9/11 and LIFE

I watch the 9/11 commemorations today on the tenth anniversary and I wonder about the many turns our lives have taken.  We, collectively, are poorer because of the losses ten years ago and the years between then and now.  The loss of creativity unborn, learning unknown, imagination not ignited, innovation gone dormant, caring untouched, generosity not given and love not unsung.  Present and future generations will not experience the vibrancy of lives unfinished.  The tragedies are many, but the world continues to turn and the years pass unceasingly.  How can we find ways to commemorate these losses AND celebrate the continuation of our lives, our nation, and our world?

I think about my research into civic education and civic engagement.  I think about how some view this only as it applies to patriotism or being a global citizenship.  Many people have chosen sides on this debate.  I feel that one must have both to be a civic-minded individual because without the grounding in one, the other cannot exist.  In my readings, I discovered a book by Parker J. Palmer, Healing the Heart of Democracy, The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit.  Courage to create, courage to heal, courage to feel and courage to step outside and embrace the core of our "self."  "...where all of our ways of knowing converge - intellectual, emotional, sensory, intuitive, imaginative, experiential, relational, and bodily, among others (Palmer, 2011).  This is the civic education that I believe in.  An all-encompassing passion for knowing on all levels so that I can understand, interpret and hopefully, create meaning of the world and my part in it. 

This is why I have undertaken this study into how teachers make meaning of civic education and civic engagement in their lives and their teaching.