'Modern history': Teaching 9/11 to a new generation

NEW YORK (WPIX) – Because 1 in 4 people currently living in the U.S. wasn’t yet born on Sept. 11, 2001, teaching about the terror attacks and their effects is an evolving challenge as that fateful day moves further into the past. 

A history teacher who writes curriculum and a professor who trains social studies instructors both say that connecting the situation from 24 years ago to the lives of young people now is the key to helping students understand the relevance of what happened. Students are also talking about what resonates with them in relation to the tragedy. 

According to U.S. Census figures, just over 25 percent of the population — or virtually everyone through college age and a few years beyond — was born after the terror attacks. 

Teacher Sari Beth Rosenberg shared with Nexstar’s WPIX what that means in terms of classroom instruction now. 

“It’s something else in the history book,” said the U.S. History teacher. Rosenberg, who wrote curriculum for New York City Public Schools, is also a multimedia influencer.

Rosenberg’s first day of student teaching was Sept. 11, 2001. That school day was, obviously, canceled, but subsequently, she said, “The first five or so years, we would ring an alarm, a bell, for each time one of the towers fell.”

That practice changed at her school and most schools over time. Now, the students she had during her first years of teaching are in their 40s or late 30s. Some of them have their own children in high school. 

“It’s harder now teaching it to kids who don’t have that same personal connection,” Rosenberg said. 

Agreeing with that statement were recent high school graduates on the campus of Baruch College in NYC.

Samia Leslie looked back on the historical instruction she got in high school regarding Sept. 11 with skepticism, saying the lesson wasn’t particularly “deep.”

“It was just like, ‘Yeah, bombing, twin towers,’ and that was it, basically,” Leslie said.

Her friend, Paulina Bonsu, who’s also a Baruch student, said that while college-level instruction about the terror attacks is more comprehensive, she regrets that it’s part of a history curriculum that students have to opt into, rather than being taught universally. 

As for high school, said Kassandra Ramphal, another student, “the public education system did a pretty decent job of giving you the bare minimum.”

It was those last three words — the bare minimum — that were a theme among young people who spoke with WPIX. They said that not enough was being taught about the tragedy. A big reason for that, they believe, is the chronological placement of the terror attacks in the U.S. History curriculum. 

“It’s modern history,” said Sean Sanchez, who graduated from high school three months ago. “Modern history isn’t talked about as much as other history,” he continued, “and as the years go by, it becomes more and more important.”

He was referring to the fact that in the official New York State U.S. History curriculum, the course of the country’s history begins four centuries ago. It then proceeds across subsequent eras as the school year progresses. As a result, 9/11 is typically taught at the very end of the school year.

However, Prof. Stacie Brensilver Berman of NYU said “a lot of classes just don’t get there.” 

Berman directs social studies teacher training at the university. She said that an important way to educate students about the effect of the terror attacks involves “thinking about what is different, just on a visual level, on an aesthetic level, about the city before and after 9/11.” 

She said that having students see what looks and feels different as a result of the attacks is an instructive way to help students understand the effects of the tragedy. 

The 9/11 curriculum written by Sari Beth Rosenberg, the history teacher and influencer, reflects Berman’s guidance. Rosenberg uses a slide deck that begins by showing the twin towers in contrast to the World Trade Center now. 

Also, Rosenberg doesn’t wait until the end of the school year to do her lessons about the attacks. 

“I’m just pushing it in now,” she said. 

Also included in her curriculum are various ways to connect the political and national security situation in 2001 to how things are now. For example, she said, “I have a couple quotes, various quotes, about ICE when it was first founded. It was founded as a result of 9/11.”

Arielle Kasindorf, another Baruch College student, illustrated another important aspect of educating about the attacks. 

Kasindorf’s dad was at Ground Zero “[and] helped clear up all the damage” as an ironworker on site, she said. He also took videos of some of his and his colleagues’ work, and has since shown it to her. 

That kind of connectivity that links people like Kasindorf’s father, who remember the 9/11 attacks, to the young people who make up a quarter of the population who have no memory of them, is vital for instruction, according to educators.

“When something is real to someone you care about,” said Stacie Brensilver Berman of NYU, “it also can become a little bit more real to you.”