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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTeacher assigns 4th graders to draw pictures of 9/11- including people jumping
4th grader's drawing assignment on 9/11 attacks raises concerns
By Martina Valverde
EL PASO, Texas —
Parents of some elementary school students are furious over a class assignment. They said children were asked to draw images depicting the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
Parents said the teacher gave specific instructions to fourth-graders at Hughey Elementary in central El Paso.
"'We had to draw the boom cloud, the planes hitting, and people jumping out of the windows,'" said Ivie Gremillion.
Those are the directions Gremillion said her daughter was given on Monday.
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http://www.kfoxtv.com/news/news/4th-graders-drawing-assignment-911-attacks-raises-/nR9JC/
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ananda
(28,859 posts)nt
GreenPartyVoter
(72,377 posts)
frylock
(34,825 posts)i'm 46, and if someone asked me to draw pics of 911, i'd tell them to get bent.
CanSocDem
(3,286 posts)Sounds like an attempt to channel emotion into something creative.
Of course there are millions of parents out there who would prefer to retain Victimization as the emotion of the day.
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Indpndnt
(2,391 posts)I doubt their emotions about 9/11 are all that intense that they need to be directed and channeled by someone else, particularly by showing people jumping from skyscrapers.
cali
(114,904 posts)they don't need to deal with shit that even adults have trouble dealing with. the graphic shit is too much for small children. And if you read the entire piece, it makes clear this fuckwad teacher is teaching hate and fear.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)
Ms. Toad
(34,069 posts)Here is the teacher's version of what the assignment was:
El Paso Independent School District officials said they spoke to the teacher, who said the terrorist attacks were part of class discussion, and students were asked to draw something they learned in the discussion.
Because the images of desperate victims leaping to their deaths are part of what appears in public near 9/11 (I ran across that particular image at least twice), I don't know that the child was even exposed to that detail as part of the class discussion.
Like I said elsewhere in this thread, before I condemn the teacher for the lesson and/or assignment, I want more than the parent's recitation of the child's interpretation of the assignment. And, I want it from a news source other than FOX news.
IF the discussion exposed the children to people jumping to their deaths that may have been inappropriate. I would prefer decisions about that level of detail of exposure, at least in visual form, be left to the parents. That said, I was around no more than a year older when my pretty conservative school exposed me to my first graphic pictures of the holocaust and, while I found them shocking, I don't find that exposure inappropriate.
If the teacher specifically required them to draw people leaping to their death, that was inappropriate.
If, on the other hand, the child drew those images because that is what she learned from the discussion, or learned from the images she has seen every year since her birth, it is not inappropriate for her to use the assignment to express that learning.
Ms. Toad
(34,069 posts)Not a parent's recitation of their child's interpretation of the instructions.
The very brief explanation seems more appropriate as an assignment: Draw something you learned.
That does leave the question of the age appropriateness of the material used. I do think it is appropriate for 4th grade students to have some understanding of 9/11. They are probably a bit young (as an average class) for the detail they seem to have been given (Although I would be fine with my daughter, at that age, knowing that level of detail - I know from discussions around that age of other similarly explicit material, my brother would not have been fine for his 2 week older son to have heard it. And, at that age, it is reasonable for parents to retain some control over how detailed the descriptions get.)
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)Did you have to draw about Pearl Harbor or VietNam when you were NINE YEARS OLD??
Ms. Toad
(34,069 posts)The article was clear that the assignment followed a lesson, and I thought that was also clear from the paragraph in my post which followed the assignment description.
It is appropriate for nine year olds to have a class lesson 9/11 - particularly since it is still a major media event every year that the children will likely be exposed to. It is appropriate for nine year olds to learn from that lesson - and to express what they have learned in pictures.
What is not clear from the article is how much of the graphic detail came from the lesson and how much from individual children's exposure to things outside the classroom - as has happened every year during these children's lives. I would prefer to let the parents make the choice about exposure to some of the more graphic details.
LibertyLover
(4,788 posts)when I was in grade school - 4th or 5th grade, I'm not sure which. I got cheap plastic models of a couple of ships and some of planes and taped the bombs coming from the planes to a piece of tape that I then fastened to the side of one of the planes. I was fascinated with history even at such a young age. During lunch when we couldn't go out on the playground because of rain or snow, I also drew pictures of guys in combat just like all my friends who were boys were doing. I'm not sure if that answers your question or not.
This is all what we are getting from a parent who got it from their child. Kids make mistakes they misinterpret things and don't always recite what was said but what they keyed in on or just recall.
I don't know what the discussion was that prompted the drawing session but it may have been in trying to explain the significance of 9/11 the teacher provided too much information or the kids had been exposed to various aspects of it through other means. Children today have more access to computers and cell phones with web capability that other generations did not.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)good assignment, but I doubt the kids are somehow being traumatized by it--they didn't live through it. When I was younger than they are, my parents made me watch "Roots" and "The Holocaust" on TV when those miniseries ran. History is full of blood, violence, and inhumanity.
phantom power
(25,966 posts)9/11 left some scars, but it was clearly on grown-ups, not some hapless kids too young to have even been born yet when it happened
frylock
(34,825 posts)or who to fear.
slackmaster
(60,567 posts)Fourth grade, not so much.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)It seems completely crazy for a 4th grade teacher to assign that. So I guess I'm suspicious. If it happened as the story says, then she was stupid beyond belief. But I guess I find myself wanting to know more, like what she actually told the kids, and if she really talked about people jumping out of the buildings, etc.
I'll have to ask my 5th grader if her teacher talked about 9/11 at all. I mean, then the question is whether they should discuss it at all? It's all around, a kid might have asked about it even.
cali
(114,904 posts)
Erose999
(5,624 posts)whole memorializing thing way, way too far.
Jennicut
(25,415 posts)I was substitute teaching and during the morning announcements she said that none of the kids in that school were born yet (it goes to 5th grade).
My 8 and 7 year olds asked a few things about it while watching the news with me. I explained it to them the best I could. But this drawing pictures thing is totally unnecessary. They have no concept of this event.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)I was very into military history at a fairly young age (starting in about 2nd grade). We used to go to Civil War battlefields even before that. Now, the assignment seems stupid to me, but I don't see any of this stuff as being too traumatizing for a 4th grader.
We might be sheltering a bit much these days.
