From the issue dated October 12, 2001
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Teaching as Healing, at Ground ZeroBy KARLA JAYGetting dressed for the second class of the semester, I, like millions of other Americans, was riveted by the breaking story that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Then another one. In addition to disbelief, shock, anger, and sadness, I had another thought: "Oh no, not us, not again!" Pace University's downtown campus, where I have taught English and women's studies for 27 years, is just two blocks from where the towers stood. Where were my students, colleagues, and the many Pace graduates who work in the trade center? Some of the dorms were in the closed-off area known as the hot zone, on or near West Street in the shadows of the towers. How could I contact them, since phone lines and our e-mail system were knocked out? Luckily, I managed to reach all but one of my students and colleagues. They were terrified and shaken, most with tales of being evacuated from the dormitories or classrooms, of huddling in the basement, in classrooms, or in windowless bathrooms while the buildings shook. Others saw the towers implode and watched smoking bodies and body parts tumble from the sky. Four Pace students were killed in the disaster. We lost many alums as well, at least 10 that we know of. As the university administration valiantly tried to reassure the Pace community, find out who was missing, and get the New York City campus back up and running, I wondered what was the best course to take with my students. I remembered that when I was an undergraduate I had been caught up in the April 1968 student uprisings at Columbia University, which shut the campus for at least 10 pivotal days before final exams. Several faculty members invited us into their homes to continue with our work. That gave us some continuity and also some assurance that our semester wouldn't be a washout. Taking a page from history, I told my literature students that if the university were closed for more than a week or two, we could meet at my home. I also suggested that they try to turn off the television for a while and read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. In some ways, there couldn't be a more apt text dealing with good and evil, creation and destruction, the desire to control human destiny, the failure to take responsibility for one's acts. One student said that she couldn't read at all; later, she said she was reading an hour every day and was only up to Page 27. I put her in touch with another student in the class who agreed to read with her. Almost every student wrote me a thank-you note for reassuring them that they would be taken care of. On September 19, Pace finally reopened two buildings with the help of electric-generator trucks. I never wanted to see lower Manhattan again. In 1993, I had avoided the World Trade Center bombing when a last-minute call canceled an appointment that would have put me there at the moment the explosion occurred. But I had also narrowly survived another calamity that affected me even more personally. In 1977, I was trapped in a burning building for several hours. My cat, jumping up and down on my chest, had awakened me to the blaze that started in my next-door neighbor's apartment. The flames shot through the roof, two stories above the fire. Several hours later, firemen led the stunned tenants down a smoldering staircase as ash and water cascaded on us. I saved only my dissertation and my cat, but he died shortly afterward. The events of the past overlapped in an all-too-Proustian way with the current catastrophe. Though at first I couldn't name my pain, I shook uncontrollably, was unable to sleep, and suffered from an upset stomach, which persists even as I write. I had been metaphorically thrown from the horse more than twice. Each time, it was harder to go on with "life as normal," as politicians encouraged us to do in the teeth of such tragedy. I am no hero, only a fragile survivor. How could I hope to be the strong arm around my students when I could not conquer my own terror? Try as I might, I was unable to go near the subway without feeling faint. I can't bear the thought of being trapped in a burning subway. (One of the downtown subway tunnels had collapsed, and people had had to be evacuated.) By the next day, I felt braver. I packed my new standard "teaching accessories" -- two small flashlights, a bottle of water, a tiny portable radio, a new cell phone, a respirator mask, and construction goggles. I felt as if I had won a Fulbright fellowship to Beirut. I headed downtown on the A line. As we passed below 14th Street, I broke into a cold sweat. Then the conductor announced that the train wasn't stopping near Pace as promised but would be going nonstop from Canal Street to Brooklyn. I exited at Canal Street, the edge of the hot zone, and showed the National Guard my Pace identification. Hopscotching around shut or closely guarded buildings, I meandered toward the campus in a general southeast direction. It had started to rain, and the dense air smelled like a wet ashtray. I fitted the respirator mask over my nose and mouth, hoisted my umbrella, and trudged onward. I had wondered why footage of the rescue operation always showed workers with their protective masks dangling around their necks. Now I knew why. Perspiration poured into my mouth and down my neck. Smoke spewed from sewer covers and grates; steam rose from the wet pavement as the rain splashed on it -- I was walking through Dante's Inferno. We had electricity, but we were told that the phones might be out for weeks and that the mainframe would work sporadically. As soon as our Web site was up and running, a virus knocked it out. I attended a workshop on how to help students cope. Though we were told that a range of emotions from shock and hysteria to anger were normal, we left without a clue about what to do if a student ran screaming from the room. For the first time in my teaching career, I went home and had a stiff drink. The presence of my colleagues comforted me. I realized how much I would miss this slightly dysfunctional family were I never to see them again. I hugged my friends and former students, no longer afraid that I would be sued for sexual harassment if I touched anyone. Talking with my colleagues, I realized there could not be a single approach to recuperation. I contacted last spring's creative-nonfiction students and reminded them of their anxiety that they had nothing to write about. Now, I pointed out, for better or worse they had had a front-row seat to history. I encouraged them to write about the event in journals or any form they wanted to. I realized that women'sand gender-studies classes were in a unique position to help students better comprehend the events around them. Students had heard of the Taliban in our gender, race, and class courses, which discussed the way that women in Afghanistan were forbidden to leave their homes or work in contact with men. Despite the footage of men fleeing Afghanistan for Pakistan, our students know that most of the refugees in the world are women and children. The service-learning course that I developed last spring placed students in communities as volunteers working with the children of battered women, with the elderly, and with the ill and the homeless. In an e-mail message, I pointed out to the students that women, the poor and hungry, and people with AIDS will have fewer resources now than ever "as many Americans donate to the Red Cross instead of to local organizations not connected to the events of September 11. Therefore, I'm urging you to continue your community participation." Students quickly contacted me, some offering to escort Arab-American women to and from classes. It took me a bit longer to shake off the fugue state I was in and turn to my current class, a sophomore-level honors literature class on writing by women from the Middle Ages until 1900. Typically, I would approach Mary Shelley's Frankenstein from a feminist perspective and discuss issues like the gender of both Frankenstein and his Creature, the equation of female sexuality with death, Shelley's ambiguity toward creation. But I didn't feel that I could go into the class with a firm plan, nor could I reduce their education to a semester of therapy. I would steer a middle ground. I would have to see what shape the students were in and try to reach for issues that related to the events at large. The commute that day was almost exactly like that of the previous week; this, alas, would be my new routine. I took a deep breath and started my class. Much to my joy and amazement, almost all of the students were there; the only absentee was a young woman whose family lives in Sierra Leone. They had been debriefed to the bone, and they wanted to get back to work. Many of my students are from the former Soviet Union, and are used to adversity. We talked about the language used to describe the terrorists. No one spoke of "white terrorists" after Timothy McVeigh bombed a building in Oklahoma, nor did they suggest profiling Caucasians with crew cuts in red pickup trucks. I also drew an analogy to the AIDS epidemic: In the mid-1980s, dentists and airlines wanted to refuse service to gay men, Haitians, and others suspected of being HIV positive. But making sure that everyone was safe took precedence over taking away the civil liberties of some. Frankenstein ties in neatly to discussions about judging people by their appearance. The book also counsels us not to scapegoat others without proof. When Victor Frankenstein's brother William is murdered, Victor concludes that the Creature must be the guilty party. "No sooner did that idea cross my imagination than I became convinced of its truth," he says. The eagerness of my students to learn, their determination not to allow terrorism to deprive them of an education, their courage in attending class although some of them looked stressed and exhausted reminded me of how much I love teaching these gritty first-generation college students. Being with my students, I felt whole again, and I learned a valuable lesson: I thought I would have to hold them together; instead, they healed my soul. Karla Jay is a professor of English at Pace University. http://chronicle.com Section: The Chronicle Review Page: B20
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Copyright © 2001 by The Chronicle of Higher Education