Lessons of 9/11
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| William Helfrich, 11, wrote the words of a poem, "I am the President of U.S.A. on 9/11/01," on the stripes of a flag he created in school. He and his classmates at Reagan Middle School made the flags as part of the lessons teachers there imparted about the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. (Alex T. Paschal/SVN photo) |
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Most of the students in Kim Printz's fifth-grade class were in kindergarten when the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred. Some were too young for school. Dalton Newcomer, 11, was playing video games at his grandparents' house when news of the twin towers broke. Kris Lahman, 10, doesn't remember the events of Sept. 11, 2001, but said he saw the movie. Printz, who teaches language arts and math at Reagan Middle School in Dixon, said she remembers the day clearly. She remembers where she was - in class - and what she was doing when the news broke. Since 2002, she's been teaching her young students about solidarity, courage and resiliency through stories of 9/11. "I want them to know more than just the plane crashes," she said. "I want them to see that, yes, tragedy happens, but life goes on. Our nation is stronger. We pulled together." Printz and her teaching assistant, Teresa Mey, talked to this year's students about their memories of 9/11. They read books to the class. The class's spelling words of the week - "America," "president" and "courage" - explored themes Printz said are important to teach. Mey, who has worked with Printz on 9/11 classroom projects for the last 3 years, said exercises like these will help students develop into good citizens. "Even though this is language arts, it's good history for them," she said. "They can put themselves in a spot they've never been." The 10 students in Printz's class made American flags out of construction paper last week. They imagined how it might have felt to have been in New York or in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 11. They wrote poems on their flags. "I am the president of the U.S.A. on 9/11/01," 11-year-old William Helfrich wrote. "I worry if my country is OK. I wonder if my family is OK." Lahman personified the White House. "I hear that a plane crashed," he wrote. "I see people who are scared. I want it to stop!!!" Printz said it's challenging to teach children who have no memory of the day's events. "But this group was so receptive to it," she said. "The kids were really interested. They had heard a lot about 9/11, but they didn't know what it meant." The greatest lesson she said she tried to impress upon the students was that everyone can be a hero. "And that America is stronger now than we were before 9/11. Strength matters."
