Sincere thanks to Mark Barnes and his Brilliant or Insane blog for sharing this video and invitation to educators.  I appreciate that he speaks of how he was brought to tears and the way his students responded to this show of emotion.

This day has personal meaning for me as my brother was in one of the WTC Towers on 9/11/01.  His was the second building attacked.  Thanks be to God, that he survived and fled to safety before the towers collapsed.  Although he doesn’t talk about it, I know his life was forever changed that day.  For me, I had an agonizing couple of hours when my family did not know whether he survived.  My wife, exactly six week old son, and I lived then in New Jersey, not far from Manhattan.  Communities all around our town mourned the loss of commuters who died that sunny, early-fall morning.

My freshmen students, like my son, were infants that day.  So please tell them about your experiences 14 year ago in order to remember, to celebrate life, and to work for peace and justice in order to counter evil in our world.