Posts Tagged ‘9/11’

Students Allegedly Asked to Draw 9/11 Devastation Pictures in Class

September 14, 2012

The teachers allegedly involved in conjuring up this activity have made a very poor judgement call:

Hughey Elementary School Parents in El Paso, Texas are furious over a questionable class assignment that asked students to draw pictures depicting the September 11 terrorist attacks.

According to KDBC, the fourth graders were told specifically to “draw the boom clouds, the planes hitting the towers, and people jumping out of windows.“

“That’s something that kids should get in trouble for drawing,” parent Ivie Gremillion told KFOX-TV. “That’s people being murdered, committing suicide.”

Student drawings portrayed the heart-wrenching images, some with speech bubbles saying, “help,” “I love you” and “one way ticket to heaven.” Gremillion tells KFOX-TV that the classroom teacher also told her students that “the Afghans did this because they hate all of us and want to kill all of us.”

One student, Gremillion says, was under the impression that the tragedy occurs every September 11 and was too afraid to leave his house to go to school.

Talk about a dangerous dose of stupidity!

 

Click on the link to read Coloring Book of the 9/11 Tragedy is in Bad Taste

Click on the link to read Don’t Even Try to Huminise James Holmes

Click on the link to read How Can Facebook Allow James Holmes Tribute Pages?

Click on the link to read The Need to Blame Anything and Everything for the Colorado Shootings

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Posted in Professional Conduct | Leave a Comment »

The School Kids Evicted From 9/11 Memorial are Symptomatic of a Broader Problem

June 25, 2012

I hope we don’t get child psychologists and new age self-help authors spring to the defense of these kids. When a group of school kids turns the 9/11 memorial into their own personal dumping ground, it is not a case of ‘kids being kids’. These kids knew what they were doing, realised how insensitive it was and yet, decided to do it anyway.

But like the bullying of a bus monitor (as I have covered in a number of posts), this isn’t about kids on a bus or kids at the 9/11 memorial site, this is about kids in general.

There is a lack of self-respect and respect for others in this generation of kids that is quite frightening. The kamikaze approach that is apparent in both recent stories is a problem that is faced in households and classrooms all over the world.

In this case, the target for their angst is going to make a lot of people extremely upset:

A group of Brooklyn students on a school trip to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum were booted from the hallowed site after they callously hurled trash into its fountains.

The vile vandals from Junior High School 292 in East New York treated the solemn memorial — its reflecting pools honoring the nearly 3,000 people killed in the terror attacks — like a garbage dump.

“They kicked us out because of littering in the water. Kids were throwing baseballs in the pond thing,” said eighth-grader Anthony Price, 14, of East New York, who insisted he wasn’t one of the troublemakers.

In addition to the baseballs, witnesses reported seeing empty plastic soda bottles and other refuse in the water on Thursday.

“They were making jokes and throwing stuff in the fountain. It didn’t seem like a big deal,” added another student on the trip who refused to give his name.

Department of Education officials have launched an investigation into the students’ shenanigans.

Tourists visiting the site Saturday said they were disgusted by the students’ filthy acts.

“That is an absolute disgrace,” said Sharon Hooks, 55, a school teacher from Hartford, Conn. “I don’t care if these children were too young to remember the events of that day. They need to be taught to be respectful.”

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Posted in Education Matters | 3 Comments »

Coloring Book of the 9/11 Tragedy is in Bad Taste

August 26, 2011

I have no problem with children learning about the 9/11 tragedy and I think it is appropriate to commemorate those that perished in terrorist attacks on that fateful day.  What I don’t condone is the idea that kids coloring in the burning twin towers is a good way of imparting such information.  To me, this is disrespectful to children and creates unhelpful tensions.

As Bruce Felps writes:

Titled “We Shall Never Forget 9/11 ‘The Kids’ Book of Freedom,’ ” the book engages kids to color in a depiction of the flaming, smoking, about-to-collapse World Trade Center towers. It also includes an image of a Navy SEAL firing on Osama bin Laden, complete with a bullet in mid-flight. (See that page here)

So, what color is tragedy? What shade of cowardice hides behind a woman when facing his certain death?

The book looks to be intended for kids about 6, 7, 8 years old … too much for that age or too ageless a lesson to delay?

The book also contains narrative. In a press release, publisher Wayne Bell of Really Big Coloring Books Inc. said it “was created with honesty, integrity, reverence, respect and does not shy away from the truth.”

One page, illustrating the immediate aftermath of the attacks, depicts what looks like a TV news anchor reporting that bin Laden was, indeed, the mastermind.

That page includes the line, “These attacks will change the way America deals with and views the Islamic and Muslim people around the world.” Shouldn’t that be “extremist Islamic terrorists” and not the religion and its adherents as a whole?

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Posted in Dealing With Tragedy | 2 Comments »