The Tragedy

Many of us have written about the recent tragedy of September 11th. Some have found some measure of solace in doing that, when it seemed that there was no other way to release some of the pain that every human being must have felt on that day and will continue to feel for a long time to come.

I myself was on the Dutch island of Saba on that fateful day, doing a workshop with the 30 teachers of the island on "Improving the Social and Emotional Climate in the Classroom". We had had a very good productive day-long session on Monday. And we were to continue on Tuesday afternoon. It was indeed a fortunate thing that I had spent a lot of time on Monday teaching them and having them practice supportive listening skills. So that they were in much better shape to offer that to each other when we came together on Tuesday. They were also able to draw on the information I had shared with them on Monday about the inherent goodness of human beings and how early and repeated hurts interfere with our ability to act with that good nature and how inappropriate and negative behaviour patterns develop as a result of these hurts.

We spent the major portion of Tuesday afternoon giving each other as good attention as we could manage to express and release as much of the negative feelings we all had. It was also necessary for us to have that safe space we had created to deal with those feelings. Otherwise those feelings could get in the way of remembering our good connections as human beings and cause us to lay blame and want to point fingers as a way to ease our own pain and anger.

Once they all had a chance to clear away some of the painful feelings they were then able to think better about how they would handle the situation in the classroom the next day. From the kindergarten to the high school teacher said that he/she was better able to listen to the young people's fears and anxieties; to allow them to talk and express their own feelings as much as they needed. They all went home determined to get as much accurate information as they could to share with the students the next day.

Healing from this tragedy is not going to be easy for all of us. We cannot know how long the healing process will take. This incident will trigger a lot of old hurts and painful memories for many people. We could do our best to provide each other with the best emotional space we could to keep letting those emotions surface and be released safely. We all need to cry, rage and shake with fear until there is no more of those painful feelings in us. Most importantly we need to be sure that our thinking and actions are not clouded by these painful feelings.

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