ינהאַלט
School: how did I answer the children’s questions about the attacks?
Elodie L. is a teacher in a CE1 class in the 20th arrondissement of Paris. Like all teachers, last weekend she received numerous emails from the Ministry of National Education telling her how to explain to students what had happened. How to talk about the attacks to children in class without shocking them? What speech to adopt to reassure them? Our teacher did her best, she tells us.
“We were inundated every weekend with documents from the ministry supposed to give us the procedure for telling students about the attacks. I spoke with several teachers. We all obviously had questions. I read these multiple documents with a lot of attention but for me everything was obvious. What I regret, however, is that the ministry did not give us time to consult. As a result, we did it ourselves before the start of class. The whole team met at 7 a.m. and we agreed on the main guidelines for tackling this tragedy. We decided that the minute of silence would take place at 45:9 am because during the canteen, it was just impossible. Afterwards, everyone was free to organize themselves as they wanted.
I let the children express themselves freely
I welcomed the children like every morning at 8:20 am. In CE1, they are all between 6 and 7 years old. As I could imagine, most were aware of the attacks, many had seen violent images, but no one was personally affected. I started by telling them that it was a bit special day, that we weren’t going to do the same rituals as usual. I asked them to tell me about what had happened, to describe to me how they felt. What jumped out at me was that children were telling facts. They spoke of the dead – some even knew the number – of the wounded or even the “bad guys” … My goal was to open the debate, to get out of the factual and move towards understanding. The children would have a dialogue and I would bounce back from what they were saying. To put it simply, I explained to them that the people who committed these atrocities want to impose their religion and their thinking. I went on to speak of the values of the Republic, of the fact that we are free and that we want a world in peace, and that we must respect others.
Reassure children above all else
Unlike “after Charlie”, I saw that this time the children felt more concerned. A little girl told me that she was afraid for her policeman father. The feeling of insecurity is there and we must fight it. Beyond the duty of information, the role of teachers is to reassure students. That was the main message I wanted to convey this morning, to tell them, “Don’t be afraid, you are safe. “ After the debate, I asked the students to draw pictures. For children, drawing is a good tool for expressing emotions. The children drew dark but also happy things like flowers, hearts. And I think it proves that they have understood somewhere that despite the atrocity, we have to go on living. Then we made the minute of silence, in circles, shaking hands. There was a lot of emotion, I concluded by saying that “we will remain free to think what we want and that no one can ever take that away from us.”