Project Civic Connections
Opening Activity
Santa Monica, CA—October, 2001

How have you dealt with this tragedy in your life either personally or professionally?

  • Cried
  • Helped quickly organize a workshop for teachers in dealing with their students' feelings and managing classroom discussions
  • Helped inform students and peers about background to the events
  • Spent time with friends and family
  • Helped facilitate students' desire to "do something to help" (money collection)
  • Kept going and pushed others to do so
  • Modified units to provide info/context
  • Focus on relationships - promoting occasions of talk, play, activity, comfort, and safety
  • Collecting Red Cross donations and teddy bears
  • Donating blood
  • Explaining U.S. MidEast relationships
  • Talked about tolerance and understanding
  • Discussed with student's extremists do not represent entire group of people
  • Let them ask questions
  • Helped students research other countries' freedoms and compared them with U.S. and then discuss what freedoms U.S. lost on 9/11/01
  • Taught lesson about discrimination day after

Write one word describing your feelings about the attacks which occurred on September 11th

  • Terrified
  • Horrific
  • Numb
  • Disbelief
  • Reflective
  • Pain
  • Anger
  • Shock but surprised we were surprised
  • Shock
  • Shocked
  • Afraid for my safety for the first time in my life
  • Dread
  • Flabbergasted
  • Incredulous
  • Saddened

What resources (stories, books, films, songs, etc.) would you recommend to other educators to help students process the events of September 11th?

  • CRF Website
  • PBS video: Search for Osama Bin Laden
  • Travel channel/BBS: Who is Bin Laden?
  • Invite members of the Islamic community to school/class
  • Review history, place events in context
  • Make time for counseling - reflective thinking
  • A & E biography - Osama Bin Laden
  • Special episode of West Wing
  • Have Islamic students share
  • National Geographic: Afghanistan This Sunday Night MNBC
  • "What's Going On?" - special recording
  • Bill of Rights
  • Teaching Tollerance
  • supplement to middle school - Social Educator October 2001

How can you use service-learning to help students feel more hopeful and cope with the September 11th tragedy?

  • Getting parents and grandparents to share experiences of previous tragedies
  • Partnerships in the community - sense of togetherness
  • Turn sense of powerlessness into hope through action
  • Discussions of tolerance and diversity (Civil Rights Team)
  • Projects bringing students of different cultures together
  • Meet with Islamic school, learn about Muslim culture/religion
  • Students place their state/country of origin on a map, use that as a starting point for discussion of cultures
  • Support local mosque
  • Fair about Islam
  • Food sale to raise money, collection boxes
  • Make connections to the Bill of Rights
  • Empower students in a way that supports curriculum
  • Cross-age teaching around Bill of Rights, Constitution, religion
  • Teach-ins to promote understanding, bring in community guests, representative from Muslim community
  • Look for thematic connections - culture diversity
  • Examine own communities and cultural heritage
  • Military communities
  • Living history museum - connection to theater/arts
  • Research freedoms of other countries, compare to U.S. What freedoms did we lose after 9/11? Would you die for your beliefs?
  • Be in community, make a better understanding to prevent future problems
  • Conflict resolution
  • Meeting real community needs - local and national
  • Student ownership
Return to National Outreach in Civic Participation and Youth Service page.