It's pretty interesting how a shocking event like September 11, 2001 is imprinted into our brains forever. Adults often reflect on the event knowing exactly where they were, who they were talking to, and what happened next. Some of our friends and family might have even known someone in the World Trade Center or at the Pentagon and remember how it felt to not know. But what about my peers and me, the average kids who had no personal ties to the tragedy, the first graders who were just settling down for reading time.
Starting school at such a historic time left an impact on the rest of my education. Every year, we would get back to school and take a pause during the morning announcement on the morning of September 11. During our history classes, we would cover WWI, WWII, Vietnam, and 9/11 as major markers of our nation's timeline.
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We remember 9/11 because it was taught to us.
On that particular morning, I think I was probably getting into a reading group. I might have been talking to my friends or my teacher. I might have been learning about Native Americans. I don't remember, because I was 6.
Everything I know about September 11 comes from news footage I learned about and studied in the years after 2001. I know President Bush not as a protector of freedom and a defender of terrorism, but from only a critical standpoint about his policies post-9/11.
I don't remember coming home from school and turning on the TV to watch what was going on. I don't even remember if I got taken out of school or not. Watching the footage for years afterwords and knowing I was alive during that time is the only reason I even feel connected to September 11.
There's been this discussion about how we teach 9/11 to the current era of elementary children. They weren't even a thought when 9/11 happened, how will they feel the impact it made?
Teach it the same way.
Kids in school now will remember the event just as I do, because the same footage will be shown, the same discussions will be had, and that personal connection will just not be strong enough. They will remember Obama's announcement that Bin Laden was captured in the same way that I remember Bush announcing that The World Trade Center had been attacked.
We create many of our own memories, but this one, the one that was supposed to be the biggest one in my life, was just one that was created for me.
