, but he doesn't remember it.
It caused an emotional breakdown at our house because he couldn't write anything truthfully because he didn't remember anything. I don't know if that is good or bad. But I know it messed up his paper.
Sadly enough, I feel as though this culture is more often than not conveying the wrong priorities to our children.
::Sigh:: I have no words. Anger gives way to deep searching for reasons why we would do such things to our nation's future. Especially in a time where the future looks so grim.
Wow, that's just crazy.
I'm a college prof and we were all sent home - the college closed down for the day around 11 am Central Time or so. (I don't know if it was out of respect for those who died and those who needed to mourn, or out of fear of other attacks, but we're even farther from NYC than Indiana is). A colleague of mine was scheduled to give a test a couple days later and as I remember he postponed it.
I can't imagine thinking a test is so important that it couldn't be rescheduled... and maybe take the time for a "teachable moment" about what's really going on. Or just send the kids home to be with their families. Or whatever.
somehow I keep thinking of Nero fiddling while Rome burns...
I was at work on that day. Our company ran 24x7 production. No, we didn't stop. How in the world could we? I wouldn't expect a brain surgeon to drop all that he was doing, either. That's just not right.
The test, of course, is different. In that regard, I agree with you.
I have no words. I can't imagine being a child in that situation. I was at work.
I was the first one in my department that knew something had happened, although I didn't know what. (Was on my way to the restroom when it first came on CNN.) While we were still expected to work, we were given a little freer reign for the rest of the week, as far as what we were expected to accomplish.
My kids' music teacher had a family member who died there, and she was open and frank about it, and I thank her for it. My daughter, who was in kindergarden at the time, remembers that most of all. And so, she understands better when we talk about it.
Yet again incompetence at the administration level. First...if they HAD to do the test and not cancel it, why did they tell them when they knew the kids would not have access to news until they were released from the test.
Second, why in the HELL did the principal broadcast the news throughout the school like that. That was SO not her place.
Third, what the hell were the teachers thinking? Talking about it where the kids could at least catch some of what was said?
Total, complete professional incompetence at all levels in those schools. And of course the kids are the ones that paid and will continue to pay for the fallout of what occurred.
When I hear stuff like this I can almost understand why some people refuse to send their kids to public school.
I was working as a teacher in a charter high school in a poor section of Philly known as "The Wasteland" when the planes hit. I know a lot of people weren't thinking straight at the time - how could you?
There's a fair chance that it was not the school's decision to make in regards to the administration of the tests since they were state tests.
That being said, I was often at odds with the administration at my school, but I thought where I was handled it well.
The administration sent the NTA's and all the teachers on preps around to each class room and told the teachers to keep the students in the classrooms at the end of the period. At the time I was teaching computers and I was told to go on-line and garner all the information on the attacks I could find and disseminate the information to our teachers. During the time this was going on the front office was contacting the parents in order to get the students picked up.
We then spent the remaining time the students were there informing them about what happened and then answering questions to the best of our ability. One fortunate thing, one of our more popular teachers was Muslim and he proved to be a great resource in tempering our students' reactions to the horrors that occurred that day. Something that was invaluable considering this was a population that otherwise was likely to assault the first Arab/Indian looking person they would have seen had we not been able to bounce questions off this individual and deflect the growth of hate born of ignorance.
Just my two sense - would love to hear about the difference that you found from the essays of your older students. - K.
A state-wide test...which was obviously created in advance, and wouldn't simply dematerialize if not taken That Very Day...was continued, and regarded as more urgent and important than actual, real-live, breaking-news history in the making (to put it in the most educational perspective possible. Not to mention the humanity aspect of it.).
How sad that, five years later, these grown-up kids are still guilt-ridden for messing up their tests while contemporaneously feeling forced to shut out the magnamity of the whole sad incident. Perhaps those students should send their psychotherapy bills to their former school administrators.
I do wonder, what would have happened, should the schools have decided, at the state level, to toss aside the precious ISTEP for that day? Would the entire state roster of students be given a failing grade? Would all of Indiana suffer a black mark for zero students passing the test on that particular day?
To have students listening to that news on the P.A. *while taking their tests* was simply insane.
I'm not saying the administrations at these schools were right in what they did, but I am saying they should probably be cut a little bit of slack. If they had no choice but to administer the test - which is likely as state administered tests are typically not scheduled and rescheduled at the discretion of local school administrators - it would have been better had they held the announcement until after the test. Maybe as the students completed the test, have them report to the auditorium or gym, and, once all the students were assembled, then announce.
Would the state likely have retested had enough schools decided that they shouldn't test - yes. But if you're a principal and you don't know that any other schools are even considering canceling, you can't take that chance because it's unlikely that the state will retest for just one school. And as principal, you have to look out for the best interests of your students.
I think that announcing during the test was not well thought out - but I don't think that there were a whole lot of people thinking straight in light of what was going on. I just happened to be in a very fortunate situation where I was, but we also dealt with gunfire in the neighborhood on a pretty regular basis (in the year I was there, there was gunfire in the streets close enough to hear either during or just after school on half a dozen occassions), so the concept of "under attack" was not terribly foreign to the school I taught at.
A professor I had in college deducted fifteen points from my grade average because I did not show up for class on September 11. When she conferenced me about my final grade, I asked where the deduction came from, and she mentioned the absence. (She was big on participation points, and I had already used up my two freebies earlier in the semester.) When she said the date, I just stared at her, waiting for her to realize what day that had been. I didn't attend class out of fear and worry (a friend of mine from high school lives and works in NYC). I consider it worth losing the points over, even though it took me down from an A- to a B+.
There was no acknowledgement by the management at my company on 9/11. We were just supposed to keep working as if nothing had happened. Nobody left early. Nobody questioned the lack of management response. And somebody actually e-mailed the entire company and asked them to please stop talking about it because it was making it hard for him to concentrate on work. Of course, this is the company that thought (and still thinks) that it's okay to require employees to work 80+ hour weeks because "it's only for a few weeks". Needless to say, I no longer work for that company.
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