Happy Holidays To All and Three Cheers for Our Students

   These are strange days.
   Since September 11, the order of things has changed. The world is not what it was. We are not who we were. Conventional wisdom does not suffice. We are literally and figuratively back at ground zero, and everything is new.
   And, here and now, the most sure-footed among us seem to be local high school students.
   For instance…
   When one of their own, a popular and accomplished girl, was killed at a party by another girl, who died suddenly and mysteriously in police custody, Santa Monica High School students did two extraordinary things. First, they allowed themselves to mourn their friend – openly and fully. They made no attempt to mask their deep and tumultuous emotions with a veneer of cool. Second, they organized a profoundly moving memorial service in the Greek Theater on campus, during which -– in words and music – they pledged allegiance to the cause of non-violence in the name of their slain friend.
   Several Samohi students have formed a Pet Adoption Club which not only seeks homes for abandoned pets, but tends to pets trapped in animal shelters.
   And, in this unsettled, unsettling fall, the Santa Monica High School varsity football team won its first championship in 19 years. Obviously, credit should go to very talented players and savvy, dedicated coaches, but we think clear headedness had something to do with it.
   The students’ intrinsic talent, dedication and clear-headedness were on display, too, in several Santa Monica School holiday choral and orchestra concerts. .
   As we reported last week, in the wake of the September 11 attacks, a group of students at Crossroads School formed a new club, In Search of Peace. And the new club organized a panel discussion for which it recruited some heavyweight journalists, commentators, scholars and filmmakers to talk about “September 11 And Beyond.” Like the members of the panel, the students aren’t as interested in answers as in identifying and asking the appropriate questions.
   The club, whose numbers swelled after the first event, is already planning its next town hall meeting.
   This is not to say that all students oppose the American assault on Afghanistan. Indeed, there are probably many who support the war as vigorously as most of their elders do. It is to say that a remarkable number of students are not content to simply line up on one side or the other, but are exploring the issue, talking about it, debating it, and, sometimes, changing their minds about it, in an effort to figure out how America should behave in this post-9/11 world, what its role should be, and how they, as individuals, should be in that world.
   And so as this mean, dark fall rolls down, we wish everyone a happy holiday and we add three cheers for those students who, sure-footed and clear-eyed, have gone on ahead of us to blaze a trail into this new, strange world.