School is having "freedom day" to discuss 9/11

"Freedom day"?

That's very weird.

How old are the kids who will be involved?

I can maybe get my head around this being done well, but at first glance it seems bizarre indeed.

Are they just trying to scare them or what?

Can you sit in on the assembly and report back to us?

Actually, we're planning on taking them out of school for the day.

That would be my plan too.

My nieces go to a school in Texas that has "patriotic week". I was trying to figure out what that was all about but couldn't quite piece it together.

It's probably not about the kids. It's about the adults, trying to relive the trauma and trying to get their kids to understand how it felt for them.

That would be my guess.

I just re-read the newsletter.... it's "freedom week," actually.

The students will gather for a "short assembly to remember the events of 9/11 and discuss our opportunities as members of a free society."

Whatever the heck that means.

It would be interesting to know what's actually said in the assembly.

Remember... something they likely weren't even around for? (How old are the oldest kids at this assembly?)



Indeed. Opportunities? Do you have any guesses? I'm pretty much stumped.

Texas Education Code:
Source

So, i wonder if they'll learn all about Juan Seguin and the other Tejanos who made sacrifices for the revolution in Tejas. But maybe its a whites only, native English speakers only "freedom day" discussion.

Freedom fries will be on the cafeteria lunch menu...

The school goes through 12th grade, so the seniors would have been 7 or so.

Yeah, my thoughts, exactly.

Do you know what ended up happening with this?

We had nothing official and we weren't told about anything happening. But there was a substitute in social studies yesterday who showed them some 9/11 documentary. And it freaked these kids OUT.

Towers collapsing, people jumping out of windows, the whole nine yards.

Sozlet had two friends over yesterday and they all were horrified by it and one of 'em was tearing up again thinking about it. Sozlet had a hard time going to sleep last night.

Note, I'm not for hiding that it happened, she already knew about it and knew how bad it was in terms of how many people died, etc. It's a whole other thing to actually see it.

Later, maybe, but at 10? I think it was fine for some and not-fine for others.

The sub was evidently really abrupt about with the criers too, "go get a tissue."

Sozlet told me about all of this and I got madder, I asked her if she'd mind if I lodged some sort of a complaint, she said that'd be OK. So I might do that.

Also, it was just plain the documentary for the full class period. No discussion before or after.

That sounds appallingly irresponsible. I hope that you do complain.

I agree. Irresponsible and reprehensible.

I went ahead and sent an email to the principal.

I have some tiny qualms because the substitute in question is someone I know (she's the mom of one of sozlet's classmates), and I don't really want to get her in trouble. But she messed up IMO, so....

I kept it a notch down from marshaling a group of angry parents and doing something more emphatic. Just an email from me to the principal.

I wonder if the regular teacher had planned on showing it or if it was the sub's idea. Lots of times regular teachers will leave something simple for a sub to do that doesn't require a lot of interaction with the kids.

That said, however, I don't think it's a good choice for 3rd graders. My kids were 4th and 6th graders at the time and were highly traumatized by watching the media coverage. We turned it off after a couple days.

Could be...

5th graders actually. I do think some of the kids were able to process it appropriately, but some were not. (One of her friends was sobbing throughout and was really, really upset by it -- she was the one who was told to get a tissue, and that was it.)

edit: OK, sozlet wasn't there and this friend is not always a reliable narrator so I won't put too much stock in that necessarily. But the three kids who were here yesterday (sozlet + two other friends) were observably upset.