Blog #1–Tragedy
I believe it is extremely important to keep students up to date on current events, even if they are tragic and devestating, such as 9/11 and more recently, Hurricane Katrina. I believe these events are a part of reality and students need to be aware of what’s going on and how it affects others. These are things that happen in life, and we need to know how to cope, prevent (if possible), and learn from these situations if and/or when they arise. In choosing to not deal with/face these issues, I feel that it is a lack of respect for ourselves and those who are in need. In regards to Hurricane Katrina, I believe there are various ways to learn from it. As a science, hurricanes can be researched. Using math, charts/graphs and other demographics and statistics can be used to show how much damage was done. Using English, having “pen-pals” may be an option. There are several ways Katrina can be incorporated into the curriculum to where is both informational and theraputic. Of course, in using it for school purposes, it’s necessary to take into consideration the age/grade of students that you’re working with. We have all seen some of the very disturbing and graphic pictures that have been displayed both on television and in magazines, and these images should be kept away from young eyes as much as possible, as small children may not completely understand the whole concept of death. Although they may be just images, they can leave a lasting imprint on a child’s psyche and affect them in more ways than one. I think that when a class is dealing with Hurricane Katrina, they deal with facts (what a hurricane is, the amount of damage done, etc) rather than bringing in other factors into the mix that may exist in other areas of the media, such as race. It should just be presented that there are human beings that need our help, and we should try to help out as much as possible because they need it. The website listed (www.nasponline.org) has several different suggestions on how to deal with tragedies such as Katrina, and I think by having guest speakers come in (maybe from the Red Cross or other organizations) to talk about what we can do to help, or have a class in the library about different methods of research, this can help students get more involved.
