[crewrt-l] The second day & school

[jcervantes <wasanthony@yahoo.com>]

Numbness.  That's where I'm at, and it seems my students are there too,
but they are more than ready to talk.  Yesterday, it was the one class
which I wrote about briefly here.  This morning I met two back-to-back,
and it was the first time I'd seen them since the catastrophe.  My first
comments to them were that I quite honestly and frankly had little desire
to talk of essays or comma splices or the next assignment.  I looked up
then and saw 25 deadly serious faces, all of them leaning forward, knowing
what I was going to talk about.  So I did what I'd done with yesterday
morning's class, and immediately launched into reading a series of e-mails
from folks on this list:  Glo's story about her husband Bob under the
Pentagon at the time of impact, Ed's story about his missing brother,
Hal's story about Maggie and Zach, and Ana's moving post about her
neighbor's darkened windows, her husband coming home with dust of the WTC
on his shoes, and her sons' comments.  That last story moved many to quiet
tears and I think the little parable it contained struck home:  the
neighbor you dislike is subject to the same fate and mortality as you are.

Also, the stories had impact because they were not t.v., but narratives
from people whose lives were reverberating within a grand catastrophe.  
Still, one male student's first remark was:  "It looked fake.  Did you see
'Armageddon'?"  And I saw here an attempt to distance himself by putting
the awful footage in the context of his primary source of information
about the world . . . or maybe it was just denial.  And there was the one
hawk, who opined that we should find those guys and turn their country
into a parking lot.  "Then we'd be just like them," answered a girl in the
class and we were launched toward the heart of the matter.  I could tell
from the ensuing discussion that the majority of the class had thought
deeply about the events and could see parallels in the Israeli/Palestinian
conflict, the Irish Protestant and Catholic conflict, even the Christian
crusades against unbelievers, and how a certain kind of single-mindedness
could result in something like yesterday's carnage.

I truly believe that Tuesday's events turned on a lot of lights.  I told
them that they were the ones who had to change the world mentality and see
to it that understanding and tolerance were the habit of mind.  There were
affirmative nods.  I have my fingers crossed.

- Jim

p.s. - Not one to waste a pedagogical opportunity, I asked them what it
was about your stories that had moved them so much (they already knew
you are teachers and writers).  All of the responses were more or less
the same:  It was the way you'd told the stories.  Yes!  Everyone had
pretty much the same facts, but it was the way they were used and
played a different part in every story.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
James Cervantes: wasanthony@yahoo.com & jvcervantes@earthlink.net
Salt River Review: <http://www.poetserv.org/>
"Ripples" @ <http://www.poetserv.net>
Poetserv:  <http://www.poetserv.com/>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~