Crisis in the Classroom: Living Through 9/11
It is a normal day. You wake up, go to school, and attend
class, when BAM! Suddenly, everything is different.
This is how it was for thousands of people on September 11,
2001. For anyone in a school that day, students and teachers alike,
the experience was the same. Breaking news on the tragedy was not
as quickly spread as it is today with the advent of cell
phones.Still, once one person knew of this tragedy, it spread like
wildfire through the faculty, administrators, staff and, most
importantly, students.
Once educators were aware of the situation, they were
automatically faced with two very important questions: “What should
I do now?” and “Should I inform my students of what I
know?”
Through interviews with a handful of students and staff here at
St John’s University, the different ways some teachers responded to
the situation were discovered.
Student, Katrina Johnson-Greene recalls 9/11 as a day of
confusion. While students were being called out of class and
leaving for the day, there were no explanations made by the faculty
as to why. She claims, “I really didn’t know what happened until I
got home, and my mom told me all about it.” At the same time,
Katrina felt that this was a good way for the school to handle the
situation as it would have caused panic amongst the students if
they were told, and everyone would have spent the rest of the day
worrying, without anything getting done.
Conversely, Jessenia Morales was in a school where the students
were informed through vague details of what had occurred, being
told to wait to be picked up or for an early dismissal to be
announced. She commends her teacher for keeping a cool demeanor
during the event, stating, “they [the teachers] made the class feel
calmer as well.” Although Jessenia recalls some students crying and
being comforted by teachers, she believes that the teachers’
overall composure helped to mitigate what could have become
pandemonium. The only thing she suggested the teachers might have
done differently was to provide more information.
Professor Leif experienced a similar scene when the news broke
in the high school he had been visiting with his college class. He
depicted a scene of crying students, worried about their parents,
and even a hysterical faculty member who knew someone working in
one of the towers. While everyone was either comforting or being
comforted, Professor Leif sent his students home, telling them
simply to pray. The one critique Professor Leif expressed in
regard to his experiences around 9/11 actually focused around the
aftermath. He described observing a class in the days after the
incident where the students wished to talk about what had occurred
only to have a teacher refuse saying there was no time, as the
lesson they had scheduled for the day was more important.Professor
Leif believes that teachers have a big role to help students cope
with tragedies like 9/11, as these events can be “used and built
upon in order to show the tragedy of it, prevent it in the future,
and heal the wounds of those affected by what happened.” He
believes that it is important that students be able to look at
schools as a place where they are free to express their feelings.
As such, he believes that the school or individual teachers should
have organized something. Professor Leif went on to extol the
benefits of utilizing guidance counselors, as well as talking in
class, believing that expressing and sharing one’s feelings can be
very therapeutic.
Professor Holmes seemed to agree with these sentiments, giving
these powerful words of advice, “Whenever something tragic happens,
it may send out the wrong message if we ignore it. It may seem like
we don’t care. As educators and as teachers we are supposed to
model civic duty and what it means to be a citizen, what it means
to be an American. Part of our civic duty is to help fellow
Americans and to show compassion. We can do it in a lot of
ways—provide resources, raise funds, and promote
awareness.”Although she was not a teacher during the time of the
attacks on 9/11, Professor Holmes was able to give clear insights
from her experiences both as someone seeing the effects firsthand
and as a current teacher. In Professor Holmes’ opinion, the most
important job of a teacher is to encourage people not to panic or
jump to conclusions when something tragic is happening, while being
safe and finding facts before making any rash decisions. She also
believes that a teacher must remember that while “we should not let
tragedies consume our lives, to ignore it would be a disservice to
our students.” As such, teachers must be in tune with the
environments of their classrooms and the needs of their students,
as to best support them and enable them to support each other in
times of need.
As students enter the teaching profession, it is important to
remember that tragedies happen. Although it is impossible to truly
prepare for such an event as 9/11, it is important to have some
form of plan-in-action in case something does occur. Perhaps even
more importantly, it is necessary to plan for the aftermath and
ways to comfort and help students through such difficult times.
After all, as Professor Holmes said, “We should not let tragedies
consume our lives, but to ignore it would be a disservice to our
students.” Therefore, ask yourselves now, how would you want a
teacher to react in a crisis like 9/11? Do you think you could do
the same? What are some ways you could support your students
afterwards?
Reported by: Kathryn Beleckas, Class of 2012