STUDENT LESSONS

At school, reassurance and reflection

By Sandy Coleman and Marie C. Franklin, Globe Staff, 9/13/2001

ANTON - There was no textbook or lesson plan to guide teacher Danny Erickson through his history classes yesterday at Canton High School. So he relied on his own shock, sadness, and sense of national innocence lost to talk to students about Tuesday's unimaginable terrorist attacks.

''You try to keep your emotions out of it. But, at the same time you can't be robotic,'' said Erickson. ''We're trying to reflect on it and put it into perspective, which is almost impossible.''

At schools all over the state, educators such as Erickson struggled to make lessons of events that seemed more Hollywood fiction than fact. And, some officials at elementary and middle schools tried to shield students by turning off classroom televisions or not bringing up the subject.

Guidance counselors were alerted to be ready for students who might have trouble dealing with Tuesday's reality.

Counselors were particularly needed at schools where the tragedies hit close to home. At Wellesley High School, a hush fell a few minutes after 8:30 yesterday morning as the school observed a moment of silence for John Cahill, the father of Sean, a ninth-grader, and Brett, an 11th-grader.

Cahill was a passenger on the United Air Lines jet that was the second to strike the World Trade Center Tuesday.

''It is a very difficult time for all of us to understand internally what is happening externally in our country,'' Wellesley High principal Rena P. Mirkin said over the school's public-address system before the moment of silence.

Although Tuesday's events have made many fearful, a check of several schools found normal attendance.

Faced with a 9:10 a.m. bomb threat yesterday, Newton North High officials temporarily evacuated the school. No bomb was found. A few students were afraid to reenter the building, however, and were allowed to call their parents and go home. Principal Jennifer Huntington spent the day with family members, awaiting word on her brother-in-law who was working on one of the top floors of the World Trade Center Tuesday and remained missing.

Uncertainty was the word of the day yesterday. Canton's Erickson dealt with it by reassuring students that the world as they know it has not come to an end.

''Even though bad people do bad things, we are safe. Life is going to go on,'' he told students.

Yet, he wanted students to grasp the enormity of what has happened. So, he compared the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. ''They all saw Pearl Harbor in the summer blockbuster,'' he said. ''The comparison to Pearl Harbor is not silly at all or to say this may be a more significant event. As a history teacher, you never think you would say something like that.''

One of Erickson's students, freshman Jonathan Schlossberg, 14, said he feels more uncomfortable than afraid. ''I still can't believe it happened,'' he said.

At first, Canton sophomore Will Civian, 15, said he didn't know how to react. ''Now, I'm kind of scared.

''It has not been particularly reassuring to have this talked about in school,'' he said. ''One minute you're talking about math, the next, you're talking about this. You hear it enough on the news.''

Globe Staff writer Anand Vaishnav contributed to this report.

This story ran on page A12 of the Boston Globe on 9/13/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.