Commemorating 9/11

Where were you on September 11, 2001?  What were you doing or thinking? We are collecting the memories of members of the school community to create a Wall of Remembrance outside the library. I was living in Brooklyn, NY, only two miles from the World Trade Center. My recollections of that day are tied to every sense. I could see and smell the smoke. I could hear the towers fall and the helicopters overhead. We went home and shut all the windows, but it wasn't possible to shut out what had happened.

In the weeks that followed, I read the New York Times Portraits of Grief column almost every day, providing profiles, not obituaries, of the missing and dead. It felt important to understand the impact of the attacks through the loss of individuals.

With the 10th anniversary of 9/11 coming this Sunday, every media outlet is putting out their own retrospective. Here are a few that may be of use to teachers.

Teaching and Learning About 9/11 with the New York Times includes a wide range of resources, suggestions, and activities, all supported by materials from the Times. It includes:

• Key questions to pose to your students
• Front pages of the Times from the first 10 days
• Multimedia presentations, from then and now - these slide shows and interactive features would work well on a smartboard or projector in the classroom.
• Lesson plans from the past 10 years.

Front pages from 2001 to 2011 tell story of 9/11 decade, from WTC attacks to war on terror and bin Laden’s death shows graphics of front pages of newspapers from 2001-2011, relating to the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. From Poynter.org, a wonderful resource on journalism. There is a nice article on Poynter.org, Why short writing is so effective at helping us honor, remember people, that ties in well.

I would also recommend eSchoolNews, Teachers prepare for 10th anniversary of Sept. 11. 

The 9/11 Digital Archive is a vast trove of information, with over 150,000 items, including "more than 40,000 emails and other electronic communications, more than 40,000 first-hand stories, and more than 15,000 digital images." This is a great way to highlight primary sources and their importance!

Preparing Students for a Future We Can't Predict

It's the first day of school in our district, and I was on the lookout for something to share that would really give me some food for thought as we get the year started.

According to a provocative NY Times editorial by Virginia Heffernan, "Education Needs a Digital-Age Upgrade,"

"According to Cathy N. Davidson, co-director of the annual MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competitions, fully 65 percent of today’s grade-school kids may end up doing work that hasn’t been invented yet."

Cathy Davidson, cited above, has authored a book, Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn, which I have yet to read, but which is generating a lot of buzz.

KQED's MindShift column recently interviewed Davidson in an article "How Do We Prepare Our Children for What's Next?", and she suggests that we are now about 15 years into the fourth major Information Age, as described by historian Robert Darnton. The first three were driven by (1) the invention of writing, (2) moveable type, and (3) the industrial revolution, which made books available to the masses. 

"we are right on time to give up techno-phobia and to tackle the problems and opportunities of the digital world with good sense, pragmatics, realism, and purpose. Once we absorb the realization that we’ve already changed, and that we’re actually doing pretty well despite major realignments in our lives, then we can think about how we want to take this amazing new tool and use it in a way that better serves our lives."

The New York Times Room for Debate section featured the question Are research papers a waste of time? this week, and invited five debaters to weigh in. They all pointed out the difference between locating information and turning it into personal and sharable knowledge. But Penn State librarian Courtney Young put it most succinctly:

"Components of the research process are important for all students. The end product doesn’t need to be a research paper, but the concepts of inquiry and critical thinking are still needed as the foundation of an essay or group presentation."

I often think about how much of what I do on a daily basis was unimaginable (at least to me!) when I was in college. On the other hand, most of us in the work world using an innovating with these remarkable digital tools didn't have the advantage of using them during our K-12 educational career.  We need to use the tools of the current day and take the best aspects of perennial values of education and citizenship.

The view from the other shore

After all that's written in the U.S. press about our own education system, here's an interesting view from across the pond. The Underworked American is one of the more read/commented on/emailed articles in the British publication The Economist right now. The columnist Lexington points out that while Americans are knowns for working a lot of hours, it's the reverse when it comes to our schoolchildren. Our students have the shortest school year, the shortest school day, and probably the least amount of homework. On top of this, the structure of our school year, with a long summer break, leads to extra "learning loss." If we think we're the only ones who've noticed this discrepancy, we're sadly mistaken.

According to the article, "a recent report from McKinsey, a management consultancy, argues that the lagging performance of the country’s school pupils, particularly its poor and minority children, has wreaked more devastation on the economy than the current recession."