Talk to your students:
Teachers across America will be talking with their students about
the devastation in Haiti. As you do so, please keep the following in
mind. Prepare lessons and remarks with the age of the students in mind. Students at different levels are emotionally equipped to handle very different content:
Young Children (ages 5-9)
- Share basic information that draws on their natural empathy of young children. Have children draw, color and/or write their thoughts about what has happened in Haiti.
For Older Elementary (ages 9-12)
- Older elementary children will receive information from TV, newspapers, magazines.
- They will see images of children who have died and who are seriously injured. Ensure that you have “talk time” for them.
- Listen to what they have seen and what they have heard.
- Have them, as a class, decide on an activity that they could engage in to support the recovery effort.
- Seek out activities that will be most helpful to victims of the earthquake.
- Leaders at Columbine, after the tragedy there, were forced to deal a warehouse filled with “gifts” that could never be used but that make the schools that send these items feel good.
Middle and Early High School (ages 12-14)
- Students of these ages want to act. They are the students who are motivated to save animals from harm and are often those who have a vision for saving the world.
- Brainstorm actions that these students might take that would benefit a classroom in Haiti:
- Collect money.
- Collect other items if you have a vehicle for sending items to Haiti.
High School (ages 15 on)
- These students can more easily understand the level of devastation that Haiti has experienced. In civics and other social science classes, use this disaster to talk about the role of world government in responding to international crisis.
Religion:
We have learned that the issue of God and religion often emerge during such crisis.
- When students died in Enterprise, Alabama, teachers talked about the large percent of students who made comments such as, “ Why did God do this to these kids?”
- Be prepared for such comments.
- We recommend being empathic and keeping the discussion focused on what has happened and what humans can do to assist.
- Refer students to their parents and places of worship for further spiritual conversation.