Kannapolis students see grim reality

KANNAPOLIS — Students at A.L. Brown High School grappled with the shocking news of Tuesday’s terrorist strikes in a variety of ways.

An Advanced Placement history class studying in the school’s Cyber Campus got a live television view of the day that, in their minds and time, will live in infamy.

“It was a very somber time,”said Joanna Goss, director of the Cyber Campus.

The students at first sat in stunned silence, then began whispering to one another. Two students got up and left, returning a short time later to announce they were having prayer in a nearby room.

A few students joined them, while others stayed behind, watching the tragic events unfold. Then a few more joined the prayer group, and a few more, Goss said.

Students painted a rock out on the school’s campus at the corner of First Street and Rose Avenue to reflect their feelings. The message, painted in the colors of the American flag, said: “United we stand, divided we fall.”

A group of students gathered Wednesday for the first in a series of forums with state officials, through the use of the Cyber Campus.

Expecting only state Secretary of Revenue Norris Tolson, students at five Cyber Campus sites across the state also got to speak with Bryan Beatty, secretary of crime control and public safety.

Beatty reassured the students that the state had taken every possible measure to ensure the safety of its citizens.

“A day like yesterday points out how important it is for our state to be prepared for not only natural disasters ... but also man-made disasters such as the event in New York,”Beatty said.

Darrell Steele, a sophomore, worked in a computer lab Wednesday on a paper for English class. The paper would be based, he said, on what he has felt since Tuesday.

Those feelings, he said, reflect a newly dim reality, one in which safety is not an absolute term and people are capable of unspeakable evils.

Steele, a 14-year-old who started school early and expects to graduate when he is only 16 years old, said he was in English class when students were informed of the attacks and began watching on TV.

Growing up in an age when Bruce Willis and special effects have given American a bizarre point of reference for terrorism made the events all the more surreal.

“It looked like a movie; it looked like it wasn’t even real,” Steele said. “Knowing that it can go on in the world Ilive in is shocking.”

Contact Scott Jenkins at 704-797-4248 or sjenkins@salisburypost.com .