A high school senior today would have been six or seven years old when the Twin Towers fell. And for many younger students, the event is only a distant memory.
Images
With the hopes of educating these younger students about the events of that day, the New York City Department of Education has released an optional 9/11 curriculum for its public schools.
Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott and city teachers worked with the National September 11 Memorial & Museum to create the first comprehensive 9/11 curriculum for K-12 students. Lessons are divided into several categories, including "Historical Impact," "Community & Conflict," "Heroes & Service" and "Memory & Memorialization."
For Maris Krasnow, a professor of early childhood education in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, the guidelines are an important contribution to help educate children.
"Especially with children, teaching and learning has to be done correctly and with care," Krasnow said. "Talking about grief is important; it's an everyday emotion that young children have to learn to cope with."
The curriculum provides teachers with guidelines that specify core standards or key questions to be asked and answered, which delve deeper as students mature. Young children are asked to study important themes like "heroes" and "tolerance," while high school students are asked to investigate the Afghani culture and the transformation of the nation's psychology after the attacks.
While Krasnow believes the guidelines are important contributions to teachers who find it difficult broaching the topic, NYU professor Robert Cohen, who focuses on social studies education, and Fabienne Doucet, assistant professor of education, point out the curriculum's slightly narrow scope and lack of details.
"Using debate and careful analysis, as well as a more well-rounded scope in terms of history, I think that the curriculum will be successful," Cohen said. "But for now, it still needs some work."
Doucet said the role of parents in educating their children is crucial in filling in those gaps.
"As a parent myself, I will have to supplement the curriculum with the values and understandings our family wants for our children vis-a-vis acts of violence, war, hate, extremism, etc.," he said.
For the students at Marta Valle High School on 145 Stanton St., learning about 9/11 has developed into an all-school project. Students, faculty and members of the community were asked to think about 9/11 and to place their hopes, memories and dreams on square pieces of translucent cloth. The resulting work is to be displayed in the school hall.
"Peace cannot be kept by force, and can only be reached by understanding," reads one piece written by a tenth grader.
"I know people are born to die, but not to have their lives taken away," reads another by an 11th grader.
Other messages were illustrated or transcribed in different languages.
Alicia Carlson, coordinator of student affairs at Marta Valle High School, remembers that when students first settled down to begin the project, the room grew very quiet.
"The teachers were very supportive, and the students all came at this in a very positive away," Carlson said. "They were extremely reflective."
"It's nice to have a way to put everything down, after seeing it all in the news and stuff," ninth grader Ceara Dixon, who was six years old during the attacks, said. "It's a way to give us a voice."
