Editor,
Sept. 10, I was asked to write a response to four articles that I had read for my education class. The next day, my world was changed forever. Someone attacked the heart of the United States.
Today, I ask you, what can we do as an educated society to insure that our way of life is not damaged permanently?
How are we going to go on with the knowledge that no one is invincible?
How are we supposed to continue with the vast knowledge that we have just gained?
As educators, we have a responsibility to explain why things happen. We are the ones with the answers to the impossible questions. It is no longer about the struggle to make kids understand or listen; it is about the struggle to find sense in the senseless.
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What are you going to say that will make a five year old understand why bad things happen to good people?
How do you tell a class of 12th graders to go on with a life that is already changing so rapidly around them?
We as a nation have to find a way to win the fight of the impossible question. We as educators must find a way to tell everyone that problems do not always have solutions and there cannot be a reason to every situation. We have to teach what we know nothing about.
We own freedom, a freedom that allows us to make choices and live the way we want. A freedom that says we can believe in what we choose and worship in the way that we see fit. We can go to school and have careers and we can love our families.
This freedom has been challenged and we must take it upon ourselves as students and teachers alike to insure that every citizen in the world understands what it means to be American, what it means to be a democracy.
We must educate ourselves in the art of perseverance, we must learn to be strong and brave, and we must learn to fight for what we all have taken for granted.
Sept. 10, I was asked to write a response to four articles. Today, I am telling you that we have to respond - we have to educate about freedom - to make it.
Kristen Menapace
UNM College of Education
