9/11 In The Schools

September 11, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Terrorism, U.S. History, education 

A lot of us remember the appearances on TV, in the agonizing weeks and months after September 11, 2001, of the expectant mothers – widows of firemen, stockbrokers, waiters, policemen – who would, before long, give birth to sons and daughters who would never know their fathers.  And then, through late 2001 and 2002, the babies were born and some went before the cameras – looking like babies always do, happy or puzzled or bored. All ready to grow up and, one day, find out from their relatives – or from their history textbooks – why their fathers weren’t there when they got off the bus in the afternoon.

The youngest of these children are now seven and in school – some, maybe, in the second grade, since kids seem to start their education a lot earlier than when I was their age in 1964. Several 9/11 survivors have been thinking about what they would be taught, and recently have been working with leading educators to develop a role for studying the tragedy in the secondary curriculum. Yesterday Eli Saslow in the Washington Post and Zach Miners in US News And World Report wrote very informative articles describing how this curriculum is going over in the six high schools in which it’s being given a trial run.

One feature of the lessons on 9/11 is that students are offered the chance to get extra credit by interviewing older relatives, neighbors, or those actually caught in the events of that day, about their memories. In Vincennes, Indiana, eighteen-year-old JaLeah Hedrick decided to talk to a member of the Greatest Generation:

Ed Hedrick, 83, was the only person his granddaughter knew whose recollections of Sept. 11 might have the gravitas worthy of extra credit.

She rode a mile across town and sat across from her grandfather on his front porch. She pulled a blue notebook and a pink pen from her backpack and then looked at a class handout that provided a list of possible interview questions. “I have to ask you some of these for homework,” she told her grandfather, her eyes still fixed on the sheet. “Where were you when you first heard about the attack?”

“I was sitting in that red chair over there in the living room,” he said.

She nodded and then read the next question. “Did you continue to listen to the radio or watch TV?”

“Yes,” her grandfather said. “I barely moved all week. I couldn’t stop watching.”

“How did it affect you?” she asked.

“Severe anger, for days,” he said.

“What action did you want the government to take?” she asked.

“Well, I guess I wanted them to load up three or four of those H-bombs and send them over there. That’s how I felt at the time.”

“How has it affected your daily life since?”

“Not much. I don’t think about it. They teach you not to think about ugly things when you fight in a war.”

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