It is bright and beautiful this morning. Just as it was last Tuesday. But then the brightness turned to darkness by a horrific act that will never be forgotten. So, it is with sadness and grief, that I write to you today. Mourning the loss for our country will remain for years. We should not forget the nightmare that unfolded before us. It will help steel our resolve for what will surely come ahead. Certainly the freedoms that we have become accustomed to will change. Our time of innocence has passed and a new life will unfold for us all.

Out of the terror we have have seen heroism. In the weeks, months and years ahead we will all have to be heroic as we face the trials, tests and changes that await us. This period will push us to a higher level of personal development and a new sense of awareness of ourselves and the world around us. We will want to deviate from our path and move backward toward innocence and denial, to a time that was less demanding. I'm reminded of Bilbo Baggins, in The Hobbit, who continually longs to return to the security of his previous life in the protected, pastoral womb of his shire. His tenacity and will to continue are tested perpetually by the fear and trepidation of his journey through the darkness of the world beyond it.

Similarly, Arjuna, the mortal protagonist of the sacred Hindu text, The Bhagavad Gita, is tempted to forsake his sacred duty and turn from the chaos of the battle surrounding him. In the Odyssey, Odysseus undergoes countless tests of his tenacity, moral fiber, and will before overcoming them to make his final epic stand in Ithaca. Similarly, for Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, her greatest test comes when she is isolated in the prison of the dark tower of the Wicked Witch, unsure of her own survival, much less her ability to return to Kansas. For each of these heroic figures, this period of trials, testing and change is what St. John of the Cross labeled "The Dark Night of the Soul," a period of spiritual and emotional doubt and despair that may precede the breakthrough of insight, wisdom and transformation.

The challenges ahead will be great. There will be many for each of us. Our will and strength will carry us through this darkness. With your help we will continue to support students, their parents and teachers in building a better world for all of us. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.

Check out our Bulletin Boards at Strategic Studies and at Home Schooling Corner for more information on the terrorist attacks.

Some New Lessons at e-Tutor:

High School

Shakespeare's Grammar
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
The Essay Card Report
Momentum
Plants
Writing Compelling Description
Theme of Dislocation in "In Memoriam A.H.H.
Imagery in Othello

Intermediate and Middle School/Junior High

100 lessons that cover Mathematics, Social Studies, and Science with the main topic of rice. Strategic Studies has prepared educational content for the U.S. Rice Producers Association in the last few months. We are fortunate to be able to use this outstanding content for our students.

Did you know that e-Tutor now has over 1,300 lessons?

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Not Truth, but Faith it is that keeps the world alive.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Helping Children During This Time

Some general advice from the experts includes:

Spend time telling your children that you will help to keep them safe.
Turn off the TV. Too much of the media can make children anxious. If your older children are watching the news be sure to watch with them.
Be aware that your children's ages will affect their responses. Teenagers in particular may be hard hit by these kinds of events. Obtaining counseling for them soon after a disaster may reduce long-term effects.
Calmly express your emotions, because children will be calm if you are.
Give your children extra time and attention and plan to spend more time with your children in the following months.
Let your children ask questions, talk about what happened, and express their feelings.
Play with your youngest children to help them work out their fears and respond to what's going on around them.
Keep regular schedules for activities such as eating, playing and going to bed to help restore a sense of security and order.
Consider how you and your child can help. When things go wrong, children like to think they can help. It makes them feel better.

Source:www.childrensdefense.org

Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things; knows not the livid loneliness of fear.

Amelia Earhart

In Passing

Today we mourn our loss; we sympathize with the sorrow of those who have lost family, friends and neighbors. We search for the good things to remember as solace. It is this remembrance that remains with us. But each of us, in our own life, is the sum total of many memories. Each of us learns from what we fondly remember. Each of us, in some measure, looks back to those we have lost and chooses that which is worth remembering. Even in the act of remembering, we are moved to emulate.

In passing, we share a learning process, a degree of inspiration, a lasting lesson of friendship for some, love for others. And when we say that something of those who died remains with us, we are speaking of part of the experience of our own lives.

In this tragedy we have remembered and forever filed away in our spirit a memory of how we were linked to it. We have also come to be a part of the community of mourners....to add to the mutual comfort that arises from knowing that grief is shared and understood.

Most of the richness of the human experience is in what is handed down from one life to the next....not simply things of mortar and stone, but memories of what this one did or that one said or this one felt. That is why we remember the good things....because they are worth remembering, and because we, the living, have a need to remember.

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What thought the field be lost?
All is not lost......th' unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield;
And what else is not to be overcome.

John Milton, Paradise Lost, 1667

Courage

Throughout time, courage has been regarded as one of the major human virtues. Today, modern psychology has sought to make it possible for a greater portion of society to accept without condemnation an individual's admission of lacking courage; but collectively, on a nation by nation basis, courage still must always be proclaimed. Nations fear that giving up without a fight may mean having to give up more again tomorrow.

On an individual basis, the traditional high regard for courage is sometimes counseled against by the most courageous people, the police. Most police authorities, for example, counsel victims of armed robberies not to fight back, but rather to yield and leave the catching of the robbers to the authorities. Courage may be fine, say the police, but there are times when common sense calls for something else.

Perhaps the best point to remember is that the courage to accept a difficult and disagreeable fact has often been demonstrated by gallant people. The courage of the American people has been demonstrated over the past week.

No one can prove his courage when he has never been in danger.

Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims, 1665-1672

Welcome Our New Affiliates

Dnet Internet Services http://www.dnet.net A family friendly Internet Service Provider (ISP). Their website is used to provide their users with information that is beneficial to families, news content, etc.

iHome School http://www.ihomeschool.tv A full service educational resource for K-12 students.

Classroom Visuals http://classroomvisuals.com A video membership company with over 7,000 educational videos in their collection.

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It is organized violence on top which creates individual violence at the bottom.

Emma Goldman, June 15, 1917

Violence

Violence has always been a fact of human existence, in every civilization. Today there is great concern over depictions of violence. The concern is a reaction not exclusively to what is reported or depicted in the communications media, but also the result of recent events. It was fact, not fiction, that terrorists murdered Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic games. It was real life, not fiction, that airport terminals were bombed, planes hijacked, hostages taken. The assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were not the work of fiction writers, nor was the violence that has erupted in city after city thereafter. And now the biggest act of terrorism of all, the September 11 act against the United States, resulting in the largest death toll in the United States since the Civil War.

The problem of international violence depends on one fact, violence continues to exist as long as the practice of violence goes unpunished and the causes go unsolved. Violence is a fact of life; its control is a problem of life.

I took a piece of plastic clay
And idly fashioned it one day,
And as my fingers pressed it, still
It moved and yielded to my will.

I came again when days were past;
The bit of clay was hard at last,
The form I gave it still it bore,
But I could change that form no more!

I took a piece of living clay,
And gently pressed it day by day,
And molded with my power and art
A young child's soft and yielding heart.

Anonymous

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Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.

Plutarch, Parallel Lives, about 100 A.D. (Sertorius)

Moving Forward: Links to Get Us Going

Send Your Name to Mars!: In, 2003, twin Mars Rovers will be launched toward the Red Planet. Once on the surface, the Rovers will be able to travel significant distances and use several instruments to help scientists determine the climate and water history in Mars' present and past. Join in this exciting journey of learning and exploration by including your name on the Mars Name Disc!
http://spacekids.hq.nasa.gov/2003/details.htm

Sandlot Science: Cool! Interactive! Try more than 80 optical illusions such as Impossible Staircase, Twisted Cord and Moon Illusion. Learn how they work. Bet you can't do just one!
http://www.sandlotscience.com/

KidsClick: This site is a safe web search site developed by librarians for kids.
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/KidsClick!/

Enature: Enature is the complete guide to over 4,800 North American plants and animals, with detailed descriptions and photographs. Check out what lives in your local area.
http://www.enature.com

Cool Math Site: This site includes many math lessons that are fun and educational.
http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/Lessons/

The Best on the Web for Teachers: This site offers free 17,000 lesson plans, 2000 worksheets, downloads, teaching themes, and teaching advice.
http://teach-nology.com/

Search Engine for Teachers: This teacher search engine searches all educational sites for exactly what you need. No more wading through hundreds of sites, just type it and be on your way.
http://www.teachspot.com/

From the Staff at Strategic Studies Corporation