Plus: a few things my students didn’t know about 9/11
On Wednesday, Sept. 12, I took my eighth-grade students to a local college to view the 9/11 memorial there. I have wanted to do this for a couple of years and finally, this year the stars aligned: my lesson planning fell into place, a few phone calls were made, permission slips were returned, and it happened.
My co-teacher next door and I both share classes, and as a result, we have a possible 100 minutes available to take short outings around our town. Local field trips are actually something we should take more advantage of because I think it really helps kids to get out into the community and experience what it offers.
Viewing the local memorial’ actual steel column from a building destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001 is important and helps to make the terror attacks a tangible reality for kids. Since they weren’t even born yet in 2001, I get the feeling from talking with them that 9/11 is an event relegated to the distant past, (as hard as that might be for older adults to believe!).
Fortunately, middle school kids are VERY interested in the attacks, however. They want to learn about them and understand the gravity of the event. Read this post to see how I cover 9/11 in my language arts classes.
Here are a few things my students didn’t know about 9/11 prior to our discussions:
- One student thought that only one plane was involved.
- They didn’t know the hijacked planes were carrying passengers; they thought the hijackers were flying their own empty planes.
- A few didn’t know that radical Islam was the religion observed by the hijackers.
- They didn’t know that people from all over the world worked in the World Trade Center towers.
- They didn’t know about the bombing of the Pentagon or Flight 93 in Pennsylvania.
- They had no idea the cleanup lasted for nine months.
- They didn’t know that buildings in addition to the Twin Towers were damaged and/or required demolition.
- They didn’t know anything about the World Trade Center bombing in 1993.
- They didn’t know who Osama bin Laden was.
This week, kids will continue to read about the 9/11 attacks and apply what they learn to a few writing projects. I’ll update you on those activities soon.
We have actually visited the memorial in NYC twice in the last few yrs. Very interesting!! We were in Scotland on Sept. 11, 2001 and later that week we visited Dublin– our hotel was across the street from the US embassy–we were amazed at the floral tributes that were about 1 block long in front of the Embassy. It was pretty aamazing!!