September 2001

Are you incorporating discussions of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in your courses? How?
What has been the reaction on campus? How has campus life been impacted?

Your responses will be posted here in the order received (the most recent reply is first), and may be used in other FACCC publications.

Please e-mail responses to Communications Director Katherine Martinez, k7martinez@aol.com, by Sept. 30 (use the subject "Question of the Month").

Answers received: 

• Your answer could be here

• 09/21/2001 3:17:01 PM Pacific Daylight Time --  HELLER_GLORIA@smc.edu (HELLER_GLORIA)
  
  Partly in order to help students see that school IS the "real" world, I am beginning each class with about 5 minutes devoted to some kind of debriefing of the Terror on that Tuesday.
  
  The first day I asked them to write only 3 sentences on a piece of paper to hand in. (NOTE: this is 4 levels below Freshman Composition). They could leave their names off if they wished. They could say how they felt, what they thought, any reaction they were having. I collected these papers.
  
  The next class meeting I asked the students what they thought would be a good use of their responses from the previous class. They said would like to know what others were feeling/thinking, so I have typed them up (well, not all 300 of them; there are many repetitions) and will distribute them at the next class. All responses will be listed without names or section numbers.
  
  I will spend the first 5 minutes of the NEXT class, then, after they've read the handout, discussing their reactions to their classmates' comments. I will also ask where shall we go from here.
  
  The idea is to keep them alert to the possibility of their own emotional ups-and-downs in the aftermath of the catastrophe. Many students come from countries where war is/has been a daily part of life, and the images and angry words proliferating currently on TV + radio can cause trauma.
  
  I want them to know I will listen--and their classmates will, too.
  
  Gloria Heller
  English Dept.
  Santa Monica College
  heller_gloria@smc.edu

• 09/17/2001 12:06:48 PM Pacific Daylight Time - jmoore@glendale.cc.ca.us (JC Moore)
  
  I discussed the terrorist attack by using Charles Tilly's modern state model in all my sociology classes. According to his analysis, international conflict should be examined from the nature of the modern states (esp. capitalistic nations like U.S.) which pursue more power/wealth, and the structure of international relations. Furthermore, Marxist model also helps us understand the conflict from the framework of stratification/inequality. The powerful, U.S. determines or to a point dictates what needs to be done, for example, the directions of the international politics. I can't go too lengthy, but the two models offer an interesting analysis on the crisis that we have now. JC, dept of sociology

• 09/14/2001 11:40:03 AM Pacific Daylight Time - dyoung@Cerritos.edu (David Young)
  
  I've taken the opportunity to use this terrible event as a context for my students to examine how they would like to be remembered.
  
  I teach a College and Career Success course in a Learning Community with an English course. We have been exploring the importance of life and work values in living a meaningful life.
  
  I had my students write a short reflective "epitaph" of how they would want to be remembered if they had lived a life consistent with their core values. I then had them read their papers to each other in small groups. I then had them write another short piece on something they had heard one of their classmates say and how it affected them.
  
  I think/hope it brought us a little closer together.
  
  I shared with them that I believed that this is one of the best ways to make sure that good triumphs over evil in the world.

• 09/13/2001 8:47:33 PM Pacific Daylight jcm@foothill.net (Joan Merriam)—One might imagine that in a Public Speaking class, there would exist little opportunity to focus a discussion on Tuesday's terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington. After all, what possible kind of connection could there be between public speaking and acts of terrorism? A less tenuous one than you might think.
  
  My planned lecture was on audience issues--specifically, the need for speakers to craft their speeches with an eye toward the diversity of faith, culture, political belief, ethnicity, gender, and so forth, among their audiences. I used that as a jumping-off point to open a discussion about the power of our words to build walls of intolerance between peoples merely because of their differences: you don't believe the same as I, which means you are wrong and I am right...you are the Lie and I am the Truth...you are evil and I am good. I suggested that Tuesday's horror epitomized the devastating effects of just this kind of thinking, and that some of the rhetoric that followed the attacks was only adding fuel to the fires of hatred...and the discussion took off from there, ending only because the class period did.
  
  The commentary ranged from thoughtful to reactionary...but by and large, the students seemed grateful for the opportunity to voice their feelings and fears, even if many seemed to have a hard time "hearing" the positions of those in the class with whom they disagreed. Even in this small community thousands of miles from the epicenter of the terror, some students are visibly shaken, and find it difficult to even participate in the day-to-day routine of classes. I had one young man approach me after class to say that he found himself becoming so upset during the discussion that he wanted to just get up and run. "I've never been through anything like this before," he said. "I've never felt this way before. I just don't know what to do." Another student told me that she feels as if something insider her has died.
  
  Many of us, I suspect, know exactly how she feels.
  
  Joan Merriam
  Instructor of Speech & Communications
  Sierra College - Nevada County Campus

• 09/13/2001 5:39:32 PM Pacific Daylight troberts@mendocino.cc.ca.us (Terri Robertson)
  
  Hello, I am responding to the request for student class discussions on Tuesday's terrorist attack. At the beginning of my Business English class I asked the class if they would like to talk about when happened on Tuesday. They were a little hesitant to get started, but then the communication became more lively. It was a good discussion. A lot of different opinions were voiced and students were good about letting everyone have their say. The discussion went on for about 25 minutes. At the end there seemed to be a feeling of belonging. They had kind of connected. Before that class everyone had been very quiet. After the discussion there was a common bond and the class felt more relaxed and part of the participation.

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