Remembering September 11th

Most of our students were not born when the Towers came down. Our ninth graders were about 4 and our high school seniors were 7 years old. For them, there is either no memory, or dim memories of the horrors that surrounded us and the unspeakable sadness in our country. If they were aware of the events, most likely we tried to shield them from most of the terrible ugliness of it all. It is likely that the older ones remember the chaos and the fear in the adults around them, if not the actual details of the events.

Now that the tenth anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks is upon us, we as teachers and parents have an opportunity to open discussion with our children about what happened that day. The Internet Archive has produced an excellent resource to further understanding using television and news coverage from that week. It is called Understanding 9/11: A Television News Archive. In their own words:

"We are proud to announce the launch of Understanding 9/11: A Television News Archive, a library of news coverage of the events of 9/11/2001 and their aftermath as presented by U.S. and international broadcasters. A resource for scholars, journalists and the public, the library presents one week (3,000 hours from 20 channels over 7 days) of news broadcasts for study, research and analysis, with select analysis by scholars. Television is our preeminent medium of information, entertainment and persuasion, but until now it has not been a medium of record. Scholars face great challenges in identifying, locating and adequately citing television news broadcasts in their research. This archive attempts to address this gap by making TV news coverage of this critical week in September 2001 available to those studying these events and their treatment in the media.

This is primary source material suitable for older students . It will facilitate discussion and show many perspectives of the events during the 7 days following the attacks on our soil. Please use this in addition to other lessons and resources for an uncommon perspective. Click on the picture in the article to access the resources.

For younger students, the books, The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, The Little Chapel That Stood, and 14 Cows for America will offer opportunities to discuss the events in a gentle, non-threatening way.

Your comments are welcome.

Getting to know you...

I am absolutely delighted to introduce myself as the new library media specialist at New Explorations into Science, Technology and Math, or, NEST+m. How appropriate that the acronym for our school spells a word so rich in the meaning and sense of "home."

Merriam-Webster's Online Free Dictionary defines the noun, nest, as " a place of rest, retreat, or lodging." To me, this means that our library media center is a place we all can call home; a place where we are nurtured, comforted, sustained, and supported.

The dictionary further identifies the synonyms for nest as:

hotbed, hothouse, breeding ground, nidus, nursery, seedbed, seminary
and lists related words as: crucible; base, capital, center, core, cynosure, eye, focus, heart, hub, mecca, nucleus, seat; focus, headquarters.

It is my sincere wish that the NEST+m library will be all of these things: a hotbed, or breeding ground, or seedbed, or hothouse for ideas; a base, center, focus, hub, mecca and headquarters for teaching and learning; for creating, for curiosity, inquiry; and truly, the heart and soul of our school.

I bring to you--students, staff, administration, and parents--my dedication and passion for information literacy instruction, a love of literature and technology, and a track record of success and excellence in librarianship. I offer my promise to make our library program at NEST+m the best in the city.

Together we will seek and learn and grow. I am honored to be here. Please join me in "feathering our nest" to make it everything it can and should be.