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By BONNIE ADAMS badams@leader.net
Sunday, March 16, 2003 Page: 1A
Teacher Russ Bigus tries to interest his sixth-grade students in
Anglo-Saxon history, but all they want to talk about is duct tape, nuclear
weapons and war.
The Regis Elementary teacher and principal said his students are fearful
about the looming conflict with Iraq, nuclear attack and innocent lives that
may be lost.
“What’s going to happen to me?” the 11- and 12-year-olds ask.
Area teachers say students are talking about their fears as world tension
mounts. Vocalizing fears, psychologists say, might be the best way to keep
children’s anxiety under control.
Bigus said the Forty Fort parochial school students aren’t trying to
distract him from his lesson plan with talk of war. “It’s on their minds every
day.”
The children have asked Bigus about the possibility of a terrorist attack
at the nuclear power plant near Berwick.
“You’re kind of young to have these concerns,” he tells them, also urging
them to pray.
Most of the children pray for world peace. Caitlyn Kudey said she also
prays for the people of Iraq.
The students used the word “bomb” a lot during Friday’s class – we should
bomb Iraq. We shouldn’t bomb Iraq. What if a nuclear bomb is dropped in this
country?
Brianna Dugas opposes bombing Iraq. “People who don’t want to go to war
could be killed.”
“This could turn into World War III,” Christina Marvin said.
Talk to kids, psychologist says
Kingston psychologist Dennis Gold said children sense fear and anxiety as
the United States moves toward war. “You can feel it. It’s like an avalanche.”
He treats many young patients and said children may not be able to explain
why they are afraid.
Hazleton psychologist Linda Lease said there is a fine line between being
aware and ready and being consumed by the possibility of war.
Gold said the way adults handle difficult issues is vital. And most
important, he said, is a child’s sense of feeling safe. He said adults,
despite their own fears, should remain calm for children’s sake.
Gold advises parents to address war and other troubling issues by asking
children their thoughts about what’s going on in the world.
“We all need to vocalize what we feel,” he said.
The Regis Elementary sixth-graders offered varied replies Friday when Bigus
asked them if they feel safe. Four said they do, four said they don’t and nine
children said they feel somewhere in between.
“I don’t think plastic and duct tape can help us,” Dugas said.
“I don’t feel safe,” John Huk said, saying he fears a bomb being dropped in
the United States and a chain-reaction of explosions.
Linnae Aufiere said she feels better when her parents assure her that
everything will be all right.
“I do get scared sometimes,” Laura Easton said, noting she’s sometimes
afraid when she hears planes.
Despite their fears, the sixth-graders said war isn’t their top concern.
Caitlyn Kudey worries about book reports. Linnae Aufiere says homework and
sports top her list. Laura Easton frets about getting As in school and Mike
Moleski, who is protective of his baby sister, worries about her.
Teens look to broader context
Seated at a large circle of desks in a high school American government
class, 17 Wyoming Area seniors last week talked about potential war.
The teens, who were about 6 during the Gulf War in 1991, are interested but
not overly concerned about the issue. They said they are more worried about
what affects them directly.
For Concetta Pesotini, it’s a research paper she’s working on. Ann Marie
Price said her top concern is college debt. The upcoming school play is on
Brittany Notari’s mind.
The group agreed with classmate Matt Gaydos, who said most teenagers feel
invincible. “I have no fear about the impending war.”
But that’s not so for senior Marfisa Argento, 18, whose cousin is in the
military and expects to deploy overseas. “I’m really scared for him. He’s only
one year older than me.”
T.C. Mazar said he can’t relate to that concern because he doesn’t know
anyone in the service. “Why are we fighting? We don’t really see the point,”
he said. About half the class supports war while the others are undecided.
Price said she is concerned with the economic and terrorist repercussions
of military conflict. Mazar said that with increased homeland security, he
doesn’t foresee more terrorist attacks in this country.
Wyoming Area Secondary Center Principal Vito Quaglia said adults don’t give
young people enough credit for their resilience. “This generation has gone
through 9-11. They’ve been exposed to more violence on a huge scale than kids
before them.”
Crestwood High School’s Darren Testa teaches a current issues course for
10th- through 12th-graders. He said Iraq and a possible war are the main
topic.
“A lot of them think about what this could lead to,” he said.
Testa said that unless students have friends or relatives in the military,
they don’t seem fearful of war.
“I think they still have the view of nothing is going to happen to them,”
he said.
Some children feel special fear
Wyoming Area teacher Steve Harmanos said his American government students
accept his beliefs as strictly his opinion. He said sharing his views might be
appropriate with older students but not necessarily for younger ones.
In Maine last month, the state’s education commissioner warned teachers to
keep war-related opinions to themselves. Parents complained that a teacher or
teachers had ridiculed children with parents in the National Guard.
Crestwood parent Antoinette Smith said she doesn’t think war has been
discussed in her sons’ classes at Rice Elementary School.
Their father, Army National Guard Sgt. Ron Smith, is a soldier deployed
with the 1st Battalion, 109th Infantry. Smith, a Wilkes-Barre Township police
captain, has been part of a peacekeeping mission in Bosnia since last year. He
should come home in several weeks.
“They’re afraid that he’s not going to come back,” Antoinette Smith said.
Kurt Smith, 8, said he feels better when he looks at his father’s picture.
Erik Smith, 10, has an infantry soldier statue his father sent him. His mother
said the statue comforts him.
She and her sons attend counseling, which she believes is helping.
The boys just want their father home and ask their mother if he is
returning soon.
“When the Army gets done with daddy, he’ll be home,” she tells them.
At Regis Elementary, Bigus said some of the kindergarten and first-grade
students’ parents are reservists who have deployed. The children cried in
school recently after their fathers left.
Bigus, 32, said that before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, students were
concerned about everyday matters such as lunch, field trips and sports.
Some sixth-graders on Friday expressed concern for their older brothers and
wondered if they could be drafted into the military.
Bigus said war wasn’t on his mind when he was a sixth-grader at a local
Catholic school.
“We just wanted to get out on the playground.”
Bonnie Adams, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 829-7241.