9/11

At school on Friday my co-op allowed time for students in each of her classes to reflect on their memories from 9/11, and I was really pleased that she allowed for this type of “diversion” from her prepared lessons. My co-op shared her memories with the students (I shared a little too) and the students listened with wide eyes as she talked about her own uncertainty and fear. While the students were pretty young when it happened, they shared a variety of sentimental to silly memories from the day. One student remembered coming home from school and feeling extreme disappointment that her father hadn’t returned from a business trip with the chocolate he always bought for her from the duty free store. Others remembered coming home and seeing their parents glued to the TV for hours. After the students talked about their memories, my co-op asked everyone to complete a short free write about a time in their life that something (big or small) happened that changed them forever. I loved how she was able to talk about 9/11 and then draw an essential question from the discussion to help the students personalize the idea of a life changing event. Everyone wrote and no one complained about not having anything to say. I read the pieces after class and learned something new about each student. Some students wrote about death, divorce and moving to the U.S. from a different country; others wrote about meeting a new best friend and learning to ride a bicycle for the first time. It was an excellent day at school.