September 11th
I've always been a big believer that September 11th is a day that needs to be remembered and to be talked about, no matter who you are with or what you are doing at that time in your life. As a high school teacher, I thought it would be important to share with my students this experience in talking about September 11th, knowing full well that most of them probably didn't remember the event. I still thought it was important. Every day when my students come into my class, there is a journal prompt written on the board so they have something to do as soon as they enter the classroom. On Thursday my journal was September 11th-themed, but also had a more-applicable-to-them alternate option.
I was gearing up for a good discussion about experiences, the effects of September 11th on our country, national unity, pride, etc. Then my first student walked into the room.
They glanced at the board and loudly said, "Ughh. I am so SICK of talking about this."
I am a high school teacher. Most of the time, my students are "sick" of talking about... almost always whatever we are learning in class. I'm over it; I get it. I understand that sometimes what I teach about in school is not that "fun" or "interesting," despite the fact that I have a deep, undeniable knowledge of the crucial importance it will have for their futures.
This was different. I immediately got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was confused. I was a little put-off. Mostly, I was just sad.
This was THE event of our time. The "where-were-you-and-what-were-you-doing" event of our generation. Some remember Pearl Harbor. Others remember the JFK assassination. September 11th was only 13 years ago. What happened on that day affects us- ALL of us- no matter how old we were when it happened, to this day. Even if they couldn't remember 9/11, of course they have heard of it. Every anniversary there are documentaries aired, thoughts on social media shared, movies produced. What happened on September 11th was important in the history of our nation. Why was it not important to them?
That night I turned to my 5th grade journal (yes, I have kept all my journals- ha. They are a good source of humor). I have an entry dated September 12th, 2001.
"Yesterday was awful. I wish it never happened. I was kind of scared to go to bed last night because I kept thinking there's going to be a plane crashing into my bedroom any second now- even though I knew it wouldn't happen. Last night I felt like I was going to throw up. My stomach hurt. President George Bush's speech was comforting though. Yesterday after school I learned what a hijack was, what twin towers were, and how serious this was to the nation. Some of my friends told me there was a plane crash in New York, but I was calm because I thought it was an accident... When I got home I stared at the TV for about 1/2 hour until it started repeating and I got bored. I hope this doesn't make war."
And another, overly teenage-dramatic entry from May 1st, 2005.
"I have a lot of junk. So what didn't surprise me, was when I was looking in one of my desk drawers for my CD case, I found many things I had been looking for, except the CD case. One of the things that I hadn't been looking for, but happened to pull out, was my 5th grade journal... On the 9th page, I saw a date that surprised me. 9/12/01... So I started reading the entry... I felt the pain that I had felt that day, even through those pathetic little 11 year old words. MY 11 year old words. I was young, not completely understanding of what was going on, but old enough to the point that I knew what this meant. No one that reads that journal entry will cry but me... generations after me that read both that journal entry and this one. But know this: You were not there. You did not see the live TV broadcastings of our nation being blown apart. You did not cry as people ran down streets covered in blood, as people cried and mourned for a love one lost, as our Statue of Liberty, our symbol of freedom, stood, surrounded by smoke. You were not there. You cannot feel the pain we did. Learning about this tragedy in school for you is like us learning about the Vietnam war, or Pearl Harbor. We were not there, we do not know. But, we were here. So we feel some of their pain... Are you ever bored in History class? Think, "Who cares about this junk?" I do, we do. It's not junk. It's important to learn about it, so we don't make the same mistakes again. Someday, your generation will be the leaders of this world. Don't blow it."
Yeah, yeah, I know, super dramatic 14-year old makes accusations through a journal to unborn future generations. Pretty much the story of my life.
But the gears of questions started turning in my head.... Why do we learn history? Why should younger generations understand September 11th? Is it actually important that they remember and understand?
I thought about the comment, "I'm SICK of learning about this stuff" To me, that indicates that others HAVE been talking about it to them. Teachers. Parents. People who were there are talking about it. People are trying to pass down knowledge and experiences to the younger generation. This has always been an on-going theme in society. The older generation passes down wisdom and knowledge to the younger generation. Before there were textbooks, there was oral tradition. Cave drawings. Hieroglyphs. They tell stories. They tell their histories. Why tell their histories if they didn't think it was important for someone else to hear? Every story, whether history or not, has a message. Something they are trying to teach. Something that needs to be learned. Except maybe the movie Napoleon Dynamite. I'm still trying to figure that one out.
In my faith, we believe in a book of scripture called the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is a record of the inhabitants of the Americas who came from Jerusalem in 600 BC. It is a history. We believe that by studying the Book of Mormon, we can learn applicable life lessons from the lives of the people in the book. We are taught to "liken all scriptures unto" ourselves (1 Nephi 19:23), or to glean the "morals of the story" and live our life with those morals. This prevents us from having to "learn the hard way" as the people in the book sometimes did. I think this is true not just for studying scripture, but studying history.
So why study history? To avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
In today's world, youth and adults alike idolize all sorts of people- celebrities, singers, artists, movie stars, athletes, etc. Some of these people have admirable qualities. Most, I would think, do not have qualities that we wish ourselves or our children to emulate.
At the beginning of the year with my students, I have a slideshow that shares a little bit about myself. One slide is of my "heroes," my parents, Nelson Mandela, Eleanor Roosevelt, Steve "Crocodile-Hunter" Irwin (haha). For one of my classes we even did a whole unit on values. I had students create a billboard modeled after the ones from The Foundation for a Better Life (values.com). Before I had them start on the assignment, I showed two "fake" billboards I had created for Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber. The kids went NUTS. They were so angry that I would even THINK that Miley & Biebs could not in any way be good examples. It was so sad! There are so many people throughout history worth emulating. Lincoln, Roosevelt, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Joan of Arc... yet kids today can't get past the pop culture bubble, and they correlate pop culture with good values.
Why study history? To learn about the REAL heroes and heroines worth emulating.
Heroes can be found everywhere in the story of September 11th. Firefighters and police officers, some of whom lost their lives in an effort to save others. The passengers of Flight 93 who sacrificed their lives to prevent another target from being hit. Hundreds of volunteers who donated blood, searched for survivors, helped other get out of the twin towers. Mostly I think of the people who lost love ones that day. I think of the widows and widowers, the children without a parent. They are heroes to me for persevering and pushing through and conquering grief. Life is still probably hard for them, and there are perhaps still times, 13 years later, that they struggle. But they have shown that you can still live a happy life after tragedy.
Why study history? And why study September 11th? To draw hope from dark times, to augment resiliency in our souls, and to develop the noblest of characteristics- bravery, courage, and love.
I will continue to teach to my students, and to my children about September 11th. I think it is worth remembering.
"Yesterday was awful. I wish it never happened. I was kind of scared to go to bed last night because I kept thinking there's going to be a plane crashing into my bedroom any second now- even though I knew it wouldn't happen. Last night I felt like I was going to throw up. My stomach hurt. President George Bush's speech was comforting though. Yesterday after school I learned what a hijack was, what twin towers were, and how serious this was to the nation. Some of my friends told me there was a plane crash in New York, but I was calm because I thought it was an accident... When I got home I stared at the TV for about 1/2 hour until it started repeating and I got bored. I hope this doesn't make war."
And another, overly teenage-dramatic entry from May 1st, 2005.
"I have a lot of junk. So what didn't surprise me, was when I was looking in one of my desk drawers for my CD case, I found many things I had been looking for, except the CD case. One of the things that I hadn't been looking for, but happened to pull out, was my 5th grade journal... On the 9th page, I saw a date that surprised me. 9/12/01... So I started reading the entry... I felt the pain that I had felt that day, even through those pathetic little 11 year old words. MY 11 year old words. I was young, not completely understanding of what was going on, but old enough to the point that I knew what this meant. No one that reads that journal entry will cry but me... generations after me that read both that journal entry and this one. But know this: You were not there. You did not see the live TV broadcastings of our nation being blown apart. You did not cry as people ran down streets covered in blood, as people cried and mourned for a love one lost, as our Statue of Liberty, our symbol of freedom, stood, surrounded by smoke. You were not there. You cannot feel the pain we did. Learning about this tragedy in school for you is like us learning about the Vietnam war, or Pearl Harbor. We were not there, we do not know. But, we were here. So we feel some of their pain... Are you ever bored in History class? Think, "Who cares about this junk?" I do, we do. It's not junk. It's important to learn about it, so we don't make the same mistakes again. Someday, your generation will be the leaders of this world. Don't blow it."
Yeah, yeah, I know, super dramatic 14-year old makes accusations through a journal to unborn future generations. Pretty much the story of my life.
But the gears of questions started turning in my head.... Why do we learn history? Why should younger generations understand September 11th? Is it actually important that they remember and understand?
I thought about the comment, "I'm SICK of learning about this stuff" To me, that indicates that others HAVE been talking about it to them. Teachers. Parents. People who were there are talking about it. People are trying to pass down knowledge and experiences to the younger generation. This has always been an on-going theme in society. The older generation passes down wisdom and knowledge to the younger generation. Before there were textbooks, there was oral tradition. Cave drawings. Hieroglyphs. They tell stories. They tell their histories. Why tell their histories if they didn't think it was important for someone else to hear? Every story, whether history or not, has a message. Something they are trying to teach. Something that needs to be learned. Except maybe the movie Napoleon Dynamite. I'm still trying to figure that one out.
In my faith, we believe in a book of scripture called the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is a record of the inhabitants of the Americas who came from Jerusalem in 600 BC. It is a history. We believe that by studying the Book of Mormon, we can learn applicable life lessons from the lives of the people in the book. We are taught to "liken all scriptures unto" ourselves (1 Nephi 19:23), or to glean the "morals of the story" and live our life with those morals. This prevents us from having to "learn the hard way" as the people in the book sometimes did. I think this is true not just for studying scripture, but studying history.
So why study history? To avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
In today's world, youth and adults alike idolize all sorts of people- celebrities, singers, artists, movie stars, athletes, etc. Some of these people have admirable qualities. Most, I would think, do not have qualities that we wish ourselves or our children to emulate.
At the beginning of the year with my students, I have a slideshow that shares a little bit about myself. One slide is of my "heroes," my parents, Nelson Mandela, Eleanor Roosevelt, Steve "Crocodile-Hunter" Irwin (haha). For one of my classes we even did a whole unit on values. I had students create a billboard modeled after the ones from The Foundation for a Better Life (values.com). Before I had them start on the assignment, I showed two "fake" billboards I had created for Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber. The kids went NUTS. They were so angry that I would even THINK that Miley & Biebs could not in any way be good examples. It was so sad! There are so many people throughout history worth emulating. Lincoln, Roosevelt, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Joan of Arc... yet kids today can't get past the pop culture bubble, and they correlate pop culture with good values.
Why study history? To learn about the REAL heroes and heroines worth emulating.
Heroes can be found everywhere in the story of September 11th. Firefighters and police officers, some of whom lost their lives in an effort to save others. The passengers of Flight 93 who sacrificed their lives to prevent another target from being hit. Hundreds of volunteers who donated blood, searched for survivors, helped other get out of the twin towers. Mostly I think of the people who lost love ones that day. I think of the widows and widowers, the children without a parent. They are heroes to me for persevering and pushing through and conquering grief. Life is still probably hard for them, and there are perhaps still times, 13 years later, that they struggle. But they have shown that you can still live a happy life after tragedy.
Why study history? And why study September 11th? To draw hope from dark times, to augment resiliency in our souls, and to develop the noblest of characteristics- bravery, courage, and love.
I will continue to teach to my students, and to my children about September 11th. I think it is worth remembering.
Amen! I love this. I love the goals you have for your students. I love history. I just love you! Great post, Elise!
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