More than 15 years after the World Trade Center terrorist attacks, how are your schools handling September 11 lessons? With each passing year, the controversy over how to teach the events of 9/11 to our youth continues. There surely are more opinions on this topic than any other. (The only possible exception is how schools should most appropriately celebrate the December holidays.)
There is, however, one trend that is taking hold fairly uniformly across the country: School leaders have largely moved September 11 discussions from the school auditorium to the classroom.
September 11 Lessons
More and more, school administrators are leaving the development of September 11 lessons and activities to the teachers. At at the elementary school level, it is the classroom teacher. And in middle and high schools, social studies teachers are preparing history lessons.
You’d be hard-pressed to find students other than high school seniors who remember that day when terrorists attacks the WTC twin towers in 2001. Indeed, most students weren’t even born yet.
Click here for an interesting story about how schools in one city, Rochester, New York, are now handling the teaching of 9/11.
Are you’re interested in some good September 11 curriculum for next year? Here are two sites chock-full of resources to help your teachers with September 11 lessons. One site is teachinghistory.org. Another, of course, is the 9/11 Memorial site: The folks at the 9/11 Memorial are very focused providing useful and sensitive materials to teachers.
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