GREENFIELD — On top of math and science, English and history, Greenfield Middle School seventh-graders learned about what many reading this paper would still call a current event.
“At first, when I was learning about 9/11, I didn’t know about it,” middle schooler Felicia Gallison said.
While some of her classmates did know about the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, they tended to have sparse knowledge given they were born after 2001.
Fifth-graders Aaron Morrissey and Margarette Howland, of Math and Science Academy, tried to remember what they knew before embarking on a curriculum headed by the reading of the kid-friendly “Towers Falling” novel by Jewell Parker Rhodes. Morrissey remembers going to memorials for it, “but I didn’t know much.”
“I wasn’t 100 percent sure what happened,” Howland said. “I know planes hit it, I didn’t know who did it and I didn’t know that there were other planes that went to destroy other monuments.”
Greenfield Middle School welcomed the author of the highly-reviewed book about New York City kids growing up in the wake of terrorist attacks, which has been written up in the New York Times and highlighted on National Public Radio.
The middle school, along with the Math and Science Academy, were the first school in the country to decide to do an all-school read, Rhodes said, buying a book for every student in the school. The schools used money from the state Expanded Learning Time grant to be able to afford books for all the students.
For the past month, Greenfield middle schoolers have focused on a specifically designed curriculum to learn about what happened during 9/11 and some of what then followed, like increased security concerns in the country. The curriculum will end with students drawing or writing what it means to them to be American.
When Rhodes spoke to the students in the school’s auditorium, she implored them to “defend” and “reassert American principles,” while being grounded in both recent history and the trends of the country’s history.
“Books taught me a love of country, a love of people and the fact that there is a great big world out there,” Rhodes said to the students.
But she explained how today is different for how kids can learn about what happened in the past, particularly those events recorded on video — like the falling of the Twin Towers, which her book is named after.
“One of the things that’s different about history today is you can call it up on your iPhone,” Rhodes said. “Can you do that with the Civil War?”
That’s why she wanted to write a realistic fiction book geared for kids to read with their parents and teachers, one that would illuminate stories of broader context like racism, security and health care.
“This is the very first book in the classroom that I’ve used that directly calls out islamophobia,” Greenfield Middle School teacher Ashley Fitzroy said. “All these things that are so complicated, but it just brings it right out.”
The curriculum helped students to understand the world around them today. Some spoke about religious and cultural tolerance and others discussed the tangible effects of security.
“Kids our age, we always grew up with that type of security,” seventh-grader Drew Conant said. Other students remarked how it’s difficult to imagine airport security any other way than it is currently, but they said that things like metal detectors help them to feel safer.
Howland talked about how the book helped to teach them about how to treat other people, too.
“Bullying is not a part of being an American,” Howland said. “You shouldn’t have to be bullied because we’re all the same but different and that’s good.”
Rhodes hopes her book can be implemented with other schools’ curricula, speaking about what she sees as a lack of formal 9/11 education going on in the country today.
“My book is a reminder to the kids not to give up hope and if you look at history,” Rhodes said after speaking to the students, “we’ve always reaffirmed our American values.”
Reach Joshua Solomon at:
jsolomon@recorder.com
or 413-772-0261, ext. 264