Day of Stories: How I Remember September 11th 10 Years Later

When it comes to history lessons, what piques one's interest is usually not the mountain of dates or the required memorization of useless facts.

What makes those lessons interesting and worthwhile to learn are the stories. The different perspectives of an event or time period attached to feelings and emotions of real people who are just like us. These are what people learn from and take with them as they relate history to how they look at their modern day world.

That's why sitting at the kitchen table with your grandmother listening to her stories about the war effort are much more interesting than reading about it in a textbook.

A couple of other teachers and I shared our stories about September 11th, 2001 with my eighth graders this past Thursday and Friday.

This group of students, many of whom are like light-up bouncy balls that come with their own soundtrack, (love-able ones at that) sat absolutely still and solemnly asked us questions about that day, before that day, and how the world has changed.

They were 3 and 4 when the twin towers fell.

Both days, the students asked us about where we were when it happened.

I was in World History with Mr. Cooper my freshman year of high school. Coincidentally,  we were at the beginning of our world religions unit.

An announcement came over the intercom that one of the towers had been hit by a plane. We were safe, but our school was going on lock-down because of our proximity to a major city in Maine.

I had study hall right after that class, and shuffled into the lecture hall to watch what was happening on the T.V. some teachers had set up.

I watched the clouds of smoke billow out of the buildings. I watched the repeat footage of the planes smash into the towers over and over again. I watched people running down the streets covered in debri crying and trying to flee the dust and office papers floating down from the buildings.

And then I watched the towers fall.

I tried to explain to my students that before this event, "Osama Bin Laden", "Taliban" and "War in Iraq/Iran/Afghanistan" were not household words.

They were surprised. They thought we'd always been in a war. They were never told otherwise

I tried to explain that one morning I woke up naively thinking the United States was loved and respected by all, and woke up another morning realizing that the way I looked at our country and the rest of the world had completely changed. 

September 11th for me, signifies my loss of innocence.

And as the conversation with my students lasted the entire period, they asked a few logistical questions about people and places that they hadn't wanted to ask other adults in fear of looking stupid.

But even more so, they were interested in sharing stories they had heard. From family and freinds who remembered the day, from news articles, from T.V. specials.

They were sharing the stories that had touched them and were the stories that they took with them to be their truth to explain the events of that day.

As we remember those who passed on September 11th, as well as those that continue to pass in the fight for our freedom and protection from those who try to hurt us, it's important not to just talk about the numbers: the times of each event, the number of people who've died,  years since the event has passed.

The numbers are important, but aren't what should be our focus. We should share our stories. The stories of those who watched from afar on their televisions hopeless and speechless, the stories of the New Yorkers who evacuated the city,  the stories of those who passed that day, and the stories of the families who lost loved ones and moved past the events to live a life of remembrance and love. Those stories tell us what really happened that day, and why that event is so important.

I'm going to leave you today with a story. I found it on my google homepage this morning. I watched this quick clip and decided it was one worth sharing.

Because, as horrific as the events and ideas that surround that day were, many stories, including this one,  reminds us how important it is to never forget, and to always cherish those around us.