Teaching 9-11: A Challenge for Today’s Educators

Teaching 9

            A few years ago I was invited to speak at a day of learning for high school girls about prayer and spirituality.  Since it convened in lower Manhattan it was decided we would arrange a pre-prayer meditation at the 9-11 memorial.  I shared my recollections of work with 9-11 trauma victims and families in a center designed for them overlooking “the pit”.  Just speaking about it, my chest tightened, and my eyes watered.  Walking the perimeter of the memorial, seeing the names, I felt a wave of sadness.  My teenage students, however, seemed, barely moved.  I realized that they had been a year old when the buildings fell.  They never knew what was, what was lost, how much the day changed our world.

            Teaching history requires introducing students to a reality they never experienced, helping them to travel through time to understand a different world.  Often history lessons ask students to consider a time, a place, a culture totally foreign to them, many years in the past.  Often this history concerns people and events not directly lived by their teachers.  As we consider how to teach the history of 9/11, though it happened 20 years ago, I believe we face some unique challenges.

            This is a history lesson in which most of today’s teachers were a part of the story. Some very personally, as they lost loved ones, or were directly impacted.  Others were touched in less direct, but meaningful ways.  We remember where we were, how we felt, what the days and weeks after were like.  We want to impart those powerful experiences and may be frustrated when our students don’t resonate with our experience of devastation and loss.

            I wonder if because 20 years is the recent past, it lacks the “charm” of more remote or ancient history.  Does the culture and context of 9/11/2001 look so similar to our present that it doesn’t garner interest?  Does this actually make it harder for today’s students to engage in learning aobut 9/11?  Or is it too close for comfort?  Some students may have been personally impacted – a relative lost – a relative who developed illness as a result, know someone who has struggled with post traumatic stress.  

            We know that teaching about traumatic historical events can be an emotional trigger for some  students.  We have learned much about how to sensitively and in developmentally appropriate ways teach about the Holocaust, about slavery, about other horrific acts perpetrated through history.  Our current challenge is, however, complicated. We are teaching students in the midst of a global pandemic that has impacted every aspect of their lives.  There have been numerous studies documenting the psychological impact of the pandemic.  Is there a risk that teaching about a recent devastating event will be a significant trigger for many?

            This year, 9/11 falls on a Saturday, so perhaps educators feel they need not discuss 9/11 at all.  Perhaps, even with the challenges inherent in this anniversary under pandemic conditions, we can convey the impact of history, honor the memory of those lost, and teach our students important lessons of history and for today.  We can acknowledge the horrific loss that terrorism causes, and focus on the acts of heroism and compassion that followed, the responses of individuals and communities that redefined a city, and a nation.  We can teach about resilience, about how even in moments of crushing despair and unimaginable cruelty, we can go on, we can grow.  We can teach about how gratitude and generosity helps with healing.  We can share our memories of how we learned to live with uncertainty, how we learned to count blessings.  And we can listen, to our students’ questions, to their struggles, to their hopes, to their worries, and to their strength.  We can validate their experience with our own personal knowledge that while life sometimes presents the unpredictable, the unthinkable, the resilient human spirit always offers hope.

My Ears Were Opened

The expression – “my eyes were opened” – is a common way we communicate that an event helped us see things in a new light.  In the weeks since the horrific murder of Geoge Floyd, I have seen the heartbreaking video more times than I can count.  The impact has been multi-sensory.  Not only have I had to make sense of what my eyes saw, but my ears have been opened.  I am listening to the stories of people of color in a way, I must admit, I have not listened before.

I have always listened to my own cultural narratives with a sensitive ear.  Stories of Jewish struggle and loss, whether from Biblical or modern times, have pulled at my soul and have broken my heart.  I believe I have also been moved by the powerful stories of racism and racial discrimination through history – ancient and more recent.  I have read and watched stories of slavery in the US, the civil rights movement, the horrific genocides and mistreatment of peoples around the world.  But my ears were not tuned to the frequency of the constant, insipient de-legitimizing and under-privileging of people of color now, here, in my time, in my neighborhood, in my world.  I knew it, on some cognitive, academic level, and it impacted my voting and my social consciousness, I hope.  But I did not hear it in my heart.  The video of  a man who could not breathe has taken my breath away, and opened my ears.

It is painful to open my ears to this broadened reality.  It challenges me to think and rethink many assumptions.  It challenges me to consider my own privilege, and the places where that privilege is minimized (as a Jewish orthodox woman in a religious community with clear religious and cultural mandates that are, at times blurred).  With my ears opened, the world’s song is not so melodious, and if I want it to be again, I have to think beyond listening to what we, what I, can and should do.

For now, I am sitting with the discordance, and with a committment to continue listening, to keeping my ears opened, as uncomfortable as it is.  I know there will be hopeful melodies, and I also know there will be dirges.  I will be listening for both, and thinking a lot about how I can add to the music in a constructive way.  I believe, I have to believe, I choose to believe, that there is a symphony waiting to be written – if we keep our eyes and ears open to all our stories and to each other.

Paint Chips, Choice and Overload

You are repainting your bedroom.  You want blue. Not just any blue.  A calming but not dull blue.  One that will lighten the room, but not make it too bright.  A blue with life in it, not a dull “hospital blue”.  You visit your local paint store and stand in front of a display with cardboard strips featuring hundreds of paint colors.  Those paint chips offer a world of possibilities, they hint at what could be.  You grab all the blues and return home with dozens of blue choices, and realize, you are not really any closer to finding the perfect blue for your bedroom walls.

Of course, it would be simpler, although frustrating, if there were only two choices, sky blue or navy.  More choice seems good, and infinite choice seems even better.  Yet, how many of us have felt frozen when having to make a decision when too many options are available?

Human beings do not like having no choice.  Parents and educators know that telling a child to “do your homework” is often less successful than asking “will you do your math or reading first?”, allowing the perception of choice to take the sting out of the sense of being directed or controlled.  We have learned, however, that too much choice often has a negative effect.  

In the 1970’s Alvin Toffler published his landmark book, Future Shock, which included a chapter on what he termed “overchoice”.  He predicted “People of the future may suffer not from an absence of choice but from a paralysing surfeit of it. They may turn out to be victims of that peculiarly super-industrial dilemma: overchoice.”  He arranged for the book to be published with a variety of different color covers – providing buyers with the personal experience of overchoice.  Toffler wrote at a time when there were perhaps a dozen toothpaste versions, and 7 major TV stations.  Imagine what he would think about our current world!

Research on choice is clear.  Some is good, too much is not.  The Hick-Hyman law, named for two psychologists, states that increasing the number of choices will increase the amount of time it takes to make a decision.  The phenomena of overchoice or choice overload has been widely documented.  Overchoice  leads people to delay or totally avoid decision-making, to make poorer decisions and to feel less satisfied with any decisions they do make.  In some cases, too many options leads to total decision paralysis.

As parents and educators, we certainly do not want to eliminate choice from children’s or student’s lives, any more than we want to totally limit our own choices.  But the endless blues of our paint chips remind us – we can overdo it.  Asking our students or children if they want to practice math, or write a letter, or have a snack or work together, etc. may overwhelm their decision-making capacity.  We can scaffold decision making by breaking big decisions into smaller ones.  Of these two options which do you prefer?  Now that we have eliminated your least preferred option, which of the following two choices are better?

Perhaps one of the most important ways we can help our children, our students, and ourselves with choice is to recognize and label overchoice and decision paralysis when it happens.  In the grocery store when we are blessed with a seemingly endless array of breakfast cereals, we can verbalize “when there is so much to choose from it is hard to decide”.  When we see a child struggling to make a decision, we can ask “is this hard because there are too many choices”.  

Today’s children are living in a world with a lot of choice, and a world that will likely continue to expand those choices.   As adults who care about healthy growth and healthy choices, we cannot hide from the overchoice reality.  We can stand with children at the proverbial paint chip display and validate their sense of being overwhelmed.  We can help them narrow the field, winnowing the choices down to a reasonable number.  And perhaps most importantly, we can let them know, we will be with them, always,  no matter how they choose to paint their lives.

Too Close For Comfort

I have not blogged in a very long time. Today’s events – a shooting in my community left me with too many thoughts, some of which I share here.

It is a beautiful spring day and I am working outside.  No sooner do I send a selfie to my family, sharing the backyard views than my husband calls.  There is an active shooter in the local supermarket.  Three shot, one dead, two critical.  Shooter is still at large, and I hear helicopters and sirens and our community facebook group says schools on lock-down, shelter in place.  I come inside, lock all my doors, alarm the house, and look out on the cardinals visiting my blossoming trees and cry.

            I have lost track of how many shootings there have been in the US in the past week or so.  On some of those days, my husband would arrive home and report the news of the latest shooting, it barely registered, part of the numbing effect of too much and too frequent tragedy.  In all cases, the shootings happen to others, other people, other communities. Yes, it was frightening, but it was an abstract fear – a general concern about the state of the country, the lack of safety in far-off places.

            Today, it became personal.  I had been planning a shopping trip to two stores adjacent to the supermarket and was thinking of how to break up my workday and run errands.  Now all I can focus on is how we can feel safe – if this can happen here, it can happen anywhere.

            I am fairly well versed in trauma, as a clinical psychologist who has worked in the aftermath of 9/11, and hurricanes, and other tragedies.  Before today, I recognized that in every shooting there were casualties and those present were certainly traumatized.  Now, I know that the trauma impact of these events is so much broader. 

            I am not an expert on gun control, but it seems that these shooting events are not common in other parts of the world, and wonder why?  What could we learn from the policies and culture in those places?  

            I do know that if we do not decrease the gun violence in this country, the costs will be devastating.  Not just in lives lost, but in lives destroyed by traumatic anxiety, by chronic mourning for a lost sense of safety.  The local media is discussing how difficult this shooting is for a community where “this does not happen”.  That is how every community feels when violence invades -and even communities that live with too much violence on a daily basis may respond to a particular event with  this does not happen here”.  

            Something needs to change.  In today’s violence one life was lost, but as children throughout the county are in lock-down, as family members from across the globe check in on us, as the images of police cars fill the tv screen, it is clear that many more lives have been harmed, contaminated with fear, touched by trauma.  Each time something like this happens, we are naturally thankful to be alive, but the reality is – we cannot live like this.

Broken Heart, Hopeful Spirit

I’ve seen the last moments of a man who could not breathe because his life was taken from him.  I’ve watched streets and parks and plazas fill with bended knees and peaceful statements of outrage and unity and demands for change.  I’ve watched businesses, some the hopes and dreams of simple people hoping for a better life, some icons of privilege, be looted and destroyed.  My heart has been broken, and at times my spirit uplifted.  And mostly, I have wondered if I could find words that would matter.  I’m not certain I have found them, but felt that I needed to share some thoughts however jumbled they may be.

I am the Dean of a school of Jewish Education.  I teach teachers to inspire modern students with ancient texts and traditions.  The Torah is clear on man’s obligation to his fellow, and to the world.  The history of the Jewish people has offered first-hand experience of oppression. Jewish law requires that all human beings be recognized as being made b’tzelem Elokim – in the image of God and that we are, each of us, responsible for the well-being of others.  I must ensure that these lessons are taught in our graduate school classrooms, are brought to the classrooms where our graduates will teach children and adults, and are lived and enacted through the generations.

I am a bully prevention researcher and practitioner.  Bullying is defined as the abuse of power to deliberately harm another.  Racism and privilege often involve power and leveraging power differentials.  The key to addressing bullying is engaging bystanders, who have immense power to change bullying behavior through their response to it.  I am so heartened by those who have and will speak out for the unempowered – and for any and all who help us understand, listen, and change the systemic racism and power structures that allow power inequity and the corruption of power to harm others.

I am a child psychologist and a parent.  Perhaps the most chilling thing I have watched is a video circulating on social media of parents of color instructing their children on how to respond when confronted by police.  In my personal and professional role as a nurturer and protector of children, this is heart breaking.  That we need to raise children to think that revealing their true self is potentially deadly is not an indicator of a healthy, accepting, free society.

I am a human being.  I live in awe of the world’s capacity for beauty and ugliness, and hope the former outweighs the latter.  I live in hope that love outpaces hate, and what unites us is greater than that which divides.  Living through a pandemic my faith is unbroken, but my spirit is a bit wobbly.  We have all been hoping and praying for a return to normal.  The events of the past week, triggered by the deaths from much more than the past week, make me think that a return to normal is not enough.  We have an opportunity and an obligation to be agents of change – for ourselves, for our children and grandchildren, and for our world.  It will not be easy, and change will feel too slow in coming.  But it is possible and it is necessary.  Even with a heart part-way broken, I am cultivating a hopeful spirit, choosing to believe that we will find the courage, the wisdom, and the strength to work now and always to grow a safe, welcoming, healthy world, for all it’s people.

When Hyperbole Hurts

No doubt is challenging to be a journalist in the midst of a pandemic.  Media may generally seek eye catching headlines and phrases to engage the listener, but in the midst of a global crisis hyperbole is especially tempting.  I usually dislike the flashy graphics and breaking news hype of today’s news shows, but this week, the language really made me pause.

Politicians and newscasters warned of the worst week yet.  “This week is going to be really terrible” we heard over and over again.  I could not help thinking of a colleague who lost her husband last week, or another friend whose elderly relative has been on a ventilator in the ICU for over 2 weeks.  What must it feel like to hear that we are anticipating the worst week ever, when for them, the worst week had already arrived.

It is not just negative hyperbole that can, inadvertently, be a source of pain, distress, or discomfort.  Over the past month, health care workers have rightfully been celebrated as heroes.  I had the humbling experience of presenting stress management approaches to a zoom meeting of a group of nurses and when I referred to them as heroes the online chatroom lit up.  “We don’t like being referred to as heroes when we are just doing our jobs.”  I explained that just as Cal Ripken was inducted into the baseball hall of fame, not for the most home runs or steals, but for doing his job with the most amazing consistency (showing up for every game), so too nurses, parents, teachers, and everyone who is managing this crisis daily– is heroic.

The danger is twofold.  Not only are some being so publicly celebrated as heroes find ing the praise unnecessary or uncomfortable, but we also risk making others who are equally deserving of acknowledgement feel unappreciated.  Even as newscasters thank food service workers, cleaning staff, teachers, parents, and others, I wonder about the retired widow, who offers a smile to all who pass her always open front door – will anyone celebrate her?

There is only one remedy to this delicate situation – where passionate and sometimes scary words may be necessary to warn,  but may also hurt.  We need, in these difficult times, to ramp up our empathy even as we escalate our language.  We need to think before we speak and as we speak, we need to consider deeply the challenging lives so many are currently living.  We need to recognize the private pain and struggles our public words may unwittingly but insensitively traumatize.  We cannot know what each and every person’s worst week was or will be, but we can assume that the worst for one person comes in different forms and at different times than for another.  We can act and speak with the constant awareness that there are so many ways right now for people to be struggling, and there are equally as many ways for us to show our care and kindness.   Even as we social distance, our words can do as much damage as a dagger at close range.  And our words, carefully chosen and compassionately shared, can feel almost as good as a loving embrace.

The Reverse Dayenu Process

There is a prayer sung at every Passover seder – Dayenu, a peppy tune that suggests if God had taken the Jews from Egypt, but not fed them in the wilderness, that would have been enough.  And if he had fed them in the wilderness, but not taken them to the Promised land, that would have been enough.  In the month of coronavirus I have laughed at wonderful parodies of showtunes and rock ballads, and even seen a few new versions of this classic dayenu reworked for the coronavirus reality.  What is puzzling about the dayenu prayer – which often leads to rich family seder table discussion – is would it really have been enough?  Can we be satisfied with being redeemed from slavery if not allowed to fulfill our purpose and dreams?  Is it possible to let go of treasured expectations?

As we heard from our geographically closest children today that they won’t be joining us for seder, doctors just don’t advise it, and we totally understand, I am reflecting on a seemingly reverse dayenu process I have experienced over the past month.  Our original Passover plans included my serving as a scholar in residence at a wonderful resort program, with two of our three children and their families joining us.  Located close to our third child and his family, we hoped to share some time all together, and even arrange for my mother, the great-grandmom to visit.

The first change in plans occurred when our anticipated visit from Israel of our son, daughter-in-law and 1 ½ year old grandson became an impossibility.  For a few days and at least as many nights, my heart just hurt.  I could not re-imagine Passover without a piece of the family puzzle.  It just was not enough.  But the pain lessened, time and facetime are such blessings, and the increasingly horrific virus news was a distraction.

As the coronavirus spread, it became fairly certain that large Passover programs at resorts were unlikely to happen.  I laid in supplies, assuming we would likely be at home, and I adjusted to another heartache.  Not going to the resort meant another son and his family would not be part of our Passover.   It meant not seeing my mom, and not seeing the joy of four generations in one place.   Again, I had days of powerful longing, feeling it just was not enough, unable to focus beyond what I would be missing.  Add to the mix the arrival of a beautiful, healthy grandson joining that branch of the family and we “zoomed” to the bris – celebrating at a distance a bittersweet reminder of the new normal.

I started a gratitude journal, began focusing on blessings, and as I and my colleagues worked to help parents, educators and others manage anxiety and loss, I started to accept and adjust.  It became enough to enjoy the chaos of getting the kitchen ready, and I remarkably adjusted to the reality that our seder would likely be only us, and maybe, I thought, our local son and his wife.  I was not really surprised when I heard today that medical advice and caution precludes them coming.  By now, the slow but steady reverse dayenu process had me well-prepared.  It seems I have really learned, in these weeks of worry, loss, distance, uncertainty, and rapid change, that very few things are really essential, and that we can deal with lots of loss and distance for the “enough” of staying safe.

I am sad, of course, and some days are harder than others.  I feel bad, too, knowing there are many who have it much worse.  So I am ready, despite some sadness, to sing dayenu, and celebrate that it is enough that I am blessed with amazing adult children who have wonderful spouses to share the holiday with.  I will think dayenu, as we share photos of our seder tables, and our yummy food, and maybe even get in a virtual family game night!.And I will pray with all my heart for the one thing that will really be dayenu, enough. . . that our family stay healthy and the world and all those suffering find healing.

 

Wishing everyone a Happy, Healthy Holiday

Corona Blues, Yellows, Purples and Oranges

This is the time of year I start looking for pansies.  I shop various garden stores until I find just the right blues, yellows, purples, and if I’m lucky, bright orange, to grace my front stairs.  This weekend, on a particularly tough isolation day, I realized, with all non-essential stores closed, no flowers this year – no burst of color and life and sunshine out my window.  Another small loss in our coronavirus reality.

It is not surprising that many of our conversations are focusing on fear and loss.  There are some very real fears and some very painful losses we are dealing with.  Being a parent and an educator over recent weeks, we may have found it challenging to help our children and students deal with the losses they see as major– especially when our adult perspective can see devastation in the big picture.

For a four year- old, not being able to have a fireman birthday party with all your friends is a very big deal.  For a high school student, missing out on senior trip, graduation and other festivities is a huge disappointment.  Even though we know how much others are losing, we always want our children and students to feel heard and understood.  We communicate that when we validate their feelings of loss.  If we are successful, and they know we get it – we see how much they are hurt – then we have the potential to problem solve – think of ways past the sadness – consider alternatives.

As we move to solutions or brainstorm alternatives, we still need to respect the very real loss our children are experiencing.  We need to make it okay for them to feel sad or disappointed.  At the same time, we can help them find some balance in being grateful for what they do have, in finding those things that are not lost, despite a world changed by a virus.

Humans are remarkably resourceful and creative.  I have already seen drive by birthday parties, impromptu communal sing-a-longs, and virtual graduations are being planned as we speak.  They will not be all we hoped for, but they will be a testament to managing loss and change.  We are learning to live, and to parent, in unpredictable times.  Often, it is very difficult.  Yet, Sometimes, a small thing that would normally go unnoticed is so appreciated.  Yesterday, on my only allowable outing shopping for groceries, my local supermarket was selling pansies!

The Coronavirus Unreality: When No Tool Feels Up to the Task

Since the coronavirus appeared and our world drastically changed almost overnight, I have had difficulty writing.  What can I add to the dozens of parenting pointers being posted daily?  Feeling so overwhelmed myself, how can I offer inspiration?  When I shared my writer’s block with my sister, she reminded me that my blog is predicated on our Dad’s philosophy that everything in life is easier when you have the right tools.  The problem now, my wise sister eloquently explained, is that we have no tools.

This is an unprecedented experience for anyone who has not lived through a devastating, international trauma.  Yet for our grandparents and parents who survived World War II this is not their first rodeo.  There’s a facebook post out about how much more fortunate we are compared to those who fought wars, and hunger and hardship – all we are being asked to do is sit on our couch and watch Netflix.  But our reality is all we know, and it is totally normal to feel totally overwhelmed by this new normal which is far from normal.

It is natural to feel that the regular, often used tools of your parenting, teaching, coping tool box are not up to the task of dealing with this crisis.  In fact, some tools may need a bit of adjusting.  But I think there are some tried and true tools that not only work in this new reality, but are imperative for our and our children’s well-being.  I will try to post fairly regularly to share those tools and techniques that can help as we navigate the newness.

I’m going to start with a big one – because it makes such a difference – gratitude.  In these trying times, gratitude and graciousness needs to start at home.  Be grateful for all you have accomplished in a short period of time.  So many families have jockeyed schedules, created spaces at home for learning, for prayer, for solitude and for togetherness.  Give yourselves a pat on the back!  Oh, I hear you doubters out there.  Grateful for what?  Pat on the back, phooey, I’m barely getting my children to learn for an hour a day.

Here’s a critical adjustment we have to make to our gratitude tool if we want gratitude and graciousness to work in these tough times – we have to flex our expectations and be much more forgiving of ourselves and others.  If we recognize that it is unreasonable to expect the usual when we live in unusual times and allow ourselves to set the bar lower, then we will be able to celebrate and be grateful for our small(er) victories.

Gratitude may start at home, but let it spread.  In Israel, at 6 pm this Thursday, people are being asked to open windows and stand on balconies and clap, applaud, show their thanks for all the doctors, nurses, health care and emergency professionals who are tirelessly working to keep us healthy.  A social media post has been widely shared encouraging parents to be patient and appreciative of teachers’ efforts, even if they are imperfect in this transition phase.  Think of the small and not so small ways everyone is trying to make things work, and thank them and be thankful for what we have, how we have coped, and the resources that are being made available daily.

If you were to choose one thing to do for yourself and your family that is most likely to make a difference in how you feel – it should be the Grateful for Three exercise.  Research consistently documents increased happiness and coping, and decreased stress when we write down three things we are grateful for each day.  They need not be big.  It could be the cute video you watched, or the soup not burning, or a great nap you took.  Or it could be big, like gratitude for health, for community, for faith.  Big or little, give everyone in the family a notebook and write it down.  If there are little ones at home, let them dictate it to you or draw pictures.  Make it part of your daily ritual.

As we move through the days ahead we will be challenged and we will need many tools.  But we start with the tool of gratitude because it will strengthen us, give us needed perspective and make everything else we do more impactful.  So, hang in there, count your blessings and gifts, and join that gratitude with your hopes and prayers for easier days.  I will be doing the same.

Mommy, Can You Stop the Rain?

I am excited that my children’s book, Mommy, Can You Stop the Rain?, published by Behrman House Apples and Honey Press is now on Amazon for pre-orders (available through Amazon on April 1st).  The book is a sweet and powerful story illustrating the role parents can and should play in addressing the challenges in children’s lives.

I will be doing a reading, Sunday, February 2, at 11:30 am at the Yeshiva University Seforim Sale (183rd street and Amsterdam Avenue) and books will be available for sale there as well.

For a preview on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Mommy-Can-You-Stop-Rain/dp/1681155559/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2P7TZ3MP1GJP9&keywords=mommy+can+you+stop+the+rain&qid=1580178732&sprefix=mommy+can+you+%2Caps%2C148&sr=8-1