I Had to Teach an Ethics Class 9/12/2001

How do we understand why people would commit such atrocities?

The morning of 9/11, I slept in, having no classes to teach that Tuesday. I made coffee and a bagel, and I turned on the computer to see the headline “Attacks on Twin Towers and Pentagon Building.” The rest of the day was a blur, except the memories of watching the towers collapse and thinking that I was scheduled to teach an ethics class the next morning. The community college at which I was teaching philosophy part-time decided it would go forward with all classes the next day.

As I drove in for my 9 am class, it was surreal how life in the American Midwest seemed so normal the day after the terrorist attacks. The roads were still full of commuters. I wondered if any of my students would show up. I still wondered what to say to them. There was no question of carrying on with the scheduled subject for that day. What was my responsibility to them as a teacher, especially as an ethics teacher? What did they need to hear to cope with and learn from the vile attacks? I had been appalled, but not surprised, at how much vile bigotry had been spewed on the Internet after the attacks. Social media as we now know it didn’t exist in 2001, but that didn’t deter the online shouts of “kill all the towelheads” and other such hatred. How best to address both…