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Rick Holtz - Short Essay B
Classroom Success Stories: Teaching U.S. History in Waukegan (at Daniel Webster
M.S.)
As I reflect on several highlights of my 7th grade classes this past
year (2001-2002), I would site the experience my students and myself
together with a nation and world had with the events of Sept. 11th.
This catastrohpic national tragedy not only changed the lives of many
family members bur restructured national thinking in government and
private circles on preparing for future acts of terrorism. With a
television monitor in my room on that day, the situation greatly defined
an unforgettable and stirring teachable moment. It was living proff
that important histroy recorded is not all the history that there
is going to be! I think students stereotype history as always something
that will have to be read about and not necessarily personally experienced,
particularly because at 11 or 12 it is difficult for a young person
to grasp the concept of mortality. Reading in a text about wars long
ago or watching a movie of a true event can often evoke emotional
responses. But with the Sept. 11th story moment by moment unfolding
before us, I didn't try to fight back the tears and I found watery
eyes in my student audience as well. I tried hard to relate the event
to the fact that for each one of, "students, you will always remember
how old you were and where you were this day, 10, 20, 30, etc. years
from now just as I will never forget where I was and what I was doing
when John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas or when Neil Armstrong
landed on the moon. I wanted students to become full partners in the
fact that here there was an unforgettable event that they would forever
be "eyewitnesses to it (something they would someday tell their children/grandchilren
about). I wanted them to know that "eyewitness" history is a very
special kind of history, remembered and recorded by people using their
physical sense and that students would have many future opportunities
to become eyewitness historians. The "success" of teaching about this
current event came when I asked students to "journal their thoughts
and reflections" over it. I gave them a full week to watch continuing
news stories about Sept. 11th and I allowed them some class time each
day in which to write their feelings and thoughts. What came from
their expressions were illustrations of great concern for the welfare
of unknown Americans, a new respect for public service agencies (police
and fire departments) and the renewal of strong feelings of an intense
pride and loyalty for their country (though they were hundreds of
miles from New York, Pennsylvania, or Arlington, Virginia). I was
proud of so many of my students because I expected maybe insensitive,
"generic," trite, knee-jerk responses but what I read were thoughtful
prose-like responses. As tragic and as horrifying as the events of
Sept. 11th, the success abounded in showing greatly that students
really do care about others and their country, especially in crisis
situations. Teaching the "teachable moment" with only the news media
and newspaper headlines is a must activity that all teachers should
seize upon when the opportunity is there.
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