Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2006 > September > 13 > Entry
What kids know about Sept. 11
Andy at Pass-Ed is hosting this week’s Carnival of Education. You can find my “Village People” edition of the carnival from last week here. This week, Andy included my post about Ohio, testing and cheating.
I found a post from Andy’s round up at Just a Substitute Teacher’s Blog about Sept. 11 particularly interesting. Just A Sub was teaching a second grade class on Monday and asked the kids what they knew about why the school was holding a moment of silence. Apparently all or most of them had no idea.
I guess I’m amazed that could be true. My oldest daughter is in second grade. She knows plenty about Sept. 11. She’s read about it in the paper, seen news of the anniversary on T.V. and when she had questions we talked about what happened that day in 2001.
Are the kids in Just a Sub’s class really that out of touch? Are their parents intentionally shielding them from the realities of the world they live in?
Just a Sub decided not to try to explain it all to the kids. That’s probably a good self-protection decision. But shouldn’t SOMEBODY tell them?
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Young Children
Comments
By Oldprof
September 14, 2006 10:07 PM | Link to this
Darrel, let’s be fair. “Schools” are not one entity—they’re legislators, state school board members, local school board members, on down to janitors. If you had kept up with education in the 70s (if you were around then), the teachers were greatly opposed to the “dumbing down” of achievement back then. Unfortunately, that generation of teachers is long retired, to be replaced by overly idealistic youth who burn out in a couple of years to be replaced by other overly idealistic, inexperienced youth. Want someone to blame who DESERVES it? Can you say “Husted”?By Darrel
September 14, 2006 4:45 AM | Link to this
I agree with you 100%. It’s no secret we allow ourselves to be dumbed down. You got to admit the schools have done their job in doing it.By Oldprof
September 14, 2006 1:14 AM | Link to this
We do a class exercise where the students are placed in small groups, and each group is given a different decade—the 50s, 60s, and so forth up to the nineties. They’re told to come up with a list of the ten most important things about that decade. The goal is to give them an idea of (1) where they learn about history—mostly not in the classroom for recent history (2) cultural awareness (3) how difficult it is to decide what events/people/trends are important enough to force children to learn about them, even in the short term. BTW, since most of the students in my classes are of the millenial generation, almost none of them have a personal memory of the 80s or before—yet they usually manage to come up with a fairly accurate top five.By Mary
September 13, 2006 1:50 PM | Link to this
Doesn’t surprise me the 2nd graders did not know much, or claimed they didn’t, about 9-11. Today, I could not help but eavesdrop on a nearby table of 4 adults (two middle age/old men and two middle age/old women) eating lunch in a restaurant. It was amazing how consistently frivolous the conversation was about what is going on in the world - about television shows such as dancing competitions, food, and sports. I know lighten up, Mary. But I started to wonder if these adults ever have serious discussions or have any awareness of things other than food and entertainment. I think this is our Achilles heel as a culture. We have had things so good for so long - jobs, food, material possessions, relative security, high standard of living, entertainment distractions - we have lost awareness of the world, others around us, and our vulnerabilities. We adults pass on this attitude to our children who become equally entertained, fed, distracted and clueless.