A Moment of Silence for the World of Teaching and Learning
By Peter R. Elson, PhD Candidate AECP
For the most part we see the world of teaching and learning as a safe place. And so we should. Hundreds of millions of people throughout the world participate in the ritual of teaching and learning with the well-founded assumption of safety in their class, their school and their community. Incidences of violence are seen as an anomaly, a breech of this foundation of public safety. So when these tragedies do occur: the Montreal Massacre at l’Ecole Polytechnique on December 6th 1989; the 323 hostages, including 156 children, who were killed in a school in the southern region of North Ossetia in Russia on September 1, 2004; the shootings at Virginia Technology University on April 16th 2007; we pause and reflect. We are called in these moments to pause and give our own time to reflect on the state of violence in our society and the relationship of this violence to what we hold so dear, the act of teaching and the art of learning.
It was with this sentiment in mind that the OISE Faculty Council held a Moment of Silence at its first meeting of the year. This moment was held to commemorate lives lost by teachers and students in the act of teaching or learning in schools. It was a Moment of Silence given by all faculty, staff and students at the OISE Faculty Council Meeting to acknowledge the risks associated with teaching and learning not only in the world, but also, at times, in our own community. The moment was also given to wish all those who participate in the creative adventure of teaching and learning a safe year ahead. I invite you to take your own Moment of Silence.
Before the Moment of Silence at the OISE Faculty Council meeting was held, the following poem was read and I have been asked to share it.
We Stand As One
They are not our students,
These fallen ones.
They are our brothers and sisters, our daughters and sons.
They laugh with friends as old as dreams.
All shapes and sizes of shy, small, loud, tall.
Baseball cap. Pink sock-Blue sock. XXX T-shirt. Plaid skirt.
The world is their Oyster, whether boy or girl
In the blink of an eye - a stolen pearl.
They are not our teachers,
These fallen ones.
They are our mothers and fathers, our aunties and uncles,
They walk, smile, laugh, cook, cry, sing, pray,
Cut grass, shovel snow, smell flowers.
They cut their hair for charity,
Lead by example and swallow their pride.
They stand at the altar, without a bride.
Teachers and students, One.
From Victoria to Jo berg, One.
From Iqaluit to Sydney, One.
One Life, One Future, One Heart,
Broken like shards of glass upon the classroom floor.
As present, together, we stand as One
For those teachers, learners, children, sisters, brothers, elders,
Who stand no more.
By Peter R. ElsonOctober 2007