Shining a light on Sept. 11 at Clear Stream

Jania Robinson, a fourth-grader at Clear Stream Avenue School, tried to make sense of the emotional images and stories of sacrifice, heroism and bravery that emerged from the attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Along with several other first through sixth-grade students, she had learned about that ill-fated day during a school assembly last Friday afternoon. It was a day 10 years ago that changed America forever, leaving Jania with several questions.

“I felt upset when I heard about the tragedy,” said Jania, reading aloud her “Dear America” letter to her classmates in teacher Erica Heumann’s room. “Are you OK America?”

Before discussions and readings in classrooms, students placed tea lights onto a center stage memorial in tribute to the victims in the school’s gymnasium.

Students, parents, teachers and the assembly organizers, Richard Mansfield and Gina Lombardo, who lost her stepbrother on Sept. 11, confronted the glaring realities of that day. Students learned about the miracle of stairway B, the story of 12 firefighters who survived the collapse of the North Tower. They saw the images of raging smoke, piles of concrete and steel, and the heroes that emerged at Ground Zero in a video made by Mansfield. Sitting with serious, awestruck faces in the school’s gym, their world looked as if it was forever changed.

But then, the students’ patriotic spirit came alive. They learned that the days after Sept. 11 brought unity and pride, tearing down walls that separated races and ethnicities. They waved American flags, proud of their nation and its heroes. “I am overwhelmed with pride,” said Mansfield, a sixth-grade teacher. “I am proud to be that instrument of rebuilding.”

Mansfield witnessed Sept. 11’s immediate impact on the school during his first year at Clear Stream. Days before the attacks on a Tuesday morning 10 years ago, the school year had began smoothly, he said in the video. He wanted to impart words of wisdom to the youngsters. “No matter where our parents, grandparents come from, we are all Americans,” he said. “We are a Clear Stream family.”