High school history teachers in the south suburbs find themselves in an interesting position when they come into work Monday, the 22nd anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks: They have personal connections and memories from a day when their students weren’t alive.
“This is one of those sensitive topics that you have to build a really strong classroom environment in order to be able to talk about what happened that day,” said Jennifer Baniewicz from Stagg High School in Palos Hills. “You have to tread somewhat carefully.”
Baniewicz, a teacher for 27 years, said it’s difficult because the anniversary is at the start of the school year, which means teachers are still establishing relationships with students.
“They don’t have that personal connection anymore, so we provide that personal connection,” said Gary Flaig, from Bloom Trail High School in Steger. He said he shares with students how he was a firefighter and paramedic the day of the attacks.
For the first few years, Baniewicz said the day was remembered rather than taught. For the first anniversary, she and her students planted a tree and held a little ceremony. From then on, the anniversary date would consist of conversations about where they were at the time, she said.
“It was very raw. Those kids would’ve known what had happened. They were in school,” Baniewicz said.
Gina Lumzy, a teacher at Shepard High School in Palos Heights, said for the first five anniversaries, she and her students would share their personal experiences. But as time has gone on, Lumzy said she noticed students asking more questions about what happened, particularly about conspiracy theories they’ve read online.
Current students share some stories about what their parents or older relatives have told them, like that two planes hit the World Trade Center towers in New York City, but don’t have those personal connections of the aftermath, Lumzy said.
Lumzy said she fills in information, such as teaching there were two other planes that day, one that hit the Pentagon and another headed toward Washington before the passengers fought back and crashed it in a Pennsylvania field.
Students used to recollect how planes were grounded for days after the attacks, sporting events were canceled and how united the country was, Lumzy said.
“That’s the stuff they don’t know, the personal experiences,” Lumzy said. “But they are interested, which is good.”
Juan Ramirez, a bilingual history teacher at Bloom High School in Chicago Heights, said he faces two challenges: His students weren’t born yet and their families weren’t in the U.S.
That’s why Ramirez said he shows his students a PowerPoint presentation with facts, photos and audio of a woman sharing the details of her last phone call with her husband, who worked in the south tower of the World Trade Center and died in the attacks.
“It pulls at those heart strings and I feel like that’s when the students learn better, when they can actually relate and put themselves in the shoes of whoever they’re learning about,” Ramirez said. “I do try to bring in empathy.”
Because his students’ parents weren’t in the country, all they really know about Sept. 11 was that it was a terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
“In their country, their families didn’t experience the same type of reaction that we felt here in the U.S., of course. In the schooling system over there, it doesn’t have the same importance that it does for us in the U.S.,” Ramirez said.
Carrie Twietmeyer has taught in the same classroom at Bloom Trail for 27 years, and said she will never forget turning on the news Sept. 11, 2001 in her classroom to watch the events unfold.
“Now that these kids are so far removed … that date doesn’t resonate in their soul like it does for us who were alive,” Twietmeyer said.
The biggest challenge, Baniewicz said, has been removing her emotion from the discussion.
“For me, being an adult at that moment, it’s seared in my mind. I don’t know if I can completely emotionally detach,” Baniewicz said. “In some ways, I think my emotional attachment, I think I do a better job of explaining my feelings of that day and what the country felt.”
Flaig said each generation has a big historic event it experiences, such as the attack on Pearl Harbor or the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Then, as time goes on, the date becomes a moment to teach in history, he said.
The same will happen with Sept. 11, 2001, Twietmeyer said, as teachers who have firsthand accounts of the day leave the profession.
“It will die along with us,” Twietmeyer said.
