I love teaching
fourth graders. There’s something about
turning ten that opens a child’s eyes to new ways of thinking. Sometimes that means testing the limits and
trying the nerves of their parents and teachers. But more significantly, it means these kids
are developing their own opinions and crafting their own personal view of the
world. I try not to overlook the huge
responsibility that puts on me as the voice that they listen to for hours each
day.
For the past ten
years, every September 11th I’ve faced my students and tried to explain
why we have a moment of silence at 8:46 am.
It never gets easier, and in some ways it gets harder because these
children are so far removed from 2001 that sometimes this is the first they’ve
heard of (or at least processed) that horrific day. We talk about the facts, the feelings, and
the fears and I try hard to formulate answers for questions that truly don’t
have answers.
Almost without
fail, the conversation eventually turns in one particular direction, and it did
so again today as a boy in the back raised his hand. I could have predicted what would come next
just with one glance at his wide eyes, so his question was no surprise when he
said, “So the people who planned the attacks died on the planes too?” My heart
jumped a little in my chest as it does each year as the questions get deeper.
I felt the pressure of the rest of their wide eyes as they looked first at the
boy who asked the question, then at me.
I swallowed and said, “Yes, they died too. They knew they were going to die, but in
their sick minds, it was worth it.” Even
though I’d already used the words radical and evil multiple times in our
discussion, I began floundering over them again as I tried to explain something
I’ll never even fully understand myself.
Next came the
only question harder to answer than that one: “Were there kids on the planes?”
That’s another thing about fourth graders: they ask the hard questions and they
know if you’re lying so you have to tell the truth. So I did.
And then I explained to them that all kinds of people lost their lives
that day: old people, young people, moms, dads, kids, firemen, policemen, and
everyone in between. Which brought the
conversation full circle and I think they finally understood why we’d had that
moment of silence an hour before.
I hate that we live
in a world where we must have these conversations with our children. But more than that, I’d hate to live in a
world where we’re afraid to have these conversations with our children. I don’t like my students feeling afraid or
sad, but I do believe they need to feel shocked and angry, NOW, while they’re
forming their view of the world.
Today while I was
having this talk with my students, I couldn’t help but see the faces of those
three college students who ambushed the terrorist on that train in Paris last
month. Just last week, I read in People magazine that as soon as they
heard the first gunshot, one said to another, “Dude! Let’s go!”
On September
11, 2001, those three young men were about nine years old. I wonder if being at that impressionable age
when our country experienced such a tragedy had an impact on the men they are
today. I’d dare to say it did, and I’d
like to think they learned lessons from their parents and in classrooms in the
days following 9/11 that shaped them into the kind of guys who were faced with
a terrorist and took him on without hesitation.
That’s why we
have a moment of silence. That’s why we
look our children in the eye and say, “Yes, kids died too,” even when it’s
hard. That’s why we tell them, every
single year, yes, those men were willing to die for their evil cause but that’s
why we as Americans have to be just as willing to die to stand up for what’s
good: freedom, faith, our families and our friends.
I pray that none of those little boys in my
classroom will ever be faced with a situation like those three young men were
faced with in Paris last month. But if God forbid they are, I hope their eyes
widen just like they did today and without hesitation, they say, “Let’s go!”
The only way to
defeat evil is with good. And the battle
starts a lot sooner than we’d like to think.