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September 11, 2001:
Images of Hope

Minutes after I broke the distressing news about the World Trade Center and Pentagon to my fifth grade class, it was clear that we needed to find a way in which to "process" all that had happened, and that might happen in the next hours. As a Waldorf teacher, I knew that artistic expression is often the most powerful way to at once objectify a situation and to enter into it with depth.
I suggested that the children draw something, and some of the boys wanted to draw garish images of the plane colliding into the building, of windows shattering, etc., so I said that a Manhattan skyline could be the foundation of the drawing, but not its center. Out of the flames I asked the children to envision a scene that we evoke every year at this time - the battle of the Archangel Michael with the Dragon. (Click here for more on Michael.)
What follows are images drawn by fifth graders in the Green Meadow Waldorf School in Chestnut Ridge, NY. They have made a deep impression on many who have viewed them, and I believe that sharing them over the internet will allow their message of hope to reach many people not in the Waldorf community.

Note: The ever-resourceful Green Meadow fifth graders are offering a set of notecards featuring some of these illustrations. All profits will go to relief agencies helping the families of those who perished on Spetember 11. For more information, write to:
Grade5@millennialchild.com. - - - - - - - Eugene Schwartz

Click here to begin