The vast majority of students in today’s K-12 schools were not alive for the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Their lives are different because of them, but this is a generation that learned about the attacks rather than living through them.
Recognizing this, teachers and schools are approaching the 9/11 anniversary differently.
When Christian D’Annibale became a middle school history teacher in 2011, he taught special lessons about Sept. 11 every year. This always required a break from his regular curriculum about the ancient world, but D’Annibale thought it was important.
Mechanicsburg Middle School still has a moment of silence to commemorate the attacks, and a student plays taps over the loudspeaker system, but D’Annibale has stopped teaching a special unit about Sept. 11. He realized his students thought about the World Trade Center attacks the way he thought about the attack on Pearl Harbor growing up. They were almost confused about the need for a special lesson.
“They’ve lived in an era of wartime, an era of terrorism, every single day of their lives, where for [my] generation, things were generally peaceful and then Sept. 11 just flipped a switch and turned the world on its head,” D’Annibale said. “I want to give credence to Sept. 11, I want the kids to know how important it is, but to put a pause on the entire … curriculum that they’re learning just doesn’t seem as appropriate anymore.”
The founders of 9/11 Day knew this would happen. Like any tragic event in history, the Sept. 11 attacks were bound to be left in the past eventually. That’s why David Paine and Jay Winuk, who lost his brother Glenn in the attacks, have worked to make the 9/11 anniversary a day of good.
In 2009, Congress made Sept. 11 a National Day of Service and Remembrance. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday is the only other federally established day of service, observed each year on the third Monday of January. This year, nearly 30 million people are expected to volunteer, donate to charities and do other good deeds in the name of 9/11 Day.
Paine conducted focus groups with high schoolers at the National Youth Service Learning conference in Minneapolis last spring, trying to discover how 9/11 could remain relevant to them. He says students acknowledged they didn’t remember the attacks themselves but saw them as an illustration of what needs to change in the world.
“That became, for us, an epiphany and a turning point that made us realize emphasizing the importance of bringing out the good in people and having 9/11 symbolize the need for change, the need for togetherness, the need for all of us to work together regardless of our differences – that was something young people did, and would, care deeply about,” Paine said.
About 30,000 teachers use classroom materials curated by 9/11 Day organizers, which, for the first time this year, focus on teaching empathy in the context of 9/11. Organizers partnered with Ashoka’s Start Empathy Initiative, which works to elevate this topic to be as high a priority as math and literacy in schools.
Existing “Changemaker Schools” created resources to help teachers across the country practice empathy and changemaking with students around the anniversary of the attacks.
“9/11 really reminds us of how important that skill of empathy is and how critical now, more than ever, where problems are complex and very interconnected in our world and our children are the ones who will make sure that the solutions outpace the problems and the solutions are grounded in empathy,” said Valentina Raman, an education strategist for the Ashoka Start Empathy Initiative.
Though her lesson plans did not come from 9/11 Day, Ana Bentin, a third grade teacher in Lake Geneva, WI, plans to focus on the good during this year’s anniversary, too.
Bentin plans to focus on the heroes of 9/11 and tie their actions into her school’s focus on good character. Students will talk about what traits heroes possess and how even children can be heroic and brave. In addition to talking about the bravery of first responders, Bentin plans to find examples of everyday people who became heroes during the attacks.
“I just want them to realize that even as kids they can make a difference,” Bentin said. “That will segue into our school-year focus on being a community and working together and helping people when they see a need.”