Get Schooled: How Should Schools Teach Sept. 11?

By Amber Lester Friday, September 10, 2010

I will always associate the events of Sept. 11 with school.

As I told you a couple of weeks ago, I was waiting to walk into my AP Government class my senior year of high school when the first plane struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

A classmate said it looked like a Cessna had hit the first tower. As we watched, a second plane – certainly not a Cessna – crashed into the second tower. Within an hour, another plane had careened into the Pentagon. Shortly after, a fourth plummeted into a field in Pennsylvania. It felt as though the sky had been torn apart.

I remember so many reports that turned out to be untrue – a bomb had exploded in the Capitol building, one of the Smithsonian museums was on fire, the Golden Gate Bridge was under attack. I remember going out to sell ads for the yearbook during my fourth block and finding drivers had lined up at every gas station, ready to hit the road if need be. I remember feeling unease about my safety for the first time in my young life. I remember watching the replay over and over, thinking that if I could burn the images on my brain, it might start to feel true.

While I was considering my memories, I realized most schoolchildren were either not born or too young to remember that day, even though not a decade has passed. A 16-year-old high school junior would have been five years old at the time. A 13-year-old seventh grader would have been a toddler. To really put it in perspective, consider this: a college freshman would have been in elementary school.

I was curious to find out how these students learn about Sept. 11. I asked around a little bit and found that at the elementary level, the morning announcements in most schools will note the anniversary, but teachers will not necessarily include the event in their class curriculum today. At the high school level, Sept. 11 is covered in the textbooks, typically accompanied by a picture of the burning Twin Towers.

Richard Ambler, an instructor at Jamestown High School, shared that the textbooks usually have a few paragraphs that discuss the changing face of warfare away from standard battlefield face-offs; the struggle between religious moderates and religious extremists; the use of theocratic states to push private religious agendas; Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security; and a picture of Ground Zero. “The overall theme always seems to be that religions do not promote terrorism, [but] individuals with an agenda do, and that all citizens must remain alert in the changing world,” he said.

I’ve been trying to wrestle with my reaction to his description of the history books. On one hand, those lessons are most certainly the ones that should be conveyed to students. They are true, and they help explain why the country has been at war for most of these students’ lives.

But on the other hand, or perhaps I should say in my deeper heart, I would like to see the history books find a way to capture how that day felt. I’ve talked about this with a few people, and many have pointed out that it just isn’t appropriate to talk frankly with children about the atrocities we witnessed that day. I think they’re probably right, but it makes me wonder if my reaction is similar to how our grandparents felt when the meaning of Pearl Harbor diminished until the “Day of Infamy” became little more than an answer to a multiple-choice question for most students.

In addition to the very relevant lessons currently taught in the history books, I’d like to see a more multimedia approach to teaching about Sept. 11. The day was unprecedented in its coverage: few unprovoked attacks are caught on video and documented; for the first time, airplane passengers alerted authorities of hijackings via cell phones; and because of the Internet, the victims have been memorialized in an unprecedented way.

I don’t think children should be intentionally scared, but I think that as they age, they should be exposed to the footage and the remembrances shared by the victims’ families (I’m especially moved by the stories shared with StoryCorps).

Everything about that day shaped the world students live in today. I don’t have an easy answer for how the day should go down in the history books, so I pose the question to you, readers: How should the generation who doesn’t remember it come to understand it? Is it even important they learn how it felt? How do you tell your children about it?

In Williamsburg, the Greater Williamsburg Chamber and Tourism Alliance will host the 9/11 Remembrance and Freedom Walk, which starts at 5:45 p.m. Friday at Merchants Square. York County children can remember the day by joining York County firefighters and Sheriff’s Office deputies for “Read With a Hero” from 10:30 a.m. to noon on Saturday at the Tabb Public Library.

MARTIN’S Launches Rewards Program

MARTIN’s Food Market is launching a fundraising program, starting Oct. 10 and running through March 19, 2011. Customers can help local schools earn cash for technology, scholarship programs and field trips by using their BonusCard. Each use of the card will result in a 1 percent donation to designated schools.

To register for the program, click here. Customers can sign up for the program in the store starting Sunday.

VIMS Grad Student Wins Fellowship

Congratulations are in order for Emily Jayne, a graduate student at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science Foundation. Jayne was awarded the SunTrust Fellowship for the 2010-2011 academic year. The fellowship will support climate-change research; Jayne will conduct field studies of volatile organic compounds and their role in the global and ocean carbon cycle. The compounds, mostly produced by land plants but also by human activities, include substances released by pine trees that cause hazy summer skies on the East Coast.

Jayne is interested in whether the compounds might explain why some ocean areas seems to release more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere through animal respiration than they take up through photosynthesis. She plans to study in the Chesapeake Bay and the waters off Bermuda.