9/11
I just came in from the back porch, where I’d been relaxing in the blissful post-summer-stormy evening. While outside, I watched a jet flying low across the sky. Five years ago today, that didn’t happen. Five years ago, the skies were empty. FIve years ago was a sad, strange, eerie day.
About half of the kids in my advisory class this morning didn’t know the significance of today’s date.
I spent the first 15 minutes of my school day having to define 9/11 for the next generation.
I felt this incredible load… how does one explain the gravity of that day, the day that has become our generation’s Pearl Harbor, that day that the world stopped…
To be the one to try to teach to a bunch of kids, who only somewhat vaguely remember that day in the fall of their second grade year, exactly what that day was like…
The gravity of my role in their lives came crashing down around me.
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And then there's this.
It's been only 5 years. Sponge (the girl that's been staying in our guest room for the past few months... I call her Sponge because right now, she has only a 50% success rate in actually paying the measly pittance we're asking in rent each month) just rented United 93. She's already seen the Oliver Stone movie with Nicholas Cage. She can't get enough. When I got home from my exhausting day today, all I wanted to do was relax in the peace and quiet of my own home. Didn't happen, because when I got home, the TV was blaring with one sensationalized story about 9/11 this and 9/11 that.
That's what my problem is. I don't have a problem with the stories, with the historical significance and the facts of 9/11. I want to learn as much as possible about that day. I want to know the about events that led up to it, the people involved, the aftermath it caused. And I can read about it and research it and try to understand the best that I can.
What I hate is the sensationalism that has become so commonplace in describing 9/11, so much so that the sensationalism seems to supercede the historical value of the information. There's a fine line between conveying information and sensationalizing it.
At some point in time, the two will ineveitably merge. The battle of the Alamo was a tragedy unlike any other in it's time, and no one really knows exactly what happened inside the mission that day. We try to understand the best that we can, and we've even got John Wayne and Billy Bob Thornton in their cinematic efforts to relay the information, the history of what happened that day. Of course, there will be some sensationalism of the facts. It's been nearly two centuries since that day has past. The historical information and the sensationalism can safely merge.
But in our case, it's been 5 years. Stick to the facts. Give me a documentary. Let me hear witnesses' recollections. But don't give me a fucking movie. Not yet. Our children need to hear about the real 9/11... the real life tragedy that occured.
My biggest fear about that day is for the kids in my advisory class, and for all the kids who don't remember what they day meant.
I fear that the only 9/11 they will really ever know is the 9/11 they absorb from a Hollywood production.
About half of the kids in my advisory class this morning didn’t know the significance of today’s date.
I spent the first 15 minutes of my school day having to define 9/11 for the next generation.
I felt this incredible load… how does one explain the gravity of that day, the day that has become our generation’s Pearl Harbor, that day that the world stopped…
To be the one to try to teach to a bunch of kids, who only somewhat vaguely remember that day in the fall of their second grade year, exactly what that day was like…
The gravity of my role in their lives came crashing down around me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And then there's this.
It's been only 5 years. Sponge (the girl that's been staying in our guest room for the past few months... I call her Sponge because right now, she has only a 50% success rate in actually paying the measly pittance we're asking in rent each month) just rented United 93. She's already seen the Oliver Stone movie with Nicholas Cage. She can't get enough. When I got home from my exhausting day today, all I wanted to do was relax in the peace and quiet of my own home. Didn't happen, because when I got home, the TV was blaring with one sensationalized story about 9/11 this and 9/11 that.
That's what my problem is. I don't have a problem with the stories, with the historical significance and the facts of 9/11. I want to learn as much as possible about that day. I want to know the about events that led up to it, the people involved, the aftermath it caused. And I can read about it and research it and try to understand the best that I can.
What I hate is the sensationalism that has become so commonplace in describing 9/11, so much so that the sensationalism seems to supercede the historical value of the information. There's a fine line between conveying information and sensationalizing it.
At some point in time, the two will ineveitably merge. The battle of the Alamo was a tragedy unlike any other in it's time, and no one really knows exactly what happened inside the mission that day. We try to understand the best that we can, and we've even got John Wayne and Billy Bob Thornton in their cinematic efforts to relay the information, the history of what happened that day. Of course, there will be some sensationalism of the facts. It's been nearly two centuries since that day has past. The historical information and the sensationalism can safely merge.
But in our case, it's been 5 years. Stick to the facts. Give me a documentary. Let me hear witnesses' recollections. But don't give me a fucking movie. Not yet. Our children need to hear about the real 9/11... the real life tragedy that occured.
My biggest fear about that day is for the kids in my advisory class, and for all the kids who don't remember what they day meant.
I fear that the only 9/11 they will really ever know is the 9/11 they absorb from a Hollywood production.
posted by Flipside at 7:43 PM
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