It's very bizarre to be in Idaho right now, watching all this on TV, a few time zones away, a few eons away. I will post more later, but I'll say that yesterday in my English 101 classes, teaching grammar and paragraph organization lost all its meaning. I just came into class and said, "we're going to talk about the attack. You can leave if you want." But everyone stayed, and we just talked about it -- our fears, what we'd heard, how it all could have happened. Keep in mind these are almost all 18 year old white kids who have NEVER left Idaho. They were freaked out. They said no one had talked to them about it. One girl cried. And I was suddenly this counselor/crisis intervention person. It was, without a doubt, one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do. I mean, I just didn't know what to say, other than, "yeah, I'm pretty scared too, this really sucks." And I told them to be nice to the international students.
posted by Jen at 6:32 PM link/comments
