I would definitely talk about it. I think it is important that children know what’s going on in the world. The days following the disaster (ex. 9/11 or Katrina) I would ask the kids, “Does anyone know what happened over the weekend?” something to that effect. I would then have a class disscussion on what people think about the situation, how are their feelings toward the families the disaster struck, was there anything that could have been done to prevent such a thing from happening, etc. We would find information as a class from the Internet and watch TV programs such as CNN. I believe it would be a teachable moment. When 9/11 occured, teachers were going through their normal lesson plans for the day, but after it happened I’m sure many lesson plans were changed to disscuss the effects of 9/11. As for a teachable moment, you could have the students make homemade cards to send to families effected, organize food, clothing, supplies drive for the people in need. For a higher level class, you could have students do reports or projects on terrorism, or this past disaster; hurricane patterns. You would have to take precautions depending on age of students. For instance you would not want to show grade school kids pictures of dead bodies floating in the water of New Orleans, and you would not want them to see people jumping out of the World Trade Center. A high school class should be able to handle something like that. Also for the little kids just make sure they know what is going on.