 |
|
Home > Resources > School Design
Responding to the Events of September 11, 2001
As this issue of Horace was going to press, the tragic events of September 11 took place. We asked Ted Sizer to help us all think about ways to respond:
 What do we tell the children? We tell them the truth. How we do that telling will depend on the youngsters' ages and maturity, but even the littlest among them know that something terrible has happened. To express nothing teaches a savage lesson in unconcern.
What do we tell ourselves? To identify and to resist violence in all its forms, including those seemingly petty injuries so easy to overlook in our schools' routines, even those that flow from heedless words. To take the time to talk issues out, thereby deliberately bearing witness to a peaceful process for the resolution of disagreements. To address honestly the inequities in our own schools' work which, especially when translated on to a large canvas, are fuel for violence. To give fresh prominence to the study of the humanities-of history, of the human search for meaning, and of the expressions of that meaning-that embody the best as well as the worst of humankind. Only by deeply understanding our human frailties, past and present, can we lessen the chance of our being their victims.
Terrorism is the antithesis of informed and loving civility. Our job is to serve the latter by practicing those virtues ourselves-each of us-abundantly and visibly. The children will watch us, and thereby learn.
Theodore R. Sizer
Page last updated: May 28, 2002
|
|
printer version
