Articles

This week as the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, I plan to gather my third-, fourth- and fifth-graders around me. I will tell them, "Our country is a beautiful place." I’ll keep this in mind as I think of the moments when we were clearly afraid.

As the country approaches the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Teaching Tolerance bloggers have written about their insights and experiences in the classroom as a result of the attacks. We offer these for your reflection and adoption.

It was a brisk New England day as I walked out of the community center with a group of Somali Muslim women from my adult English as a Second Language class. My students were laughing and joking, their hijabs blowing in the breeze. We had finished our unit on the New World, drawing connections between Europeans immigrating to America and Somalis immigrating to Lewiston and southern Maine. Suddenly, a local woman shouted, "Terrorists!"

Every adult in the building needs to act when the bully is a teacher.

The year I taught art in the dysfunctional chaos of an overcrowded urban middle school with weak administrators, practically everyone in the school—both students and teachers—needed a "safe place."

New concepts of PE and sports programs are making it more fun for everyone to play.

As a matter of practice, we encourage teachers to integrate learning opportunities about religious tolerance and cultural understanding throughout the school year. But this is especially important as the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches.

My son was a 16-year-old high school junior on 9/11/2001. He could see the twin towers burning a few miles across the harbor from his school in Staten Island, N.Y. Across the country, other students watched the images on television, either as they were happening or later, as they looped endlessly on cable news.

On rainy, dreary days, an announcement breaks into my class around 11 a.m. “Please excuse the interruption. Recess will be held indoors today.” From around the room, there are scattered cheers. My students are often happy to have indoor recess. I’m happy, too, because I see this as a positive time for my students to build friendships and interact. It wasn’t always this way.

A common misperception in many early childhood environments is the idea that, as one teacher told me, “There’s no diversity in my classroom.” She, and many others, think that a focus on diversity is unnecessary in an apparently homogeneous classroom.